Thanksgiving weekend photos

This is a great picture.
Back row: My grandmother Leota, my mom Elaine, Me
Front row: my sister Melanie, my daughter Gioia. Its 4 generations. We actually still have 5 generations. My great great Aunt Roberta is alive, but not able to make it to the baptism. I will try to take a new 5 gen. picture at Christmas.


Dominic got out of the shower and M told him to say he was a Pharaoh.



Here is Dave and Jackie with baby Luca. They are his godparents. We miss them and hope some day they can move back to Kansas. They are in New Mexico right now, Dave is military.


Gioia playing in grandma Mira's back yard.

Life doesn't get much better than this.

I am feeling really blessed today.

This weekend we went to the Inlaws for Thanksgiving. We stayed with my Mother in law and she cooked up a feast, complete with my pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. The family got to cuddle the baby. Gioia got to have a sleepover with her cousins. She is getting so big. Then we went to my brother in laws for our nephews baptism. Later on Saturday we had Luca's baptism. My mom, grandma, sister and friends came. It was very special. My friend Jackie and her husband Dave were the godparents. Later we went out for dinner at Johnny Cascones. Today the kids are playing in the first snow of the year. They are having a blast!

So I saw all of our family and some good friends this weekend. It is really awesome. I have such a great family and beautiful kids. :)

Cuteness.

Here are the new pictures of the day. I am having a lot of fun with my camera.

FINISHED!!

I am so excited. I am finished with my brothers quilt for Christmas. It is the star quilt-a-long quilt. I think I posted the finished top a long time ago. Well it is quilted and I did the binding. Thanks to my friend Mandy R. She helped me learn the easy and quick whipstitch. It worked really fast and looks nice. So I finished all the binding in just the weekend. I will take pictures tomorrow and post them. I hope he really likes it. I have to say it is the best job I have done on a quilt. I think from now on it will get a lot easier. So check back to this post for pictures of my awesomeness. :)

Birth video - Rated G - :)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

10 year college anniversary.

Wow. When did I get old? I mean I don't feel old, but I must be. In December it will have been 10 years since I graduated from college. 1o! Holy smokes! So in honor of that, I will be putting up some cheese posts in the next week. I will start it out with a couple top ten lists.

First off. Top Ten songs of my college days.

1. Closing Time - Semisonic
Ah yes. Lucky's bar used to play this at, you guessed it, closing time.
2. Down - 311
My roommate Stephanie was dating a guy who went to school with 311. So i listened to them before they were even popular.
3. Hypnotize - Biggie Smalls
Memories of busting a move at the Outback bar. *My car go 160 - swiftly - wreck it by a new one -your crew run run run - your crew run run*
4. Why don't we get drunk and screw - Jimmy Buffett
HA HA Oh the many many nights spent at Mollys bar with my NW Aggie friends. Those cowboys could dance. *Wrangle butts drive me nuts*
5. So Much to Say - Dave Matthews Band
Gosh how I love DMB. Been to DMB concerts every chance I get. Also this reminds me of some really good friends, Chicago and some really sweet parties.
6. Shooting Star - Bad Company
This is an older song, but I will always remember we were blasting it at 2am one time when the cops came to my house. All I got was a peace disturbance ticket *that time*.
7. Watermelon Crawl - Tracy Byrd
Thursday nights at the Outback was Country night. We used to go and line dance, swing dance etc. I was quite good. The best thing I remember is my good friend Jackie (who is short) and our friend Red who is like 6'2" and they would swing. They were awesome.
8. Meet in the middle - Diamond Rio
Saw Diamond Rio in concert on campus my freshman year.
9. Intergalatic - Beastie Boys
Minnesota. Mel and I spent a summer in MN. I had an intership with a pig farm. She came with me. We lived in a camper at a campground and partied up MN for the summer. Wow. Lots went on in a short amount of time.
10. Smoke Two Joints - Sublime
Well this is my blog right? Not gonna beat around the bush. We had some fun and some run-ins with the police as well. Still crack up at this song.

Fun pictures.

Cooking with Gioia. We made chocolate sugar cookies. Cut them out into shapes and used the cookies for making ice cream sandwiches. MMM! It was great.


New Luca picture.

The wind did it.

So one of the big points of this blog are to log things about the kids. Here goes.

Lately when something happens that Gioia thinks might get her in trouble, the wind did it. The wind and air pushed Dominic down. The wind tied her shirt to the shade. We were having a lieing problem for a while, so know it has changed to stories. I am ok with it. A friend and I were talking and this is kids saying what they wished was the truth. If it is something like pushing or hurting people I let her know that the wind and air might have to have a time out. It usually stops. Otherwise we talk about what the wind could do to make it better, or fix it. Then she will usually do it herself. Gioia aka "the wind". HA HA!!

Dominic: He has this funny thing he has been doing. If he is talking to me and I am busy, or he wants me to tell him something he will shout, "Mom speak English." Only it is said, Mom speak En-ga-lish. It cracks me up.

Clearance sales.

Every year after Halloween I plan to go and get cheap costumes for my kids to use as dressup clothes. Every year I forget and its too late. NOT THIS YEAR! Oh yeah. My friend posted that she got costumes for $3.00 each at Walmart. So I went there and they were 75% off. Thats right, I got complete costumes for $1.00 each. I bought 5. DH went back later in the day and bought 8 more. We had to get 2 Ninja Turtle ones because they both wanted it. The others are going to be Christmas and Birthday gifts. So they are hid in the basement. Here is D in his Ninja Turtle outfit.

Mama backpack

So, my old diaper bag is boring to me. Also it is kind of big and bulky. The final straw was that the zipper doesn't work anymore. Perfect excuse for a new one, right? Well all the ones I like are insanely expensive. SOOO. I made my own mama backpack. It is pretty cool. I used some Michael Miller fabric. I also put a pocket on the inside with velcro. I plan on using this as a diaper bag/purse combo. Really I only carry a couple diapers, changing pad, wipes and 1 outfit for baby. Purse wise, I only carry wallet, checkbook, phone and keys. My brother gave me a little clutch purse for Christmas last year. I think I can fit most of my things in there and just throw it in this bag. It has drawstring cord to close and carry. I got the pattern from this blog. Backpack Tutorial

Scrappy Trips baby quilt

I finished it! YEAH! The story behind this quilt was that i was going to make it for Dominic. However after about 6-8 blocks I decided that i didn't like it. I wasn't enjoying making it so I stopped. Recently I found the blocks and thought, Well I have enough for a baby quilt, might as well do that. So I finished it for Luca. Now I look at it and I LOVE it. It is also the first quilt that I did binding on and the first quilt I did free motion.

It is called Scrappy Trips Around the World. Got the instructions here. http://www.quiltville.com/scrappytrips.shtml




Here is a picture of the quilting I did on it. I did a scrolling leaf pattern. You can click on the picture to see it up close. Then the back is a yellow flannel with frogs on it. Nice and soft.

More halloween stuff.

Here are a couple pictures taken on Halloween night. I love my (wig) hair! Funky mama!

Pirate and Kitty.

They look so Serious! HA HA! Not like they are ready to bust out the door to get some candy. We generally let them have a couple pieces. Then the next day or so we let them choose a few pieces to keep and the rest we give away or one year we traded it for a toy.