Gorilla bars..

Thats right. Gorilla bars, aka Granola bars. Gioia insists that they are "Gorilla bars" and she even corrects me when I say Granola bars. We made some today. Dh wanted me to try it with less flour, to make them more granola and less cereal bars. Uh... they taste good, but do not stick together properly. Oh well. They are yummy none the less. Gioia is also having a great time pretending she is Wendy and playing Peter Pan. She even uses the English accent and all that, calling him "Pete-ah". It is really cute. She has also been a Mouse this week.

I went to the dentist again, and he fixed my temporary crown a little more. I hope it helps it feel better. i really do NOT want to have a Root Canal.

Saturday we are having our homemade version of Lets Dish at my house. We are making 6 meals (3 meat, 3 veggie) and then we freeze them. It should be fun.

My beautiful lunch.

I made a beautiful tasty pizza. It had whole wheat crust, tomato sauce, sausage, spinach, red pepper, cheddar cheese and a delicious Garlic cheese from Whole Foods. It was so beautiful I took a picture of it! :)

Free at Last! Praise God I am free at last!

WOO HOO!! I just closed and cut up my discover card! i have carried a balance on it since 1998. How embarassing....

It has a zero balance and it is NO MORE!!! *happy dance**

Love Shrek!

This is too cute not to blog about. So Gioia is singing the song "Love Shack". It goes "Love Shrek, hhmmmm hmm Love Shrek" "Your what? Henrooo busted. Love Shrek baby Love Shrek!"

HA HA!!!

We went to Pump It Up for playtime today. It was soo fun. The kids love it and Dominic is big enough to do it himself. So that is nice for me.

Paths that cross.

I always find it interesting when you are on a path and you keep running into others on the same journey as you. It makes me wonder....are they put there to help us, for us to feel not alone, or were they there the whole time but we are just now noticing them? Case in point. Tonight we had to wait up late for a guy to come get paperwork about a car we sold them. We sold the car 2 weeks ago and my husband said it was a college kid. Turns out, it is a 17 year old. He came with his dad to get the papers and the subject got around to the fact that they are a homeschooling family. Awesome! So we had a good chat about that. We will probably run into this family again. And I knew it! I told my husband after they left, "I knew they were my people!" He just laughed. The dads name is Smoky, he had a rice pack (that he heated in my microwave) for his neck, they said they gave their other car to a family that didn't have one, Ok... you do the math.

Caterpillar Picnic

Today was a beautiful day. We had Gioias Dance class, then we just played outside all day. It was great. The kids dug in the dirt all day outside. Gioia found a caterpillar, earthworm and we saw a lot of birds.

Mean mamma!

So today we are at the Sprint store, trying to get my phone fixed. They finally tell me that they have to order a new one. Fine. It will be here Friday. UGH!! Ok...whatever. So i say Ok kids time to go. Dominic doesn't want to go. He wants to run around the Sprint store. I scoop him up and start to carry him out and he is screaming. So I jokingly say Oh I'm such a Mean Momma! Dominic replies "MEE MOMMA, MEE MOMMA!"

Then I got him to say Nice momma. And he will also say NIce Do-ah (Gioia).

My Mouf is numb....

UGH! I had to have dental work done today. An old filling out and a crown put on. All in all it wasn't that bad. For the first time ever it didn't hurt to get the numbing shots. My dentist has a little thing that vibrates when he injects you and it didn't hurt at all. Only took him a few minutes to get my old mercury filling out, and an hour total to do all the work. It was pretty good. My whole right side of my face was numb. Now the numb has wore off, it hurts! AAGHH!! :( It also hurt my pocketbook to pay for it. Dang!! I have to go back in two weeks to have the permanent crown put on.

My phone is also dead. I am not sure what happened, I suspect one of my kids. I took it in today to get it fixed. I will know more tomorrow. Its a new phone, GRRR! At least I have the warranty plan on it.

Splish, Splash I was taken a bath...

A mud bath. We had The Great Park Swap Playdate on Wed. This consisted of everyone bringing their stuff that was for sale or trade, and the rest of us going through it. I got rid of a bag of clothes and box of toys. The kids played while the moms swapped. It was great, about 15 families came. It was not so great for two kids. First our friend Riley fell in the mud puddle and soaked her pants and shoes. Then Dominic fell in whole body. He got his face muddy. His clothes were soaked. He was VERY sad. It was only about 50 outside that day. Too cold for a wet baby. He was crying for nursing and shaking. I stripped him as fast as I could and everyone found some swap clothes for him to wear and a dry diaper. Then he got his nursing and I held him the rest of the playdate. He was done playing. I felt really bad about the whole deal. They also had a port-a-potty there. Gioia decided she wanted to wait till we got home, and she did.

We got some short chapter books at the Library today. I thought we could read them before bed a few chapters every night. Gioia had other plans. We already read one 60 page book today. She wanted to do that instead of play outside. So we read the book outside while D played in the grass. :)

Here are some new beautiful pictures taken by Uncle Jay.

Driving the farm truck.

So Gioia got to drive a truck for the first time. Yeah, so what if she is only 3.5 years old. :) She went to chore and feed hay with her Uncle John. He let her sit on his lap and steer. Then when they were feeding the hay he was on the truck bed throwing hay off, while she drove alone. OK...city folks, don't have a heart attack! This is how it works. You have a stick shift pickup and you drop it into 4 Low and 1st gear. It with idle along by itself at a speedy 1 mile an hour, without giving it any gas. My dad has several times put the truck in gear when he was alone and tossed bales off, then stepped back in the truck. It is THAT fast. LOL. Anyway, Gioia thought she was the big stuff. It is really cute. Also we will ignore the fact that she is neither in a carseat or seatbelt, because they are 1 mile from home and in the field. Barring any freak tornado or lightening strike I believe she pretty safe.

What else have we done this week? Well DH started his new job. It is fine, he says, its a job. The weather has been beautiful so we are playing outside a lot. We planted some seeds for our garden. We have zucchini, carrots, okra, cucumbers, cantaloupe, peppers and green beans. We will also do tomatoes but not from seeds. Tonight is my MNO and Cooking Club. Thanks to the Lets Dish and Cooking Club, I haven't had to meal plan for 2 or 3 weeks. It is very nice!

1st cavity?

Yesterday was beautiful! It was 70 degrees, we had to go to dance class, grocery shop and then take Dominic to the dentist. I thought I saw a little cavity on his front tooth. Turns out he has 2 cavities! One on each front tooth. Needless to say I feel like a crappy mom. I feel like I let this happen, or didn't brush his teeth enough. It was also interesting because I had to call around and find a dentist that did Pediatric Dentistry. My usual dentist doesn't do it. I had no idea it was a speciality. I see why though. It is a skill to work on those wiggly, little ones. Anyway, i talked to a friend and then to my mom and they both calmed me alot. My mom had some good points that she had tons of cavities as a kid, my stepdad had none until his 30's. Everyone is just so different. I guess my little guy is going to be more prone to it that some people. My husband also brought up a good point that his teeth could be weaker because he used to grind his teeth a lot, and often. So who knows the cause. But you can bet I am going to be diligent with the brushing and flossing for the kids now. 1st cavity is not something I wanted to put in the baby book. Geez.

Well today we spent the morning at the mall. It was fun. Gioia meet a little friend. I think he was black, maybe Middle eastern as well because his mom had an accent I couldn't pinpoint. They were playing at the Children's Place (clothing store) in the hat bin. She had a big purple one on and he had a big orange one on. I wish I would have had a camera with me. It was cute. Then later he was at the Play area with us and they were inseparable. It was cute. I think he said he name was Marcel. Gioia said when we got home his name was Cella. :)

This past weekend we went to Iowa to visit our my husbands family. It was fun. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins.

My husband is still not starting his new job yet. Thank god we are still getting paid from Sprint. He was supposed to start on Feb. 19th, then it was going to be the 26th, now *sometime* this week. Damn Government! Get off your ass and finish his paperwork so we can make some money already!!

Finished painting!!

Finally we are finished painting and have the curtains hung. It looks so nice in our house now! I feel like a really family lives here, not some college kids with misc. stuff. Here are the pictures.
I had a GREAT helper.

Passport photos

Took the kids to get their Passport photos today. It was quick and painless. Now I hope the application is painless and comes back quickly as well. We have to go do it this week because DH is off work and BOTH parents have to be present in requesting the passport. This is for security reasons that one parent doesn't get a Visa and run off with the kids. I understand that completely. We had them done at Walgreens and it was 8 bucks each. No biggie.

The kids have had little colds, Gioia ran a fever last night but is feeling fine today. I hope to get some more of the painting finished today. We hung up the patio curtains yesterday and I can't wait to hang the living room curtains after the painting is done. WOO HOO! It looks so nice. Dominic did not nap yesterday, but I REALLY want him to nap today so I can paint! Or read my book and have some mommy down time. Dominic was singing this morning. He is so sweet! We are still battling his eczema but it is getting better. It is so hard to get rid of in this dry weather. It is sunny and 50's today. Gioia played outside, but got really muddy from all the melted snow.

Let's Dish!

Today myself and a group of mom friends went to Let's Dish! It is a place where you go to make meals that are freezer ready. The staff already has the ingredients cut up and ready for you. You simple follow the recipe, dump it in the freezer bag or aluminum pans and go. I paid for 8 meals, got a 9th for free with coupon, and we got free chocolate cakes for having a party of 12 or more. It was awesome! Here is the website for more info.... http://www.letsdish.com/ It took us exactly 2 hours to put all the meals together. FUN!!

Gioias new hair

You lucky people. Get to see all kinds of new things these days! New paint, new haircuts.
Here is Gioia sporting her new do!

Painting pictures.

Here is the pictures of the finished Kitchen and entryway. We hung a new light fixture in the hallway as well and it is so much brighter and nicer. BIG improvement.

Painting!! AHHH!!

Man, it always seems like jobs take way longer than you think they will. Like painting your kitchen for example. WHEW!! What a job. I finally got both coats of paint on and it looks awesome. I want to wait till I clean everything back up before I post a picture. My friend is coming on Sunday to help me paint the living room. I hope to have some of the trim work done before then, so we can paint faster. We decided to go ahead and paint the hallway, it goes all the way up. So we hired our neighbor friend to bring his extension ladder and paint it for us. He has been here two days and should get finished today. It looks nice. I will post before and after pictures later. DH is outside installing his new CD player in the car that I got him for Valentines Day. He has drove that car for a year and a half with just a radio in it. I GOT A NEW LAPTOP for Valentines Day (and early Mothers Day). It is AWESOME! I am typing on it right now. It has a high definition screen that looks like a tv. It is that clear. It is silver and has a full size keyboard on the bottom. NICE!! It is my first NEW computer. I have had computers every since I graduated college that Massimo has built me or handed down to me. This is my first offical new machine. I hope it last for lots of years. I think it will.

Hope everyone had a good Valentines Day.

Classe dedicata ai Bambini

We went to an Italian class for kids on Saturday. Apparently there are quite a few Italian speakers in the KC area, but we just never knew where to find them. This was sooo FUN!! The kids were learning their colors, body parts, counting, alphabet. They watched a cartoon in Italian and sang songs. It was just great, and guess what?? They knew how to spell Gioia's name and didn't have to ask. In fact, there is an 18 month old in the group named Gioia. How cool is that! They offer italian speaking classes that we are going to start taking. They also have meetups once or twice a month where they all practice speaking in Italian. Massimo loved all this. We both agreed that we felt right at home with all these people. My friend Diana pointed me to this group. She has taken a few classes and is going to Italy again this summer.

First picture is all the kids watching a cartoon. Second picture is Dominic having his first snack of Nutella. Nutella is a chocolate hazlenut spread that is divine, from Italy.

It's good to be King.

Last week was Homecoming at my brothers high school. He got courtwarming King. We teased him all weekend that it is good to be King. My dad let him sleep in and basically do nothing the whole day Saturday. And if you know my workhorse Dad that is REALLY saying something. :) Here is a couple cute pictures of that night. One with my parents and brother. The second is Gioia being "Queen". The real Queen let Gioia wear her tiara for the picture. I thought it was very sweet.