blogger isn't working for me. so to make it fast the kids LOVED Christmas. it snowed christmas eve. Aaron and Jordan were in heaven. they loved all of their pressents. we opened them saturday morning. on christmas day we gave our gifts to Jesus. We made a picture of baby Jesus and wrote down all month long their gifts to Jesus ( aka good choices). As I read all of them I was overwhelmed at what good kids I have. It's easy to remember all of the screaming, tantrums, teasing and so on that your kids do. I was instead reminded of all the GOOD that my kids do. What a great reminder for me too. I love these kids.

Christmas Eve we spent at aunt Ivana's and uncle Ivo's. Aunt Ivana is awesome with kids, kept them entertained and even dressed them up like Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas to all of you! I wish I could look each of you in the eyes, tell you how much I love you, and hope that you feel it as I give you a hug. Please accept it from our blog instead and know that I love you!

Keeping busy right before Christmas. The purse is for our little cousin Valentina, for Christmas. The other pictures are moments when my kids are playing "quietly" and this is what I find. The first one is Aaron and Jordan playing church. Jordan is standing on their table reading and talking about Jesus and Aaron was listening reverently.

The next ones are Aaron and Jordan sneakily taking a bite out of each piece of fruit. Then Aaron "sleeping" on his bed, he got down to his underware to do so. I didn't realize this until after I took his picutre. I asked what he was doing, and he told me "I'm a Lamanite mommy". Sigh. Glad you listen Aaron. :)

sticks and stones may break my bones but dirt will never hurt me

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but dirt will never hurt me... or something like that. My boys are SUCH boys! They love sticks and dirt just as much as they love the disney movie Cars. Girls are called girly girls, but what are boys called? Burly boys?

Yesterday was a rainy day. For the 15 minutes it didn't rain, Isabel happened to be taking a nap so I took the boys outside to ride their bikes. I stepped in the house to put something away and explicitly told my children not to go into the dirt because it was mud. 10 seconds later I found this.
I let them play for a few minutes in the mud, and then took off their shoes and coats before carrying them into the bathroom to wash off.

As I was carrying Aaron into the bathroom he happened to smear my face with these muddy hands. It made me laugh, and I had a good wash too.
My hormones are doing crazy things to me, and I was VERY GRATEFUL for this in the mail. Sunshine on a rainy day. Thanks Karla for always being so thoughtful!

getting ready for Christmas

I love these munchkins!
In a couple of days my baby will be 4 months old! I can't believe it. She has discovered her voice and it sounds a lot like screaming. Good practice for defending herself from her brothers right?
Today is a constant drizzle outside, but the last few days it's been unusually nice for winter. We played with the leaves in the yard, and quite a bit at the park.

This is such a Jordan face! He is quite the 2 year old.
And yet he has sweet moments that shine through his 2-year-oldness.

We're trying to get into the Christmas spirit. So we drew pictures of baby Jesus. Every day we write down our gifts for Jesus. Most of the them include: listening to mommy, not hitting when I was angry, reading scriptures.... They are both excited to give gifts to baby Jesus.

And thanks to Paolo's aunt and uncle that had extra Christmas stuff and we've put up our tree, and a nativity set.

Magnum mini

This post is dedicated to my friend Kati that told me about this wonderful ice cream bar that I used to eat on my mission that is now in the U.S. I found the "mini" box at the store here. I made Paolo buy it for me on a homesick day. It's about half the calories and fat, and still just as good. To all my Italian friends, I love the ice cream here!

Questa e` il mio amore!

Cute story about Aaron...

Italiano: Dopo chiesa cercavo devo sono finiti i miei bambini. Avevo Isabel in braccio. Apro la porta del nido e trovo Aaron con alcuni bambini piu grandi di cerca 8 anni. Appena che Aaron mi vede urla ai suoi compagni "ecco, questa e` il mio amore!" (riferendosi ad Isabel). Poi cerca di toglierla dal mio braccio per abbracciarla e baciarla. Che tenerezza che mi fa.

English translation: After church I went searching for my boys to see where they had run off to. I was holding Isabel while looking for them. I opened the door to the nursery and found Aaron playing with a few older boys (about 8 years old). As soon as he saw me and Isabel he yelled to his friends "hey look! It's my sweetheart!" (referring to Isabel). He then ran over to us and tried to grab Isabel from me to give her a huge hug and a kiss. What a sweet kid he is sometimes!
Isabel is 3 1/2 months and getting so big! This last week she got fat and I'm loving it. She's got rolls on her legs, and cleaning her with a diaper change is a little more complicated than before. She is still full of smiles, and she'll smile at anyone. Once in a while I have nostalgic moments when I wish she could gift those smiles on those I love because they really are the greatest gift I have everyday. I wish she would smile and coo at Karla, Reah, and Cyndi during R.S. I wish she could smile at little Tate when he walks past our house to pick up Page at the bus stop. I wish she could smile at the fun girls across the street- Leah and Eden. I wish she could smile and light up the room for my grandparents, my mom, my sisters.
A very nice sister from our ward went to the temple in Switzerland. There's a tiny store by the temple that sells church articles. She bought this puzzle for my boys knowing how much they LOVE to do puzzles. As I'm typing Aaron squeeled "oooooh. it's my puzzle!"

Aaron is growing up a little bit. His creativity is starting to sprout. He begged me for some spaghetti yesterday. So I gave him some dry noodles. And this is what he did with the half he didn't eat right away.
And a VERY RARE MOMENT of playing well by themselves on their bunk bed. I'll take whatever I can get.

helmets

Since we have our blue bike, we need a helmet for the break-neck speed rides down the hill. We found helmets for a super good deal- 5 euros each. The deal was only for one color. Since we got two and needed to distinguish between the two (to avoid a lot of fights), we used some really fun Disney stickers that our friend Karla had given us.
Can you tell that my boys are IN LOVE with Cars?!


Thanks Karla for the fun stickers. We put a lot of them to good use tonight!

The blue bike

A few random pictures of our last week. We found another park a 5-10 minute drive from our house. It is now known as the airplane park.

Jordan has taken up the passion of wanting to take pictures with my camera(kind of dangerous. I'm worried he'll break it.) This picture of me is one that he took.
I am starting to piece together an awesome lattice quilt for my bed. This is the middle section. I don't get very much sewing time, so it's slow coming. But it's fun to know I've done something.
This bike is one that we found outside a garbage bin. It works great. The next best thing to a good deal is something for free!!!! At least it was Paolo that was garbage digger and not me. :)

Nothing makes me happier than a good deal. I found a second hand store here. They aren't very common around here. I found an old blue bike for Aaron. It has awesome breaks, and the right amount of rust to be just perfect. As I watched him go up, and then come down I had a very scary realization that I desperately need to go buy a helmet and pads for this kid. We'll get that this week. Deal of the week: 12 euros! That'll lift anyone's spirits. :)

o

Italian Thanksgiving 2011

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday evening with friends from our ward in the ward building. We celebrated on Friday because it's not a holiday here, and it was easier to get everyone together on a Friday evening instead of in the middle of the school and work week.



Paolo cooked the turkey and I made the rolls. A little ironic since he's the baker, and I'm the American.
Young single adults, and 2 american families that ate with us.
The Smith's brought home made pumpkin pie. They made it all from scratch, including cooking and pureeing the pumpkin. Pulled it off well.
At the end our bishop dropped by. I handed my camera to one of our friends to take pictures for me. This is one that I found on my camera.
Aaron and Jordan were reasonably well-behaved considering they were up way past their bed time (my kids are in bed by 8 p.m. or earlier if I'm really lucky) and had more sugar than they get in a week. Aaron did get a bloody nose towards the end. After seeing this picture it's no wonder why.

Well, happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family. Know that I LOVE YOU!!!! Missed all of you.