Giana finds her tongue

Giana's bottom 2 teeth have just begun to sprout and she is constantly running her tongue over them. It is so funny to see her play with her tongue. Here are a couple of funny pics. Enjoy!

Halloween Weekend

Our fun Halloween weekend started on Thursday, with me vounteering in Talia's room (in my Snow White costume) at school. It was just like old times!

Here we are in our costumes:

After school, we met up with some friends at Goebberts Farm in Barrington. After running around, we went into the animal area and got to feed and pet some animals, like baby calves:

a zebraand a giraffeHere is Talia hanging on one of the poles in tent. I think it is such a cute picture, even though she got in trouble for hanging on one of the tent poles.Here is one of the "exotic" animals--a cross between a donkey and a zebra--a "Zonkey". I have never seen one of these before. Pretty cool looking animal, I think.

After Goebberts, we headed to my Hens playgroup, which meets every Thursday, to celebrate Halloween. Here's some pics of the kiddos:

and a group shot:

After that, we were EXHAUSTED!!

On Friday, one of the Mundelein grade schools hosted an indoor Halloween carnival and game playing, so we headed over there to get an early start on trick or treating. Fun times!

On Saturday, we headed to Lemont to celebrate Halloween and Payton's 8th birthday. Talia loved trick or treating, but had a hard time keeping up with the older kids. She was a little scared of some of the decorations, which was cute. Sometimes, she is such a girl. We were so proud of her, as she was so polite and would continually remember to say "thank you" without needing to be told. Sweet girl! We got to hang out with Nonna and Nonno too (my parents), so that was a treat.

While it was cold, we were only out for about 45 mins. and that was more than enough candy for her (us).

Here are a couple of pics of Payton's party:

While it was a very tiring few days, we all had a great time! Hope that your Halloween was just as fun!

Didier Farms

We spent the morning at Didier Farms, as today was the first day in a long time that the sun came out to play! While it was VERY muddy, and while I would have liked it to have been a little less windy and a little warmer, we all had a great time. We started by taking the traditional "this is how tall I am" shot as we walked in--

then we headed off to the field of pumpkins to take pics

then Talia wanted to ride some rides--

we fed some animals--

finally, we saw the baby chicks--

We ended our trip by enjoying some apple doughnuts--YUM! I was so sad that we did not get a chance to go apple picking this year, but at least Mother Nature cooperated enough to give us one morning at the pumpkin farm.

Professional pics of the most adorable little girls!

Just wanted to share Giana's 9 month pics and Talia's 3 and a half year old pics. I LOVE going to Portrait Innovations at the Glen and they always do such a great job. I took some pics of the girls together and individually. Enjoy!

Here's a sneak peek into their Halloween costumes: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. I love this pic as it shows how much Giana really looks up to Talia. Look at how cute Giana's leg is here--is she a natural model or what??!!

Giana at 9 months

This has been a big month for Giana. Firstly, she is fully crawling (and she is fast!), she is pulling to stand and she has even taken some steps as she is holding on to your hands or furniture. I am not ready for her to be walking. I just want to yell at her to SLOW DOWN! She is getting too big too fast. She has almost perfected her pincer grasp, and she loves to put everything in her mouth. And while she has started to eat some people food (yogurt, apples, grapes, pastina, bread, avacados, just to name a few), I would say that her favorite food at the moment is paper. She loves to grab it from Talia and shove as much of it in her mouth as she can. Silly girl. Gigi has started to talk too--she says 5 words consistently: hi, dada, mama (although mainly when she is sad), yaya (for Talia) and baba (for bottle). Her little voice is so cute, except when she is screaming in her car seat. She has really started to understand so much more, as we are signing with her, so she understands "more", and "all done". She will also come to you if you ask her to and we are trying to label everything before giving it to her, or saying up, when she stretches her arms to be picked up. She is going though her "Stranger Danger" phase, and is very serious when she comes into a new situation. Smiles can be hard to come by with Gigi for a "stranger", esp. if the person is male. Sleeping is getting better, but she is still waking up at night. The difference now is that I am not going in there unless she is screaming as this probably means that she is stuck in the standing position or that she has dropped her pacifier. I think that she is really close to sleeping all the way through the night--let's hope. Her 9 month appointment is on Weds, so I'll update with her stats then.

Sisters

Another day of dressing alike...another photo shoot! Enjoy!

Fun with the Tunnel

Talia wanted to play with the tunnel this morning, so we grudgingly took it out. At first, Gigi was a bit scared of it, but once she went through it a few times, she thought it was great and it was so much fun for both of the girls. Talia was chasing Gigi around and she just loved it. Now that Gigi is getting older, it is really great to see how nicely Talia "plays" with Gigi. And Gigi just loves Talia!