Valentines and a Taste of Spring

Here are the kids having fun making Valentines a few weeks ago.

This past Thursday and Friday we had a little touch of Spring here in western PA! As you can see in the pictures, the snow is all gone! Temps reached the low 60s and we really enjoyed it!! It was so nice going out without coats on. This morning, it was in the teens again :( Oh, well. I guess it is February!

It's a BOY!!!

We were all pleasantly surprised to find out at my mid-pregnancy ultrasound this afternoon that we are expecting a BOY! We haven't decided on a name yet. We've narrowed down the list to about 7 names :) Who knows how long it'll take us to decide :) :)

What do you think? Does he look like his brother, Matteo? :) :)

Pigtails and the Store

Yesterday, the kids' Friday afternoon classes at St. Vincent started again. That means I got to go to the store with only 2 of the kids instead of all 5! Yeah! That usually makes grocery shopping much easier, but I don't know if it's ever been this easy...



Elena fell asleep in the van driving back from St. Vincent. She stayed asleep as I got her out of her car seat, walked through the snowy cold weather into the store, and stayed asleep as I laid her down on top of the baby sling in the grocery cart. She didn't wake up until I was almost done shopping!


In other cute Elena news...Elena always wants to do what her older sisters are doing, so when I called Chiara this morning to come let me fix her hair, Elena came running instead. This is the result...

her first pigtails :)

This has nothing to do with Elena, but I thought this picture of Chiara was too cute to miss :) She has pigtail braids, so it fits with the theme :)

A few January pictures

Here are a few pictures from the last 2 weeks.

Here is Cati doing a science demonstration. We started a science unit on birds and insects that we will study once a week. This demonstration showed how fast air flow over something causes lift, which causes birds to fly. The kids had fun spraying water across the table :)



This is what may happen to you as the youngest of 5 children... Your older siblings may dress you up for their own enjoyment. Elena doesn't seem to mind :)

Here is Maria practicing caligraphy. She's also been working on knitting a lot lately, but I don't have a picture.

Yesterday we attended the Baptism of Dany's collegue's baby. It just wore Elena out!

You may notice that I added a pregnancy ticker to the top of the blog. I had a check-up with the midwife 2 weeks ago and we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. We'll have another appointment in a couple more weeks when we should get to schedule a mid-pregnancy ultrasound. This past week I started feeling the baby move a bit!

Back home and ready to work!

I did it! I finally caught up on all of my blog posts! I posted 4 new posts about Christmas and Cati's birthday. Enjoy!

Tomorrow it's time to get back to work. The Christmas season officially ends today. We put away all those Christmas and birthday gifts and cleaned the school/play room.

You see, I know it won't stay this clean for long, so I have to take a picture :)

I hope all our GA family and friends will enjoy their snow day tomorrow! We have about 4" of snow on the ground outside right now, but it's business as usual around here.

Happy 8th Birthday to Cati!!!

On New Year's Day, we celebrated Cati's 8th birthday!

On the day before her birthday, we took Cati to get her ears pierced. She had her ears pierced about a year ago, but we had to let the holes close because she had a reaction to the earrings. Her one wish for Christmas was to get her ears re-pierced. For Christmas she received some pure titanium earrings, which is what people with metal allergies have to wear.

Well, we were PROMISED that the earrings that they used to pierce Cati's ears with were pure titanium. By the next morning, it was obvious that they were not. Her ears and the surrounding skin had an obvious angry red rash. We changed out the earrings for a pair she received for Christmas and treated her with Benedryl for a few days. The good news is that as I write this more than a week later her ears have completely healed and are not reacting to the good titanium earrings! This is a nice birthday gift for her :)

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!! You are a true blessing in our lives. Your beautiful smile brightens our days!

More Christmas Fun with More Family!

On the 3rd day of Christmas, we got to celebrate with family in Atlanta. It was an extra-special get-together because my cousins who live in Florida were also there!


Our cousin was very cute with her new camera taking lots of pictures. Here she is taking a picture of Dany, who was taking a picture of her :)


After a yummy lunch, the present-opening began!

Not only were we celebrating Christmas, but also the 8th birthdays of Cati and our cousin who were born only a few days apart!

What a great family photo!!!