A little glimpse of Italy

We are having a great time but are anxious to get home...I'm missing the little ones. I keep seeing all these cute little girls eating gelato and makes me miss my bella and gabby. Anyway, we have walked our feet off and have seen so much great stuff...we are also having a lot of problems with the internet here so here are just a few...

ponte vecchio

Mom and I climbed about 480 stairs to get to the top of the Duomo

Duomo in the back

wine tasting in San Gimi

The Colosseum today

The Girls' First Baseball Game

Well as many of you may know, mommy is on vacation in Italy. Aunti Miriam flew in to AZ to spend time with the girls. Saturday evening, the girls were able to go to their first baseball game.



Thank you Papa T for our new DBacks Jerseys!!!
Bella, Gabby, and Aunti getting ready for the game to start.

Bella and Gabby couldn't go to their first game and not get a hot dog. Thanks Granna and Pappa for making the girls game memorable!!!

The girls even got a game ball from one of the San Diego Padre players...
The girls were not so much into the baseball game, rather the food and playing in the seats.



Gabby was a tropper, but ready to go to bed when we left.

Climbing a tree

Saturday morning we had breakfast for Nana's 60th birthday. The night before we ended up going to the hospital for what we thought was blood in Gab's diaper...turns out it was a side effect of a medication. Anyway, the girls went tree climbing and loved playing with the bark.

Next posts will be from Italy!!!

Makeup, Swimming and Football

The girls seem to be growing up so fast. The other morning Gabby wanted my powder, so she took it, said "Thank you" and then proceeded to put it on the bathtub and put it on perfectly...she just picks up things so fast. Now when I say let's change your diaper she'll go grab one and then lay down on the floor next to the wipes.

Bella has learned to swim!! She's not a fish but she'll go a few strokes by herself. Joel took her to swim lessons two weeks ago and she cried the whole time (which is rare) she said there were dolphins in the pool. The next day we went over to Papa & Nana's and she was holding her breath across the big step from one end to the other, then she started swimming from Steph to Chad to Me. So last week at swim she did it! Her teacher was so proud! I'm going to try and get a video this weekend.

I just loved Gabby's hair in this picture :)

Bella has been having fun in the bathroom...and I always worry since the dish rag down the toilet incident a few weeks ago. The other day I walked in and she had made a beard of bubbles. That night she also put a whole roll of toilet paper and was trying to flush it. Luckily it was all still on the roll so it wouldn't go down. What is it with little ones and toilets?!?

It was picture day at school this week. She wanted to wear a dress and I sent clothes that matched Gabby's to change into...but I don't think that happened. I guess I'll see when I get the pictures. She did let me curl her hair.
Gabby is just sprouting up and can now reach the handle to Nana's snack closet.

Eating some of Papa's popcorn.

She is starting to love purses like her big sister...getting ready to go to church! I love this little leopard dress.

It is football season and the girls have quite the Ohio State wardrobe. Gabby even says OH-IO.

Gabby wanted to snuggle with her sister.

A funny story - I said "Oh Crap" the other day when Michigan was coming back to win the Notre Dame game. Bella quickly responded "Mommy don't say crap", I said "Crap is not a bad word" and she reprimanded once again "Mommy I don't want to hear that out of mouth again"

Things have been insanely busy like usual, but I helped mom raise money for one of our pastors whose wife is battling her 4 time with cancer. We held a silent auction and benefit concert and raised almost $20K. It was a little bitter sweet as my great uncle passed away the night before the concert from prostate cancer. We went to the memorial service today. I am always fascinated by what my grandparents and their siblings have gone through and how much has changed in the world in the past 80 years.

Bella went to the dentist for the first time and she sat so still and got great xrays. Her teeth were great (I was worried since there are so many article of little ones having more cavities these days from sippy cups), but they were nice and white. She also had a recheck at the ENT and I was hoping the other tube had fallen out. It hadn't but the ear that did wasn't looking great. She had no cold symptoms and it was infected, so it looks like she will be getting a new set of tubes in a few weeks. I thought I may be able to hold off on them, since we do allergy testing I figured if she had allergies I could give her allergy drops and it may help, so we tested her yesterday and not one allergy...so off to get tubes. We tried to do Gabby to maybe help her wheezing but we couldn't find a vein so after two pokes we decided to scratch test her on Monday. She started on some more meds so I'm hoping in a few days they will kick in and start helping her wheezing...and that she will have allergies and the drops will help and she won't end up with asthma...here's hoping.

Work and life just hasn't seem to slow down since the beginning of the year. I keep thinking I'll get some reprive but it hasn't happened yet. Mom and I go to Italy next week and I am looking forward to being far away to reflect and re-energize. Many things have happened with our family lately and I think getting away will help gain a new perspective as I am emotionally just drained. I am thankful that Auntie is coming to watch the girls. I will miss them (and Joel) but we have set up Skype so I should be able to talk & see them through the computers. We already practiced Skyping Granna and Pappa last weekend.

Sorry this was so long (that's why I put all the writing at the end).

videos...finally got them uploaded

So I know it's taken me forever to get these up here...but here they are. Gabby one night kept playing music on her toy and dancing and giggling. When it stopped she would go over and hit the button again.

Bella made up a new song the other day...

Gabby singing/doing Rock-a-bye Baby

Gabby's ritual of "Night, night"

Today I tried to catch Gabby saying "cracker" and "cookie" and "please" her new words