Hello there

Well hello my long lost personal/family/life blog! I have come to revive you from the dormant state you have been in for about 9 months...YIKES! I am so sorry! Prep yourself for a long post, it's been a while!

So, not too many exciting updates really. I did start a craft blog that I love dearly called make.a.do, if you haven't checked it out yet you should! I'm having a lot of fun sharing the things I make and it is a super good outlet for me.

Siena is, and has been crawling for about a month and a half. She just barely started crawling on all fours and has since left her army/belly crawl in the dust. She is very social and a bit of a chatterbox, in comparison to my quiet little Gianni that is. She also eats EVERYTHING. Which is good and bad, especially bad on the days I don't vacuum. Gross. She loves to play with anything Gianni is, which creates a conflict most times, but it's cute to see how much she adores him.

Gianni just turned 3! Can you believe it?? I sure can't! We tried out preschool and he LOVES it, but we are holding off until next year for financial reasons. His fetish right now is airplanes. Everything is an airplane. Blocks stacked up with one sticking out the side, airplane. a piece of paper folded in half, airplane. This kid is so creative it baffles me sometimes. He is so imaginative its really fun to watch! Gianni has a best friend who he loves playing with, Paul, who lives right next door luckily :). HUGE deal, Gianni hasn't been sick for a while. I really think that living in this new place has brought us good health. We have only been super sick once and it was pretty fast!

Domenic is still working at Ernst and Young doing Audit. He is in busy season right now for audit which means that most days he leaves before 7:30 and isn't home until 10, and if he gets home by 8 and is able to see the kids for a half hour before they go to bed we are thanking our lucky stars. Being a single mom for the majority of my time is difficult, and Domenic really wished it weren't that way. With the economy still in a slump, we TRY to remind ourselves of how lucky we are to even have a job. Even though the hours are terrible, and the pay is worse, we are hoping that sticking it out will have lasting benefits for our future.

I hope everyone reading this is doing well! Sorry for such a delay. I'm trying to be better about keeping everyone updated :)

Pictures to come, I have reached my threshold with Siena and she is yelling at me for attention. Check back :)

Hand, foot, mouth virus

Somehow Gianni ended up with the horrible hand, foot, mouth virus. I had heard of it before but honestly didn't know what it entailed. Oh boy this thing is a nasty virus to say the least. It starts with a high fever 101-103 and then the poor kid reals out in a blistery rash all over his body, mainly on the feet, hands and inside the mouth as the name states.

Lucky for Gianni the rash in his mouth is mild in comparison to that of feet and body, the mouth rash is supposed to be terribly painful. But, anyone who knows Gianni knows he hates having anything abnormal on his skin, be it a spec of dirt, small scab, anything abnormal so he is really freaking out about these blisters. We try to keep socks on him so he doesn't spread the virus and so it's out of sight, out of mind. He tends to freak out less when he can't see them.

Be warned, the pictures below are kind of gross but I thought I would document so everyone could get an idea of what life is like for Gianni right now.

So at the moment I am praying like crazy that Siena doesn't catch this highly contagious virus and am doing everything in my power to wash hands, disinfect, and keep Gianni away from his sister, not an easy task.

On the plus side, that cute little girl down there is one month old today! I can't believe it. We love her so much and she is growing like a weed. We still can't figure out who exactly she looks like but we sure think she's a cutie :)

Rawer

I thought I would share a few pictures that made me smile. Gianni got this tiger hat from his grandpa mark who had brought it home from a business trip.

The first time I saw Gianni wear it he growled at us and kept saying "rawer" over and over again to "scare" us. Of course we just thought it was adorable but pretended to be scared anyways.

One day Gianni decided he wanted to wear it around the house which is rare because he hates wearing hats, but not this day.

He loved it so much he even fell asleep with it on. He is so silly.

Playing dress up

I know that dress up is usually a girl thing, but let's be honest, Gianni has a lot of girl influence these days. Between me, his grandma Leila, aunt yaya, and play dates, the majority of his options are women. So, it was no surprise when Gianni begged to play with my jewelry box. What I didn't expect was for him to actually put things on, and in the right places. He ended up with a necklace, ring, bracelet (ok the "bracelet" is actually a late hoop earing but it fit his wrist perfectly), and rechargeable battery? What that was doing in my jewelry box I'm not sure... But one thing I do know:

Man I love this boy.

Target, Gianni style

The other week we went to target (our favorite store) which is a frequent occurance for us. Usually I am fighting Gianni to stay sitting in the shopping cart and bribing him with a small toy or treat so I can get through my shopping trip without meltdowns.

This particular day we had aunt Nicia with us (who Gianni lovingly calls "yaya") so he had a bit more freedom. So we enter the store and what do I expect? Gianni running rampant through target pulling everything off the shelf and loosing him. What he actually did surprised me.

How to shop Gianni style at target: (1) get a shopping basket (2) run over to the purse section and grab the brightest colored purse he can find. (3) place purse on shoulder (4) hit up the dollar spot, full his basket with toys, socks, etc.

As cute and hilarious as it was to see him copycat what he perceives as a normal shopping trip, I could not get his fingers off that basket or purse for the rest of the shopping trip, which prolonged the experience significantly, but man was it adorable.

Birthday pictures Part 2

We decided to throw Gianni a little birthday party with a few friends and family the day after his birthday because Saturdays just work better for most people. It was really fun! I made invites on Photoshop with a little train on them saying "choo-choo Gianni is two" and we threw him a little choo-choo train party. It went about how you would expect a two year old party to go, kids running wild around the house while the adults munched and chatted. Gianni had a blast and I couldn't have asked for anything else.

Unexpectedly we got some snow, which Gianni was very excited about. He spent most of the earlier part of that day gazing out the window saying "s-NO!"

 All bundled up

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Checking out the white stuff

 At the party

 Gianni's little cousin Brody, he loves to play with this kid!

 Party food

 Our friends Loren and Kyle's little cutie Cole, can you believe he is 7 months?!

 Brody's little sister "bella" (isabella), riding Thomas the train!

 Brody helping Gianni hold down the button that makes it go.

 Playing mini Foosball

The two little babes, so cute!

Present time! 

New "choo-choo" train :) Thanks aunt "Ya-Ya" (Nicia)

Yay! A talking Lightning McQueen! (Thanks Angelina and Ty!)

Brody was a very good helper when it came to unwrapping presents :)

His first tricycle! Thanks Uncle Justin

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Big boy truck from grandma and grandpa Sanelli! He loves this thing although it took about 4 grown men to put it together it was worth the wait :)

Mooostache!

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The things he learns...

...from the "responsible" adult figures around him. (don't worry, his wasn't actually punctured, so no helium was inhaled)

Late birthday pictures Part 1

Sorry about the delay, we have been sick for the past 2 1/2 weeks and are slowly recovering, and I feel terrible not having posted pictures sooner of Gianni's 2nd birthday! But here they are, better late than never I guess :)

These first set of pictures are from January 13th, his actual birthday. We semi celebrated that day, but had a party planned for the following day, so we just had a chill day. I made his favorite breakfast (bacon, o.j., and crepes with berries), then later we took him out for a birthday dinner, opened presents, let him watch his favorite movie (cars aka lightning McQueen), had a birthday cupcake, then off to bed :)

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Yay! A new big boy potty! Thanks mommy and daddy! (now, are you ready for some embarrassing pictures?

So happy to be sitting on his big boy potty... 

...and that is about all he did on it.

 So excited to blow out the candle

Enjoying the yummy cupcake

 the remnants 

 Presents!

 Snazzy new church clothes

 Yay more toys!

Cool new skateboard! Thanks Grandma Horne for all the awesome presents!

I also have a super cute video of Gianni singing happy birthday to himself with us, but I can't get it to upload :(