Gigi's smiles (and 1 sad face)

Just wanted to share some shots of Gigi in her high chair. She is really starting to get this silly personality.

She has the best little giggle and smile, but she will also tell you when she is done with taking pictures!

Bowling at Pinstripes

I had the day off today because of a Jewish holiday and Kenny had some days to use, so decided to make it a family day. We met up with some of my play group friends and went to Pinstripes for some bowling fun. It cost just $5 for all 3 of us to bowl and we had a great time. Everything is pretty posh and set up for you, including electric bumpers so that the kids don't get gutter balls--I should have kept them up for myself--and a computerized score board. They had ramps for the kids,

so all they had to do was push the balls down and watch the pins fall. Talia loved it! I was a little nervous at the end though, as Talia almost beat me. I had a few gutter balls, which really kept my score down, but I came through in the end and got a strike to beat her score by just a few pins. Phew!

Here's Kenny showing off his bowling skills.

Giana crawling

Just wanted to share some pics of Gigi crawling--she is so happy to be mobile. She is in the "I want to put everything in my mouth, especially paper" stage. FUN!

Here's one of her pulling up to stand--isn't she too young for this???

Picture Day

Today was picture day at school and Talia was so excited to dress up. When I first told her that picture day was coming up, she went right to her closet and picked out the pink and white polka dot dress, which is one of her favorites. She also wanted to dress Gigi, and picked out the green and white polka dot dress with a bow in the middle, just like hers. Here are some very cute pics.

Giana at 8 months

A lot has happened for little Gigi this past month. Firstly, she is crawling all over the place. She is getting faster and faster every day. Talia is having to keep the floor clean(er) as Giana wants to put everything in her mouth. Giana can also sit up all by herself and move from crawling to sitting. She is even trying to pull to stand--she is almost there! She is eating more at each sitting and is loving the puffs and cheerios. She is able to put a bunch in her mouth fairly successfully, though not with a pincer grasp--she finds it faster to just grab a handful of them and shove them in her mouth at once. She has said her first word-"hi" (which was also T's first word) and she will say hi over and over to get your attention. She also loves to babble--we have heard "mamama", "dadada", "yayaya" (which we think is Talia) and today heard "gagaga". She is waving pretty consistently and has just the best laugh and giggle. She is loving the jump-a-roo and is actually getting off the floor and jumping! As for sleep, we've had one night of 1o and a half hours--in a row--but the next night, she was back to getting up early. She's been up by 4:15 or so EVERY DAY this week. FUN TIMES! Giana is such a happy baby--I am the luckiest!

Video - Giana Sits Up! 8/26/09

You may have noticed that there hasn't been any video of Disney posted by your trusty blog video director/producer Ken. After all, the Engstrom family did and saw so many fun things on the trip, wouldn't you expect there to be a couple videos? Well, we did get about ten minutes of our first couple hours of the trip - specifically the Bippity-Boppity Boutique - on video. Then I promptly forgot the camera on the seat next to me on the bus back to the hotel. AAARRRGGGHHH! Fran called the Disney Lost and Found every day for the rest of our trip to no avail. 'It's very frustrating to know that people find a camera on a bus and think "Hey, free camera!" instead of "Let's see if we can get this back to the owners."

Anyways, we picked up a new video camera a couple days after getting back from our trip. Although this certainly wasn't the first time Giana sat up on her own, I did manage to "catch her in the act" one night on the floor. Enjoy!

Disney - Day 5 (Thursday, August 20th)

Our last day in Disney would have to be a short one, as our flight was scheduled to take off at 5:30pm. There were a few things we missed at Magic Kingdom, so after checking out of our room we hopped a bus and headed over. First on our list was to see the character stage show performed on the stairs of Cinderella's Castle. The show featured Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald.


The Princesses and their respective Princes made an appearance.


Captain Hook showed up to spoil the fun, but Peter Pan swooped in and drove him away.


Next Malificent appeared in a cloud of smoke.


Through "the power of dreams", Mickey and Minnie vanquished Malificent.


At the end of the show, a big fireworks display erupted from the castle.


Next, we checked out "Belle's Storytime Garden". Belle wanted to read us the story of her adventure with the Beast, but of course she needed some volunteers to help her out.


Wouldn't you know it, Talia made a wonderful Lumiere!


She was absolutely thrilled to be part of the show.


Afterwards, Talia was able to collect another autograph for her book and get a picture with Belle.


We only had a couple hours left, so we grabbed a little lunch at the restaurant next to Belle's garden. On the way out, we saw Cinderella's wicked stepmother and stepsisters.


We also managed to catch Pinnochio on the way out of the park, though both kids were sleeping and missed out on seeing him!


We made it safely back to the airport and caught our flight back to Midway. Of course, when we landed it was cold, dark, and rainy! Not exactly the most uplifting scenery to return to after the sun and fun of Disneyworld, now is it?


After a good night's sleep, the girls woke up cheerful as ever, happy to be home again.

Disney - Day 4 (Wednesday, August 19th)

For Day 4 of our trip, we returned to Hollywood Studios to check out what we didn't have time to see the day before. We started our day off with yet another character breakfast. Talia of course had to have three Mickey Waffles again (she gets three because she's three years old - can't argue against that logic, right?). We were able to get a couple autographs and pictures with some friends, including Leo,


Jojo,


Goliath,


and June. There were some fun breaks in our meal where Talia got to join in some songs and dances with the characters - a good way to burn off some of those Mickey Waffles!


There aren't really any rides for little kids at Hollywood Studios, but there were plenty of shows that happened to be right in Talia's wheelhouse. The first show we saw was a High School Musical Parade/Show. The stage came right down the main street with the speakers blaring.


Talia loved it and was singing along with all the songs. There may have been a couple of parents who shall remain nameless who also knew all the words and may have been bobbing their heads along with the music too ;)


After the HSM show, we headed over to see the Playhouse Disney show. We got lucky because Quincy from Little Einsteins was outside the theater!


The Playhouse Disney show was a puppet stage show that featured some of Talia's favorite shows from the Disney Channel, including Mickey Mouse Clubhouse,


Handy Manny,


and Little Einsteins.


After the show, we got a little snack. Talia's chocolate ice cream bar was melting so fast as she ate it that it slid right off the stick. She was not happy when we had to throw it away.


Since there wasn't much left for us to do at Hollywood Studios and because we'd been running on adrenaline for three and a half days, we decided to head back to the hotel to get in a short nap. All four of us happily hit the sack and woke up a full THREE HOURS later. Oops. Well, since it was now dinnertime, we decided to walk to the center of our resort to get some grub.


We happened to wear our swimsuits to dinner just in case we wanted to get in a little pool time. We weren't disappointed as the main pool turned out to be a blast! Talia cruised around using her floaties and Giana loved splashing around, too.


There was also a nice little zero-depth kids area off to the side of the main pool. Talia must have gone down the slides at least twenty times in a row.


Eventually it started to sprinkle on us, so we high tailed it back to the room, where we finished packing up and got a good night's sleep in preparation for our final day of the trip.

Talia Goes to School

Talia started school 2 weeks ago (on Mon. Aug 31st), but we have been trying to post all the Disney pics that we didn't get a chance to post these. Talia goes to my school (Romona) and is in the Early Childhood Program that I had a hand in starting. It is kind of cool that she is at the same school as I am, although when she sees me in the hall, or outside with my class, it can get a bit tricky as she wants to come with me. It is getting easier for her to see me and just wave, or sneak in a little hug. She gets dropped off by Annie (our wonderful sitter and friend) after her kids are dropped off and then after school, she walks down to my class. It has been working out pretty nicely so far, although I can't seem to get much work done when she is at school with me! Oh well! Her teacher's name is Ms. Kristen and after our initial meet and greet, Talia would talk about 3 different things: how pretty her teacher is, how cool her locker is, and she wondered where the slide down to the loft in her room is (there are stairs to go up and down, but Talia wants there to be a slide!) She knows a lot of the staff members from all of her visits with me, so it seems as though she rules the school. She is singing more and talks about her friends Teddy and Layla. She happily goes into school and is happy after school, so all is going well. Hooray!!!