Grandma's Birthday

I started out organizing to surprise my mom and have cake at our house, along with a few friends and neighbors, to celebrate my mom's 79th birthday.  This is her first birthday in her new home in Massachusetts after all! I wanted to give her a fun evening with friends.

To make a long story short, that all got squelched by Vince getting strep throat and me getting roped into working a full day on Sunday and Monday(which I normally don't).  Skipping the Sunday party at our house, I thought at least we'd have time for dinner on Monday with the family, but I ended up bogged down at work, too late for the kids to go out for dinner....

So, the next best arrangement happened: My mom and I got to go out to celebrate her birthday, and I invited along my coworker/friend Peggi.  The three of us had a great time, and I did not miss having to climb under the table for missing Lego's, nor did I miss little grubby hands sifting through my french fries or knocking over my wine!  It was great!

Mike held the fort down at home with all three kids, who were distraught over the fact that they may not be able to sing to Grandma, and God forbid, not eat her cake.  We made sure to get home before they went totally bananas.  We got home and they jumped on her, getting through the happy birthday song so we could dig in to her cake.  Well, Luca was ready to skip the song and get right to the cake.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today's "Remember This" Moments....

Sitting at the dinner table last night, Zoë was eating her self made Boboli pizza.  She loves 'painting on' the pizza sauce, and scattering her cheese around.  I was excited because she actually WANTED to put green peppers on as a topping.  Turns out she was happy to eat the green peppers raw, but didn't like them much once they were cooked as a pizza topping.  That's fine kid, I'll take that; no problem.  So, eating her freshly baked pizza, she picked off the green peppers and re-arranged them into little 'candles' on her 'pizza cake'.  Then she proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to each of us separately, making us blow out the pieces of green peppers like candles. 

This morning at breakfast she still had birthday on the brain, asking me whose birthday was next.  When she wasn't happy with the answer of "Vince's birthday is next, in June".... she said "no!! after that... my birthday!" with a grin on her face.  Then she starts telling me she wants a Hello Kitty birthday party, complete with a piano to hit with a bat.  "Piano?", I said, puzzled...  she kept saying piano, and how her friends and her would all hit it with a bat.  The give away was when she said "then the candy would fall out". "Oh!!"  I thought, piñata!!  "Zoë, you mean piñata!"  "Yeah, pianoata".  Then she tells me she wants her 'pianoata' to be a Hello Kitty that she can bat around.  "The head and body Zoë?.... or just the head?".  She wanted just the head.  We both laughed at the idea of batting around Hello Kitty's head.  (It wouldn't be the first time a cartoon character got bludgeoned in our backyard.)  We had a gnarly looking Winnie the Pooh piñata head one year after Vince's birthday party. 

I thought that chat with Zoë would be my "remember this" moment of the day, but then Vince comes in the kitchen to quiz us on whether or not we know where the Merengue dance originates from.  "Hey mom and Zoë, do you guys know where the Merengue is from?".  Zoë ignores her brother and continues eating her breakfast.  I answer, "Isn't a dance from somewhere in South America?".... he immediately snaps back at me in his matter of fact way (complete with hand motion and waving) "No mom, a place. Like, a building.... where is the Merengue from!?"   I said "Well I don't know Vince," and he says "...it's from the Dominican Republic, that's the place".....   then he trotted off to go make a Lego police life boat or something of that nature. 

Tonight, I'm sitting in the living room, after putting everyone to bed, and I'm trying to drown out Luca's protests from his crib.  After a few minutes of cries that won't dwindle, I realize he's not going to settle down... so I go and get him.  I brought him to the living room with me, which was totally dark and mostly quiet (compared to the usual).  I had some soft music playing, so I danced around the room a little bit with him clinging to my neck.  When I hold him, his head rests over my shoulder in that perfect little nook that only he fits into.  I sit down on the couch, and hope that he's still going to keep quiet and calm.  But it's Luca, and he doesn't keep calm.  My sitting down is his chance to escape.  He jumps out of my arms and starts whispering and babbling to me, pointing out the window, pointing to the book shelf.  Running around and taking a few laps through the dining room and kitchen.  Whispering and whispering all these babbles, and pointing, all with this look of such concern.  Almost as if he were telling me about some conspiracy, or some secret event that was about to happen.  He keeps this up for while, taking a few more laps around the house.  I figure it's all good, as long as he just keeps this to a whisper, and doesn't get fired up into a tizzy.  A few more moments pass, and as he circles past me on his last lap around the house, he's looking a little more pooped out... maybe ready for resting.  I grabbed a stuffed bear and cuddled it, pretending it was Luca, stroking it's back and helping it to fall asleep.  Luca just looked at me, studying me.  Then he ran away again, but quickly returns with one of Zoë's stuffed baby dolls.  He takes it, and climbs onto the couch next to me, sits down, and starts cuddling the baby doll, holding it in his arms, patting her on the back, and soothing her.  He's whispering babbles to her that only he could understand, and even gave her a kiss on her head.  So there we were together, in the quiet dark, each of us cuddling a stuffed toy.  It was so painfully cute to watch him mimicking me, I sort of didn't want it to end. Seeing as Luca is my last real baby I have to cuddle, I then chucked that stuffed bear and scooped him up again, cuddling that little boy until we reached his crib.  Now the only thing I hear as I'm writing, is Mike shoveling the snow off our driveway. 

Happy Birthday Luca!

We celebrated Luca's 2nd birthday last week, starting out with our traditional birthday breakfast at Kristin's Diner.  Luckily we were there at 7am, early enough so that we almost had the place to ourselves.  This is a good thing, since our family rolls through restaurants and leaves the place similar to the aftermath of a category 5 hurricane.  Within 5 minutes of being at the restaurant our nanny had juice spilled on her lap, we lost a lego head under the table, Luca picked up his milk cup and drank it like a bottle-making it spill all over him, and somehow he also completed about 10 laps around the restaurant, protesting every time we tried to strap him in a high chair.  sigh... these are the memories I'll cherish, even though it's soo hard now! At least their cute ;)

Here's Luca with this 'birthday pancake'.  Clearly he needed extra sugared frosting and colored sprinkles they put on, yum!

Then we planned a party at our local Gymboree again, complete with Thomas Train cake.  I remember another little boy that LOVED Thomas train at this age ;)

He's the small guy at the end of the table... mainly hidden by his 'king for a day' crown

friends had fun celebrating with Luca!

 

siblings had fun celebrating with Luca!

 Luca got a parachute of his own from Santa, he's obsessed with them....

 time to load up on cake and juice!

 birthday parade!

Switzerland, Storyland, and Everywhere in Between

We're still trying to recover from our summer trips!  Switzerland was amazing and wonderful, and I feel so very lucky that we were able to travel there with my mother.  However, along with bringing back tons of memories (and several pounds of chocolate), we also brought back a little post traumatic stress over traveling on a plane with our three kids.  That plane trip to Europe has been declared as the last time we all fly together until Luca is at least 5 years old (which is fine cause it'll take that long to financially recover from that trip, lol).  We would, however, reconsider, in situations such as reunions or weddings.  Just in case you were worried.

Here's a link to our Switzerland photo book (hope it works, click below):

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=wIatWTNwxas2rkY

In a nutshell, it was fantastic.... and it was so fun to see my cousins, and wander around in the mountains with the kids. We can't wait to go back in 4 years! 

Ok, life is a bit crazy: the kids are growing up at this super fast rate, and I can't get myself to this blog to record how Vince, Zoë, and Luca are changing every day!  So here's everything that's happened since Switzerland, that I can remember at this moment, in lightning fast speed:

-Mike turned 40 Oct 1st (haha!), we went to New Hampshire for it.  The trip did happen to center around the kids, and going to Storyland, but we all had a blast, and we got to stay in an awesome condo that my coworker owns.  It was a perfect fall weekend, with the trees turning amazing orange, yellow, and red colors, with blue skies above.  We also took a drive up Mt. Washington, and had spectacular views to forever. 

-We had fun at Halloween, with Luca finally being able to walk door to door to get candy.  The problem was he kept wanting to just stop and eat whatever was thrown into his bag... it made for a very slow move down our street. 
I absolutely could not pass up the chance to make Mike wear a hotdog costume-being that Vince was aching to have his Dad be a hotdog.  Mike was a good dad and played a hotdog with pride.

-Skipping several things I really wanted to remember to mention on the blog (like milestones, Luca saying "milk", etc.), I'll have to stick with whatever I can remember at the moment.  Unfortunately that mainly means only the disastrous calamities that we go through with the kids. 
Not sure why the first day of Zoë going to preschool this September didn't really stand out.... but maybe it was cause she just took off and joined her classmates without so much as a goodbye wave.  Before I was even able to try and reflect on my baby girl starting preschool,  I had to come to my senses and chase down Luca, who was already out the door and making his way to the parking lot.
-I do remember very vividly however, the beads of sweat that broke out on my forehead a few weeks ago, as we attempted a family photo shoot.  It was an epic failure, that not only left me and Mike with a few extra grey hairs (and some chuckles later on), but apparently also left some family in the next photo room with pictures that included our kids running in the background.  Our photographer felt so bad, she let us schedule a "re-do" shoot.  That time we got a few good ones in:

oh Vince.... 

 don't trust that smile for a second!

 -Talking about vivid memories, and that little smile above that you should NOT trust....tonight's dinner included the first food fight we've ever had.... started up by our youngest little hell raiser.  He got the idea that it would be hilarious to throw ketchup laden fish sticks at Zoë.  Despite several attempts at telling him to stop, then finally yelling... he didn't stop until Mike practically tackled him off the dinner table.  We did learn that Luca has somewhat of a good arm tonight, and we are soooo in for it with this kid.

-Ok, here's a happy milestone to celebrate.  Zoë has finally graduated to a real bed, and tonight is her first night sleeping in it!  I've been so excited for this, as now I can cuddle in bed with her and read, as we did tonight:

Other things I want to remember:
-our first fish, Swimmy-Nemo.  Named so because Vince and Zoë couldn't agree on which name it would have...so they both stuck.  
-the way Luca says 'goo-nigh' and gives kisses before bed, then waving bye bye, but with his hand backwards, so he's actually waving bye bye to his own little face. 
-the birthday party we had to have for Vince's stuffed bunny Ollie.  He's 3 now.

-Vince's first official sleep over with his friend Max.  Zoë crashed the room, but got kicked out after a while

 

-our trip to Lego Land discovery center, because even legos like to get down at a disco:

We Have The Dog Rug!!

We've been busy unpacking boxes for my mom and guess what I found! 
That dog rug made it to Boston, poor Bella. 

Also found, my old high school cheer leading outfit, and I still fit in it.  

Yes, I was pretty excited... and yes, so was Mike