Reading with Tio David

Uncle David came over to the house on their recent visit to Colorado. He came by to join us for Soccer Practice and we recruited him to read to the girls. They enjoyed having a new narrator. Both girls enjoyed reading with their uncle. Alicia couldn't just allow her sister to have all the attention. She made it a point to get into the middle of the action and to be the center of attention.

Thank you David for spending you evening with us, the girls had a blast and can't wait for the next reading session!

Blog Break

I did not expect summer to come to such an abrupt halt. With Adrianna starting preschool, the whole family starting Soccer, and the wonderful cool weather; Summer is gone and I have not had a chance to blog all the fun we've had.  I hope to catch up soon. So this blog will hopefully be inundated with new posts, just because I haven't blogged does not mean we haven't been keeping busy.

Diaper Loading

A friend of ours thought this was a fittingly geeky shirt for our daughter. I have to say I couldn't agree more, I love this shirt. Though I will say, we have been pretty lucky with Alicia as she only downloads once a day!

Thank you for the shirt Amy!!!!!

Kimonos

July 28th, 2008

Grandma & Grandpa Fedele recently went to Japan to visit their newest Granddaughter. They brought home these very cute pajama kimono outfits for the girls. They have a touch for finding perfect gifts, pretty much any adorable clothes for the girls or something with penguins for Sarah. They also found a cute glass penguin figurine, sorry no picture. Thank you so much for thinking of us while you were off on the other side of the world!

Thank you Dad!

Well Dad, the correcting you did of our English while we were growing up has paid off!

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test


English Genius


You scored 93% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 93% Expert!


For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

Our little menace

Alicia learned the potential fun of stuffing her onesie with blocks the other day. I recently put together a shoe organizer that used plastic connectors. It so happened that the set fully assembled had about 20 extra connectors, which Alicia thought were the best toys in the world. I noticed that she was jingling when she walked and soon realized that she was putting the connectors into her onesie. I shot this video of her in action. I especially love the little hip shake at the end of the clip!

Sky Sox

July 26th, 2008

As part of our church calling, as the Young Single Adult representatives for our ward, we joined the Singles for an evening at the Sky Sox Game. We enjoyed the game, Adrianna's favorite moment was meeting Sox the Fox, unfortunately this was probably Alicia's least favorite moment. Both girls especially enjoyed the company of the single guys. We enjoyed a night out as a family!

The best view of the game is of course on top of daddy's shoulders.

Chalk Art

We had Sarah's cousin Bobby over for dinner the other day. The girls always love when he comes over. This time it was nice enough to go outside to play and Adrianna had been dying to use her sidewalk chalk. Bobby showed her the fine art of body outlines. They had fun drawing outlines and other art on the patio. Alicia even had fun opening and closing the door, and playing in the play house.

Pizza Picnic

We started a tradition of late night dinners in bed with Adrianna when I was in school and would get out of class around 11 p.m. Now we reserve eating in bed to special pizza nights. We usually pick up a pizza at Little Ceasars, we make Root Beer floats, we cover the bed with a sheet, throw in a movie and enjoy! The girls love it, though Alicia usually bounces around more than she eats. It makes for a fun and exciting picnic!

8 Year Anniversary

Sarah and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary this week on the 22nd. I took the afternoon off and we went to lunch and a movie with everyone. Lunch at Olive Garden was nice and then we went to see Nim's Island at the dollar theater. Adrianna enjoyed the movie, Sarah and I tried our best at taking turns entertaining Alicia. Popcorn worked well, until she dumped it on the floor and tried to eat it from there.

We kept our Anniversary simple this year, we are enjoying our girls very much and neither of us could ask for anything more than to enjoy spending time as a family.

Tithing Lesson

We had my parents over for dinner on Sunday. Adrianna loves to have company over, especially her grandparents! Alicia didn't mind the extra arms to hold her either.
After dinner we had granddad teach a quick lesson on tithing. Adrianna's sunday school class was on tithing so we hoped to reinforce the lesson. When Adrianna learned that we are supposed to give back 1 out of 10 pennies of our income she had second thoughts. "My penny!" Given a choice between the one penny or the nine remaining she easily chose the 9. Adrianna is quite possessive of her pennies.

Dresses

We thought it would be cute to take pictures of the girls in their matching dresses. These were their Easter dresses for this year and they are so darling in them. Well, Alicia is pushing out several of her top teeth and she wants to be held non stop, especially when she is tired. As you can see in the bottom picture, she was not happy when we put her down to take a picture with her sister. She did fine when I held her!

As you can imagine she was quite a treat during church, she loudly expressed her opinion when mommy put her down to give her arms a break. I lucked out as I was asked to help out in one of the primary classes.

Sketti Face - Happy Face

The other day we had spaghetti, so we stripped Alicia down to her diaper and let her have at it. She love it, stuffing handfulls into her mouth and smearing her face with sauce. Adrianna told us that Alicia had a sketti face, afterwhich she said "sketti face is a happy face."

Alicia was perfectly happy with her sketti face until we had to clean her off. We thought about taking her whole chair outside and hosing her off, but we decided the sink would be a little more hospitable. Though she put up a fight at first, she had a great time splashing me from the sink.

Nacho night

July 8th, 2008

To celebrate Adrianna's "big girl" hair cut (she had about 4 inches cut from the back), we enjoyed some homemade nachos. Sarah has a wonderful recipe for nachos piled high with cheese, meat, tomatoes, green onions, olives, and sour cream. After dinner we enjoyed some banana slices (since the bananas are sliced we can't call them banana splits). Adrianna enjoyed everything so much she insisted on giving everyone high fives, which she exclaims: "give me five hands!!!"

Drum Corps

The Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps, have been practicing at the local high school for the past few nights. On Saturday morning Sarah and I woke up to their instrument tunning. We decided to take advantage of the cooler day and we walked down with the girls to watch some of their practice. Adrianna was absolutely amazed, we think that is partly because the Madison Scouts are an all boy corps. She loved the beat of the drums, the marching, and the "horns" and trumpets as she called them. Alicia wasn't so thrilled, she did not enjoy the noise as much, espeically the sharp chirp of the metronome. We really enjoyed watching them, next year we are going to plan on going to the competition they have in Denver.

Adrianna loved it so much that she insisted on going down Sunday also where they were practicing again before heading out to Albuquerque. Lets go see the "horns" daddy!

4th of July Weekend

This Fourth of July we spent most of the weekend with Sarah's cousins who were in town to celebrate her Aunt Carol's birthday.

On Friday we enjoyed homemade pizzas at her Aunt's house with her children and grandchildren. Aunt Carol has 14 grandchildren ranging from 3 to 17 years old. Adrianna was dreadfully shy at first but after about an hour she was running around with the gang hunting grasshoppers and enjoying each other. Alicia enjoyed the attention as she was the youngest little one there (and the cutest, in my opinion).

On Saturday we went to Bear Creek park to celebrate Aunt Carol's birthday. We were joined there by more of Sarah's cousins. We had a great time playing at the park with all of the kids. Alicia learned to enjoy the slide with some help from her cousins. She went from being deathly afraid to go down the slide with me to not being able to get her away from the slide before the evening was through. All of us had a lot of fun, thank you to everyone for inviting us.

New Blog Design

I decided to make some changes to our blog design, I found this template and fell in love with the picture of the girl in the header. It reminded me of Alicia at first glance. I hope everyone finds the new layout appealing.

Luau Birthday Party

Adrianna was invited to a friend's (Morgan's) birthday party to kick off our long 4th of July weekend. It was a "luau" party with several fun backyard water activities. Adrianna especially enjoyed the pool and the trampoline. I even got involved with the water gun fight. We all had a good time even though Alicia did not appreciate missing her morning nap. She did enjoy the cake and ice cream though! Thank you Morgan for inviting us!!

Little Biggs

A friend called Sarah Friday morning to say it was the Grand Opening of Little Bigg's and to get on over there, because it was free! (Thanks Melanie M)! She took the girls and invited other friends to join and they had a great time. Adrianna especially enjoyed the fire fighter area and the pizza. Alicia ate her own full slice of pizza. Definitely a fun way to spend zero dollars.

Cabinet Play

The girls recently discovered the best toy yet, a cabinet that they can both fit into! Some friends of ours gave us this microwave cart that we put in the dining room temporarily until we made room for it in the office as a craft area for the girls. It took the girls no time to discover a better use for the cabinet, a hiding place. Each takes her turn getting into the cabinet and allows the other to close them in. Adrianna has learned that Alicia isn't the most reliable at opening the cabinet back up, she usually wanders off after she closes her in.

4 Year Checkup

Adrianna had her 4 year old checkup recently, it is nice to only see the doctor once a year, lets see if we can keep it that way. Adrianna is in the 97th percentile for her height, and the 75th percentile for her weight for her age group, in other words she is very tall!!! She did have to get several shots which are so hard on mommy because she is perfectly still though she sobs through each one. But it didn't phase her too much as before we left the building she was climbing the walls as if nothing happened. She was quite proud of her "owwies" and bandages (so were we!).

Summer Fun!

Gas prices aren't the only things soaring this summer in our household. This summer has been incredibly fun filled so far, from birthday parties to playgroups, swimming and soccer, we have never been busier. We recently were called to be the Young Single Adult couple representatives in our ward, so we get to help out with some of their activites as well. A few weekends ago they had a water ballon activity/bar-b-q that was a lot of fun for all of us. We are looking forward to much more fun as the summer continues and we find ways to beat the heat. We are sure that with these two girls this summer and many summers to come will be packed with lots and lots of fun.

Good Mornings!

Mornings are very exciting times for Adrianna and Alicia, imagine being apart from your sister for about 12 hours. The first thing you want to do, of course, is to rush into your sister's room and give her a big hug. Adrianna comes into Alicia's room with a very sweet "Hello Baby" greeting. Then she loves to pick her sister up and twirl her around. Alicia's first stop in the morning is her sister's room where she just breaks into laughter. Even though we really aren't morning people we couldn't ask for a better way to start the day!

Adrianna's Birthday

June 14th, 2008

We celebrated Adrianna's 4th Birthday and my 32nd. We had a family lunch and then a few of Adrianna's friends came over to enjoy a soccer themed birthday party. Adrianna had a great time playing in the backyard, breaking the pinata, opening gifts, and eating cake with her family & firends. Sarah made a beautiful soccer cake, and she made me a delicious raspberry cake as well. We are very spoiled by our in home confectioner. We hope everyone had a fun time, we sure did!

1 Year Checkup

May 27th, 2008

Alicia hates going to the doctor, for the most part it means getting vaccines (no fun for parents or child). She is perfectly fine in the office until the doctor or nurse starts touching her, then she lets you know how she feels. It is too bad because our pediatrician is really great!

Stuffies

The other day we went into Adrianna's room to get her in the morning and we found these critters all dressed up and ready for bed. My favorite is the blue bear with just the pajama pant bottoms, but "Cookie" and "Coco" are pretty cute as well. Coco even had on a pair of soccer shorts, all set to play!

Pillow Walk!

Alicia has figured out how to walk around without falling onto the hard floor and bruising her diaper padded behind or her bare knees. She carries or scoots one of the couch pillows around with her. It is very cute; so for all you future walkers, here is a video of her technique.

Preschool Graduate!

I meant to post this some time ago, but I haven't gotten to it. I am way behind on the last several events. We didn't realize this until my older brother pointed it out to me for my birthday: we have three birthdays between Mother's Day and Father's Day. This make for a pretty crazy several weeks right at the beginning of summer.

May 21st, 2008

Here is Adrianna finishing her first year of Preschool. Sarah was part of a co-op of mothers who purchased a curriculum and took turns teaching the children. They finished the year at our house and Sarah did an excellent job teaching. It has been amazing to see Adrianna progress in her learning. She continues to amaze us with the things she picks up on. She is especially aware of personal relationships.

Our Preschool Graduate!