Italian Festival and party

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a miniature Trevi Fountain at our local Italian festival. This totally cracked us up, but this festival was amazing. It was mostly a chance to eat a whole bunch, but it was SO good.

Gianna rode this stawberry ride.
And these two pictures do not convey how dirty these kids were. I think Gianna was wearing more of her fried pizza dough than eating it. And it was a windy day, so Mark was wearing the sugar too. Not to mention all the spinning around in the dirt he was doing!

And the next day, Gianna had a birthday party to go to. She had a great time with her little friends. We can already see how school is helping her socialize with other kids. She ran right over to be a part of this picture and a month ago, I'm pretty sure she would have refused! It was a great party!

Happy Birthday, Gianna!

September 29th was Gianna's 3rd birthday! We can still hardly believe it. She got to celebrate at school the day before her birthday by wearing the birthday crown she made at school, bringing in cookies we made together, and being the "child of the day." She was so excited! Her acutal birthday was pretty low-key. We had a donut breakfast, which totally made her day and a nugget store dinner. After dinner we came home for cupcakes and presents. She loves the easel we got for her. She's quite the budding artist (I hope, because this would be so different from both her parents!) and loves to draw ALL the time!

The following weekend we went to Virginia for a bigger celebration with both sets of grandparents. She loved all the attention and presents!

And Mark was there too. Looking cute as always.

First day(s) of preschool

So I don’t have any pictures from the actual first day of school for several reasons: 1) I’m kind of pretending the actual first day of school didn’t count because it wasn’t a full day, 2) since it wasn’t a full day, Gianna didn’t have her lunch box in tow, so it wouldn’t have been a complete picture, 3) I did not like the dress she insisted on wearing that day, and 4) probably the most accurate reason, I ran out of time. But I can tell you that she looked cute nonetheless and was super excited to go to school. When we got there we had this conversation in the car,

GB: Mommy, are you going to open the door to preschool for me?

Me: Yes.

GB: And then are you going to close the door and leave?

Me: (a little nervously) Yes.

GB: I CAN’T WAIT!

After that, I was pretty sure she was going to do fine! And she did. There were no tears from any of us and she had a marvelous time. She told me everything she did. And Mrs. S, her teacher, informed me that she used the potty totally independently. Mrs. S seemed to find this amusing. She was all wound up when we got home. Couldn’t stop talking about it either.

The first full day went equally well and I even managed to snap some pictures. She said her favorite part was going to the playground. I hope she continues to love it because, while I missed her, I LOVED having just one child (and a sleeping one for some of that time!) for 3 ½ hours! First Mark and I got me a pumpkin spice latte. Then we came home and played. Then while Mark took a nap I did a bunch of chores around the house and watched 2 shows. It was amazing. I can’t wait for next week!

Bye-bye summer

Well, the summer has come to an end and it has been full of milestones for our kids. We are such proud and delighted parents. This post is mostly for myself to document the stuff they’ve been up to and to catch up with posting some pictures from the summer. So the details may be a bit boring, but hope you enjoy the pictures and videos!

Gianna seems to have become a big kid over night. She is completely potty trained now. No pull-ups needed at night or naps and no assistance needed either, usually. She can dress herself, put her shoes on, and even brush her own teeth. Much to my amazement (since she’s never been the most physically adept kid), she taught herself to somersault a couple of weeks ago. She’s become more creative and more of a conversationalist (if that’s possible) every day. And we can’t wait to see what she’ll come up with next!

Decked out for the first ND game

She had to put on her new boots immediately (they arrived in the am in the mail)

Surprised by her own creation

Though Mark took his first steps in the second week of August, he has decided that it makes more sense to cruise the furniture a bit first. So he’s gotten really good at that and I expect he’ll be walking for real in the next month or so. And he’s still not crawling. I think I’ve given up on that one. He’s had lots of other milestones though. Last week he started signing “more” and “milk.” He loves to play peek-a-boo. In fact today, he’s been hiding from me behind his own arms for most of the day! He shows that he’s “so big” and he claps hands and waves hello and goodbye. And he definitely understands when we say no him. His response: stomping his feet in anger. Yikes, what are we in for!! But he is such a charming little guy. He smiles and laughs so easily that you can’t help but smile back!

We’re so excited for fall in the States. Last fall in Germany just wasn’t the same without college football, fall foliage, apple and pumpkin picking, and Starbucks Caramel Apple Ciders and Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Can’t wait!

And we're walking!

August has been a very busy month for us. Mark took his first steps a couple weeks ago. He’s been pretty shy about it sense then. He seems to have figured out that it might be smarter to cruise the furniture for a while first. But here’s video of the first steps anyway.

August 14 was our nephew’s first birthday so we went to VA to celebrate that weekend. He LOVED his cake! And we love him. Happy birthday, Jack!

After the weekend, we left the kids with my parents and went to Atlantic City for a couple days. It was AWESOME! AC was about as classy as I expected it to be, but we had some delicious meals (in peace, no less) and did some good sleeping and relaxing and even came home with $15 extra in our pockets. That was almost enough money to cover all the shopping we did too; wait, no it wasn’t. Anyway, it was great to have a little getaway but it was super fun to see the kids again. They were clearly excited to see us. And Grandma and Grandpa were happy for us to ease their burden, I think! They all did great though, kids and grandparents alike. Grandma and Grandpa even brought the kids back to NJ for us. I think they were better in the car than they usually are! And they stayed with us for an extra day so we could finally paint Gianna’s room. So now the kids rooms are both finally complete. So here are some pictures from Grandma and Grandpa and some before and after pictures of their rooms.

Before (turns out we don't have any before pics of Mark's room, oops!):

After (it's a little hard to tell, but Gianna's room and dresser drawers are pale green now.)

Conversations with Gianna

These have been gathered over the last month or so.

G: Do you want to hear me say ‘picture’ in Spanish?

Me: Yes!

G: No!

Me: Gianna, can you just stop talking for a few minutes?

G: But that’s what I do; I talk and talk and talk.

Me: I’m exhausted.

G: Why?

Me: Because Daddy hasn’t been home for 3 days and I’m tired.

G: (after thinking a minute): You should just be happy that you’re healthy.

Right you are, Gianna thanks for making me feel very small. (She got this idea from our Madeline book, but I was still surprised that she said it at an appropriate time.)

Me: Tell me about your drawing.

G: These are dinosaurs.

Me: Dinosaurs?

G: Yes. This one is a wackosaurus.

G: Mom did you play soccer.

Me: Yep, when I was a little girl.

G: Did you spore any golds? (score any golds)

Me (as Cinderella’s stepmother): You can’t go to the ball.

G: (as Cinderella): Yes, I can. I’m going to the ball.

Me: Well, I guess you outsmarted me this time.

G: Yes, I unsmarted you.

And I mentioned (and provided video evidence) that Gianna has been a singing and dancing fool lately. Here's some more evidence in some still photos. She even danced around in the Tinkerbell costume Aunt Elizabeth got for her months ago...she has always refused to wear it.

And, I can't leave Mark out of this post completely! I believe he is 1) ready to hop on his sweet ride, away from the craziness and 2) adorable!

End of July/early August

Before spending the last week of July with Grandma and Grandpa, we had Doug’s co-worker and his family over for an early barbecue. The insanely hot weather kept us inside, but the kids still had a great time…and so did the rest of us.

Our time at Grandma and Grandpa’s passed quickly. We spent a lot of time with Nonna and Elizabeth and the kids too. We did some crafts, we went to the zoo, and the boys “chased” each other. Too cute!

Other than that we’ve just been trying to stay cool. Gianna’s become quite the singer and dancer lately and Mark is just trying like crazy to walk instead of crawl! Oh, and I’m note sure the pictures do it justice, but his hair is getting curlier by the day. Much to Doug’s dismay, and my delight!

She washed dishes with my mom every night we were there. It was not a quick task and it always involved singing. I'm not sure what the song below is about, but there's a lot of theatrics, which is awesome.