Polka dot sisters

Here is how cute the girls looked this morning....all before Talia had a terrible coughing fit which ended in her vomiting all over the back of the mini-van on the way to school/work this morning. So, pull over, clean her up as best as I can, drive to Annie's with puke smell in the car, windows semi down and heat blasting, quick bath at Annie's, borrow Sarah's clothes for Talia to wear for the day, call her in sick, and I am off to work...all before 8 am!!! Thank you to Annie who washed all of Talia's things. I really appreciate it! There is never a dull moment in my life, is there??!!??

Trimming the tree

We bought a new tree

this year, as the old one was too small and did not fit all of our ornaments. After about 6 hours of putting it up and setting up the lights, however, last years tree was not so bad!

Here is Talia "helping" to help put up the garland...great job, Talia!

Isn't our tree beautiful??!!??

And here are some pics of the cutest little girls in their pink sweaters!

Gigi, where are you???

While getting Talia dressed this morning, Gigi quickly crawled away. When we called for her, we could hear her making sounds and panting, as she likes to do. And where do you think she was?? We found her in the shower happily chewing one of the rubber duck bath toys. She was soaked, as Talia and I had just taken a shower together. I had to get a few pics! Silly baby!

Happy Turkey Day

I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving. We headed to my parents house in the city and had a nice day with my family. We are so thankful to have some time to spend with the girls and that everyone is happy and healthy. We were remembering that last year on Thanksgiving, I was having contractions every few hours--we thought that Giana was going to make an early appearance. What a fun day that was! Anyway, this year, the girls looked super cute in their matching dresses,

and while Talia happily ate Nonna's pasta and nothing else,

Giana ate everything, including pasta, turkey, carrots, sweet potatoes, olives--she was a mess when she was all done.

Here is a family picture.

Here are some pics of my nephews with the girls.

And my brothers with the girls too.

We played some games and had a nice day. We were all exhausted when we got home!

At the Stairs

Here are a few pic of Gigi trying to escape up the stairs. She has just learned this latest trick, and will crawl for them every chance she gets. We need to put up a gate at the bottom of the steps.

She just thinks that she is so funny.

Giana at 10 months

It is hard (for me) to think that "baby" Gigi is already 10 months, but it is true! She is just a bundle of energy and fun these days. We have been to the doctor on and off these past few months for some ear infections that just don't seem to go away and finally got a weight and height check last week. She currently weighs 22 pounds and is 28.5 inches long. Big Girl! She had a pretty big weight gain since her last official weight check with Dr. Chen. She went from the 25th percentile in weight to the 75th percentile! The girl does love to eat--and she will eat everything that you put in front of her! She not only loves her rice and oatmeal cereals, she loves yogurt, apples, avocados, pears, grapes, blueberries, pancakes, pastina, noodles, bread and cheese. And her two new teeth on the bottom really help her out too! She is getting stronger and faster in her crawling and has even started crawling up the stairs...we need to get the gate out! She has been taking more steps while holding on to furniture too...almost fully cruising. She loves taking a bath and seems to be getting attached to her pink blanket. She loves to bury her head in it when she is getting tired, or will put it over her head as she is trying to fall asleep. Speaking of sleep, we are on a good schedule--7 or 7:30 pm until 6 or 6:30 on weekends! Hooray! Now if only Talia can get back to sleeping through the night (she has to go potty, be re-tucked in, needs water at 2:30 am, etc) She is talking more and is up to 9 words now: hi, momma or mommy, dada, yaya (for Talia), baba ( for bottle), Abbie (for Annie, our sitter), baby, bye bye, and up. She loves to laugh (esp. at Talia) and to sing or listen to music. It will always calm her down (and hearing Talia sing to her when she is upset is just so sweet!) What a great baby she is!She got very tired of taking pics by the end...poor baby!

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!