Professional Pics

I just wanted to share some of our favorite professional pics that we had taken at Portrait Innovations. They always do such a great job!

We did a family picture too. These are the super cute color coordinated outfits that we wore to Giana's birthday party.

Talia wanted to take some pics with the bears. Cute, right?Then we thought, oh, let's get Giana in some too...bad idea!Woe to her...I changed Giana into her Birthday girl shirt and she posed like this all by herself.We also did some cake shots--Gigi loved the cake!

Happy First Birthday Giana!

It is amazing for me to believe that Giana is 1, but she is! Even though I cried (just a little), I am feeling pretty good about having a 1 year old. She is just getting to be so much FUN! She is really starting to pick many new words and is seeming to understand everything—from where is your head, ears, eyes, mouth to where is Talia, Mommy, Daddy, Annie (our sitter and friend), Gunner (the dog), the balloon, the ball, the cark the piano, etc. It is amazing. She is constantly chattering and her favorite question is “is it?” while she points her little pointer finger. She wants to know what everything is—it is very cute! Other words include: Mommeeee (which is cute, but it is usually in the middle of the night when she wants to party at 3 am!), uh-oh (when anything drops on the floor, which is especially nice when we are walking in the mall and something falls), annie, hi, bye-bye, ni night, up, owie (as soon as she falls, or hits her hand, head, or is doing something that she does not want to do, ie-have her diaper changed…etc), and recently NO! And speaking of no, she and Talia have had a few screaming matches now that Giana is getting into everything and and soon as she does, Talia wants whatever it is. But even though Gigi is smaller, she has grabbed Talia by the arm and pulled on her hard enough to knock her over. FUN TIMES! She is also blowing kisses, clicking her tongue, and clapping. She is trying lots of new foods like soft carrots, peas, blueberries, strawberries, breads, cheese, chicken, pizza, and pastas. She loves to try to walk or pushes objects (usually chairs) to help her walk along. She will take a couple of steps on her own, but that is only towards me or Kenny or the couch. She has not taken the full plunge yet. She loves to play with shoes, purses and chairs. She usually crawls along with a purse around her arm, and like to crawl and stand on chairs, and has learned to sit herself back down in the chair so her little legs hang over. She especially loves the rocking chair and will seat herself down and try to rock it, saying “rock, rock” (or more like rot, rot) She is a climber! She will lift herself up onto anything she can. She has even begun to push the chair close to the couch to climb onto the chair and then climb onto the couch, a trick that she has learned from her big sister. She loves to open and close drawers, cabinets, flip phones, etc. She enjoys pushing buttons and seeing what happens—she is really starting to get cause and effect. While she has pooped on the potty a few times now, there really hasn’t been much consistency. I do notice that she will grunt and then we run to the potty with success, but sometimes she goes in the morning when I am at work. I will definitely be working on this spring break and then the summer.




For her birthday, we tried to go to Olive Garden, but the wait was too long, so we ended up at Jason's Deli. Giana loved the noodles, crackers, corn muffins and ice cream at the end. When we got home, we wanted her to have her special cupcake (that I got from our friends Matt and Cassie's baby shower earlier today). She did not want to go in to her high chair...But after we sang to her, she was calmer...Then she realized that eating cupcake was fun!
And...then she was done!Happy, Happy Birthday, my sweet baby girl. I love you!

Walking with a walker toy

While I would have thought that Giana would be walking by now, she is getting better at pushing her walker toy with a more controlled stride. And while you can't necessarily see that she is walking very nicely in a picture, please just take my word for it, as I think that these pics are so cute!

Giana's First Birthday Party

Giana had a wonderful first birthday party today. We rented out Jumps and Jiggles/Carousel room at the Elk Grove Village Park District, invited our friends (there were 114 people--55 kids, give or take...) got a crazy huge horse cake, and had a great time! Just wanted to share some pics of the day.

Gigi loved to run around and climb in Jumps and Jiggles

Here's the delicious cake from Deerfield's and Giana's smash cake

Here's a pic for perspective, as I don't think the other pic does it justice...

Riding the carousel

With Annie, our sitter and great friend

with my baby girl

Uncle David, Zio Gene, Aunt Shirell, Zio Mario, me, Kenny and Giana--thanks for driving in and for coming to help celebrate!
Singing Happy Birthday
Smash cake

It was a great day and great party. Thanks for celebrating with us!

Talia in Gymnastics

Talia started a gymnastics class at the Wilmette Park Ditrict in October to help her become less fearful of heights and hopefully become a bit more coordinated. (She's kind of like a bull in a china shop sometimes...I think that she get that from me!) She loved it! She has had 11 classes and today was the last class--look at all the great things that can do now:

she can walk on a low balance beam

she can walk on a high balance beam

she can swing on the rings

she can flip

I am so proud of her! Next class is Princess Ballet--should be so fun!

Gigi's Front Teeth

Gigi's front teeth are really starting to come in...and much to our surprise, she also has a gap between them. Hmmm...we've been telling Talia that her gap is from sucking her thumb, and we've gotten her to say that she will stop when she is 4. (don't tell her!) Is it a genetic thing? Kenny thinks that he had a gap between his front teeth. Good thing she is still so cute! Here are a few funny face pics:

Sweaters

How cute are they???

New Years Day

We headed to my Mom and Dads for a delicious and quiet lunch on New Years day. We were so excited that Giana has started to stand on her own for a few seconds and even took 2 steps 2 different times! Maybe she will walk before she turns 1. We'll see! Here are some pics of the day:

Everyone had to take off their sweaters before eating.

Eating Nonna's delicious pasta:

Giana standing on her own:

Me and my favorite girls snuggling up.

Happy 2010!