collection from last week

for those who need even more of a video fix. here is a collection of short films produced by yours truly starring lucciano and giavanna, a dynamic sibling duo.

let me set the scene: luca created a bedroom with the dining room chairs. he then read gia "books" (newspaper ads and mail), then took a short nap, only to repeat over and over.

oh yeah, and the camera sat on the arm of the couch and table, cause luca stops all activity when i pull it out these days.

dippin'

just cause my girl is cute.




oh, and isn't the fourth circle amazing? if you don't recognize the song in the background, you need to go to here.

she's getting married. . . so we had a party!

sunday afternoon, a house full of ladies gathered to honor our dear friend and sister karen and shower her with love, gifts, food. . . quilt squares. above, karen and her matron of honor jen ooh and ahh over a gift.

the centerpieces i made also served as the gifts for the games, etc.

pat (karen's mom) was the queen of the clothespins.

our box full o' fabric for her to someday use for quilting. we all signed a square for her to keep. (i had this idea in mind for her shower for almost 3 years.)

the littlest hart

nicolas william was born last tuesday, april 22nd. everyone is healthy and home. this is one of our first glimpses of our brand new nephew and cousin. congratulations jason and michelle!

just a sampling

luca has begun the very adorable, very exhausting phase of asking a "why" question every couple seconds. no joke. he will seriously ask me one question after another for 5 minutes straight. he pays attention to every answer and usually has a follow-up (or 20). here are some from this week:

why dey make chips?
why my an eaterstein?
why my like hummus?
why gia a climberstein?
why the sky blue?
why there clouds in the sky?
why my pick you a flower?
why is flaco meowing?
why the flag winding (flapping in the wind)?
why food gives me energy?

(we started adding the suffix "stein" to our nicknames for the kids recently and luca loves it. now, everytime he describes himself or gia he adds it also. i.e. gooferstein, climberstein, tooterstein, cuddlerstein. . .)

papa george

last sunday, we brought the kids (luca, gia, and cameron) to a local greek restaurant that came highly recommended. deservedly so. yummy goodness was had by all at papa george, my dolmades and lamb meatballs, gia's mousaka, cam's spanakopita, jesse's pork chops and potatoes, and luca's water with ice and lemon and the occasional piece of pita bread poached off my plate. oh and the crusty warm bread with tapenade (greek version of chips and salsa)! my only complaint is that they did not offer hummus and pita on the kids menu (we were committed to ordering off of it for the little 'uns as they eat free on sundays). this is luca's fave food in the world (seriously he wants it every day for lunch and dinner and snacktimes in between).

jesse with a mouthful!

gia grabbing some food off papi's plate.

my boys chillin'

gia chowin' on a grilled red pepper

the remnants of my meal (aka my lunch on monday)

i guess she was just a bit tired

halfway home

with all the busyness of moving to champaign and settling into life here, i realized recently that i never blogged about our new house. yes, folks, if you have been living under a rock, or just maybe haven't heard from us personally, we found a house the week we moved here. we saw it with our realtor the day it came on the market and put a full price offer on it that evening because it was excellently priced and just what we were looking for. the next day two more offers came in on the house before ours was accepted/rejected, so we upped our offer slightly and got the good news late thursday night. the biggest catch about the sale was that we could not close until june 2nd. that seemed like such a long time to be in waiting and live out of boxes. well, we can excitedly say that we are halfway through this waiting period. almost six weeks down and just six weeks to go. the second half should go quick - one of my dearest friends is getting married mid-may and with the shower and all other bridesmaid responsibilities, plus making the wedding cake, oh and don't forget being a full-time mama to two crazy kids, i think the weeks will fly by.

e-mail me if you want the link to the house tour and more pics.

gia's new hangouts part two or the gia monkey comes to town

i am so tired as i wait for these videos to upload, so my only written explanation is that my daughter is now a crazy climbing machine. she can be found standing on the rocking chair in her room swaying it back and forth like a daredevil learning to surf or on the couch leaning precariously over the arms trying to grab cat tails or best yet, standing on the middle of the dining room table playing memory with luca. i have been telling people about this for the last week and decided to get videographic (word?) proof this afternoon. i seriously will walk away for 15 seconds and turn around to find her perched up high - the girl is crazy fast.

shake rattle and roll

so did anyone else wake up a little before 5am this morning cause they felt their house shaking? when i groggily asked jesse what the noise and movement was, he told me, "it's just flaco." made sense at the time. well, i guess you can tell how crazy our cats can be at night if we mistake an earthquake for their shenanigans.

new photos

i uploaded new photos to my picasa web album. a big thanks to our friend tracy for taking these the day we moved.

example

i have not been as present in the blogosphere as usual. the move, the serious case of strep that jesse and luca had last week, fatigue from my new exercise routine (joined a gym - yeah!), or lack of motivation.

well, still not much i have the time/energy to say/write. here are a couple little videos though. it is an excellent example of the relationship between luca and gia at this stage in their lives. they love to make each other laugh and play simple games. but then luca gets overexcited and a bit rough, gia starts whining and crying, luca retaliates with even rougher play, gia wants me to hold/rescue her, and then luca usually acts out by throwing/hitting something (in this case grabbing the camera lens - a big no-no as he knows).

no babies were harmed in the making of these videos. in case you get worried gia might topple over the edge of the chair (mom) - i had my hand on her most of the time and she did not fall off.

happy birthday papi

today was jesse's 31st birthday and as his present luca and gia slept in until 8:45am! woohoo! (well, luca was awake about 20 minutes earlier singing his wake-up songs - basically him saying his name, our names, gia's name, his toys, or anything else that comes to his three year old mind in a singsong voice.) we enjoyed panera tapas for breakfast (a tasty selection of savory and sweet pastries), visited the u of i hort club flower show, slept the afternoon away, and finished out the evening with dinner at dos reales and banana-chocolate cake at home (then watched some masterpiece theater after the babes went down - crazy kids we are, right?)

gia's new hangouts

if my shadow (aka gia) is not around, i can find here in one of two places. first i look in the laundry room, to make sure she is not eating cat food or throwing things in the litter box - she sits in the dark waiting for the cats to show up. secondly, and more frequently, i go to the bathroom and find her sitting on her big brother's potty chair. she just sits there and smiles. probably realizing that we spend a lot of time with luca in there and she is not part of that action. gia does not enjoy being left out. (nobody puts baby in the corner.)