March...madness that I'm not posting till now

March brought us some really warm weather, so we spent a lot of time outside. The kids especially enjoyed our impromptu backyard picnic.
 

We've still been in the midst of our remodeling, which finally ended with some new carpet downstairs. That meant moving the bookshelf, which turned into an awesome set of tunnels for the kids. And boy does the carpet look awesome! So we're finally done and our downstairs is a shadow of its former self.

 

 

On St. Patrick's Day, we headed to Philly for a trip to a not very good museum, but we still had a good time and got great pork sandwiches on the way home. And don't we all look cute in green?

 

 

And here's my little caveman shooting some hoops. He's so ridiculous. But we're all so proud when he makes a basket :)

Kid talk

Just a little update of the funny things the kids have been saying and some cute pictures.

Gianna: Do you go to bed when I do?

Me: No I stay up a little while longer.

Gianna: Why? To practice reading?

Gianna: Daddy, you be the bad guy.

Doug: Okay, what should the bad guy do?

Gianna: Mean activities. Like pulling hair.

When cousin Joey was visiting, I can't even remember what he was talking about, nothing serious though.

Joey: I've got problems.

Mark: Joey's got problems. (pause) I've got problems too.

And my personal favorite:

Me (while meeting a new baby): I love babies!

Mark: Me too. I'm a baby fan.

Here are my favorite people exploring our empty closet that now has laminate floors instead of carpet.

Mark likes to get all fancy for his "car rides", note the scarf and necklace.

Gianna reading "baby" Mark a story and putting him to bed.

Joey and Home Improvement

Nonna and Pop-pop (not pictured, they were too busy working for us, LOL!) came for a visit at the end of February. It had been too long! The kids just love playing with them so much. Unfortunately, there was a little less play time for this visit since they were helping us beautify our home! We figured it's been 3 years we might as well settle in. Pop-pop and Doug mounted the TV over the fireplace we've been hiding and I've been painting like crazy. I'll post some before and after pictures sometime soon. On Sunday, Doug's cousin Joey came down from Long Island for the afternoon for a visit and he couldn't have found a bigger fan than Mark. Our little guy wouldn't let Joe leave his side for more than 5 seconds without yelling, "Joey, joey, come back." (Or, "Doey, doey, tum back" in Mark speak.) He was very sad to discover that Joe wasn't here in the morning when he got up.

Under the chair rail used to be red, we decided to go more neutral. It's even more neutral than I expected, but I still LOVE it. It feels so fresh and new.

Didn't they do a great job! Loving our new look, thanks Nonna and Pop-pop for visiting and helping out!

Valentine's Day and Grandma's Birthday

On Valentine's Day, Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit. We had such a fun day celebrating Valentine's Day and Grandma's birthday. Gianna picked out all of the birthday "decorations," so hats were a must! Grandma and Grandpa helped me pick out paint colors too, so more on that to come!

January highlights

Here are some highlights from January since I didn't document them at the time.

There was lots of silliness.

Uncle Nick came on his way out of town for business. 

There was snuggling. 

Rocky (the stuffed dog from school) came home with Gianna for the weekend, which she LOVED. And since January was not super cold, we got to use the scooter from Santa and even climb some trees!

Christmas 2011...you read that right

Yeah, so I haven't blogged about Christmas yet. So here's what I remember; good thing I have pictures to help. Although, I was a terrible photographer as usual because of sleep deprivation and bad colds for all of us. There is barely evidence that we were with all the kids grandparents! BUT, Christmas was a great time regardless.  (By the way, Gianna's tooth trauma reached its peak of awful blackness right around Christmas so that's why she looks toothless in some pics. It's almost back to normal now.) As you can see the kids had a great time with their cousins, Bella and Jack.

Jack was pleased as punch to get some quality art-time with the girls!

Santa and his elf made a special appearance at Nonna and Pop-pop's house. Gianna was a little suspicious (i.e. scared) and Mark only agreed to get near him because of the promise of a cookie. It was great fun to see all the kids surprised faces!

I think everyone had a good Christmas, but I'm not sure, I can't remember. 

Kitchen renovation so far

Okay because adding pictures on this blog sucks, they're a little nuts. But here are before and after shots of the two sides of our kitchen. I have to say that looking at them side by side it doesn't seem that different, but I assure you that the old cabinets were small, dirty, and awful. We're loving the extra space (cabinets to the ceiling and extended counter tops) and the more attractive look. The floors have yet to be done. Hopefully soon, especially since the floors are the main reason we started this nonsense.

Below is the nonsense I was talking about. We lived with a whole set of extra cabinets in our kitchen for two week because our first contractor never showed up. I'll spare you the details of all that, mostly because it still nauseates me to think about. But thanks to my father-in-law we still got it done in time for Thanksgiving.

At least the kids enjoyed the fun that packing up the kitchen and emptying the cabinets provided!