All I Want for Christmas

Is Uncle Stud.

New York, 2010

We met up with Franco, Enzo, Deborah and Andrew in New York for the pre-Christmas trip.
We spent a lot of time with this 9.



We skated at Rockafeller Center. Mary skated by herself.



We went to the American Girl Doll store. The girls liked that.




Mary made Enzo come with us to Central Park.



Mary caught a Little Nap on the way to Little Italy.


Then we watched the Home Alone movies. Mary found a good seat.

The Nutcracker

Prepping for Christmas

Sitting on Santa's lap.

Vittoria did not want to. No really.

Thanksgiving in Michigan

Conversations with Mary

Mary - Can I fart on your lap?
Me - I wish you wouldn't.
Mary - Hee hee hee.

Ania's birthday

I realized I didn't post pictures from Ania's birthday!

Here is the cupcake celebration at our house

This is funny. For some reason Ania shows "2" by using one finger on each hand, instead of 2 fingers on one hand. So now that she is 2, we get to see this more often. This is how old she is now:

Alina made out pretty well on Ania's birthday. Not only did she pick a great gift for Ania that she happens to really like, but Grandma and Grandpa got her lots of fun things as well!

Orange frosting on her nose.

She wanted to eat the whole cupcake like this

And of course, we had to go to Chuck E Cheese...

She was pretty excited to be there. She still asks at least a few times a week if we can go to Chuck E Cheese.

Not my favorite cake I've made, but they can't all be winners.

Eating the cake the same way she ate the cupcake. Not sure where she learned this trick!

This one just cracks me up. We have a chair in a corner, and the girls like to hide behind it. The funny thing is, neither one of them can get out by themselves. So they hide back there, and then panic when they want to get out!

Alina gave herself a hair cut

It could be much worse. It was in French braids, so she only got at the hair that was falling out, which includes bangs and some short hair around the ears. In her defense, she did ask me for a hair cut earlier in the day, but I told her we would have to wait until after her bath. Apparently she didn't want to wait that long.

Here are the photos... she didn't have much hair to play with since it was up (luckily)...

A few bangs, and a few short hairs around the left ear.

Side shot

I didn't tell the story of how I discovered this... we were eating dinner, and it was almost at the end that I finally saw it (as you can see, it's not terribly noticeable). I said "Alina, did you cut your hair??", and she said "Yes". So then I was racking my brain to figure out when she possibly could have done that, and how I didn't notice. So I said "Where were you when you did that?" and she said "Under the table." And a light bulb went off for Jay, and he said "So THAT'S what she was doing under there!" Aahhhh... it happened under Jay's supervision...

His other story, for the hour Ania and I were gone, was that she was in her tent by herself for a long time, and he asked her what she was doing. She said she was "feeding her baby". Well, after she came out, he moved the tent and found lots of candy wrappers and cookie crumbs. Sounds like she had fun... I think she probably wishes he would watch her more often! :)

Another news pflash

WOO HOO!!

Libby is going to close on her house!!!

News Pflash!

WOO HOO!!

Josh passed his Actuary Test!!!!

Ania's 2 year old pics, and family pictures

Eeeewwwwwwww!!!

Conversation with Alina

Me: Did you see the baby sheep?
Alina: Those aren't baby sheep, Mommy, those are sweeties.

Hi Aunt Rhoda

Mom taped a video greeting from the girls for Aunt Rhoda while she was here. I don't think the fact that she bribed them with fudgecicles diminishes the sentiment in any way.

A Contrast at Disney

Vittoria's reaction to Tigger


versus Katie's and Mary's

Vittoria the Singer

Vittoria likes to sing. Here are some of her favorites that she sang while driving to and from Katie's recent soccer tournament.

Conversations with Mary

Vittoria, water does not speak English. Water speaks water language - sign language.

Halloween and new skirts

Alina wanted to be a necklace for Halloween. She said she would also wear a crown and be a princess. I failed miserably at the necklace portion (I even forgot to get one for her to wear with her costume!) Here she is at home, where we practiced putting on the costumes a few weeks ago. She was brave enough to wear the crown when we were at home.

Here is Ania the first time I put on her costume. She hated it!

She grew to like it after a few minutes.

Alina wanted some "dancing skirts", so Grandma was awesome enough to make some for both of the girls. They love them!

Here they are with their skirts on and some masks they made at Miss Jen's house.

We made a gingerbread Halloween house. That was fun. Ania liked the black frosting.

Alina also liked it, but gets much less messy while eating.

Here is Alina helping Grandma finish Ania's last skirt. They each have 3 beautiful dancing skirts now! Alina wears them every day. I had a parent teacher conference with her preschool last week, and when I told Alina I saw her teacher, the first thing she asked was "But did you tell her I got a new skirt??"

Here Alina is helping Tata rake the yard.

Here we are getting ready to go trick or treating! Alina chose a different dress for the actual Halloween event. She was not brave enough to wear the crown OR the shoes, but at least we talked her into wearing the dress. She did try to tell us right before we went trick or treating that she didn't want to be a princess anymore, she wanted to be Alina.

There was a parade in Little Ryan's neighborhood, so here we are getting ready for the parade.

Trick or treating. Ania loved that.

She got tired, though, so I got to carry her quite a bit. :)