Long Post! Giada's Birthday, Puppy, Gino 6 months

As I mentioned Giada is a lucky girl, she has been celebrating her birthday all week. Family and friends have come by all week to have her open gifts and celebrate with her. One day we had a birthday celebration at my parents. Giada was there with my mom that day and so excited to make her own cake.

She sings Happy Birthday to herself along with everyone else and LOVES blowing out the candles. She also enjoys telling people how old she is now, and showing you on her fingers.

Gino spent some time with Uncle Matt!

Birthday Gift from us! A purple bike! She is starting to get the hang of it, but mostly cares about which animal gets to ride on the back!

Then on Sunday Giada celebrated with family and local friends at the gymnastics place in town. All the kids were running and jumping all around! The birthday girl requested a purple Tinkerbell party and that's what she got!

Thank you for celebrating with us friends!

Foam pit is always a hit

Jump D!

And sometimes they just cooperate for the camera!

I just love this pic of Dylan!

Happy Birthday Giada!

We even attempted a group picture

Giada was opening gifts and wanted me to take a photo of her new musical jewelry box.

We hung the swing in our backyard this weekend - Gino was pleased!

And Giada has been enjoying the swing pops made for her in his backyard ..that I'm sure Gino and Stella will enjoy one day too!

The infamous crab feed! As you can see I cut bangs! I'm still not sure about them...and everyone says I look like my mom. Which, isn't a bad thing, but not the look I was going for either! Either way, the funniest comment came from Dylan Kerns. When he saw me the first time he said "Are you Auntie Julie?" It was funny and sad all at the same time!

Well....who would have thought that we would go to a crab feed and come home with a puppy! On the live auction list was a black lab puppy. I kept saying to Mike all night that we should bid on it. We have been thinking about another dog for a year or so but couldn't decide what kind, or when was the right time to do it...and just at Christmas decided not to do it. But....this weekend was another story. Mike started bidding on the puppy, it was so cute they were carrying it around for everyone to see.....and then we lost the bid. :( But....wouldn't you know it there was another puppy available! They called Mike out as the last bidder and said he had first dibs on it. Sure enough he said yes! We went to the breeder and picked out a little female black lab. We finally got home at 3am, had picked up both kids, and the puppy - and I was still in shock - lol - In the morning we told Giada she had one more birthday present. She said "like my bike?" We laughed and went downstairs to show her. We walk down there and she is just talking to Sydney(our Golden Retreiver) and the puppy is running all around her feet and she isn't noticing!! We can't believe it, and then Mike realizes she thinks it's our all black cat at her feet. He asks her if she thinks that is Max....and then she realizes "It's a puppy" She has had so much fun with her. Her first name suggestion was "Sydney" then "Puppy" and now

"Belle." We tried to suggest Bella and she said "No, not Bella it's Belle" And it works out great, I get up to feed Gino and let the dog out! lol! I'm now potty training a puppy and a toddler and the puppy runs all over my crawling baby! It's crazy at our house.

Believe it or not Gino is 6 months old! Time has flown by!

Although he can roll over he enjoys propping up on one arm from time to time!

The intruder joined our photo shoot again this month....

And thought he needed to "warm his ears" - he doesn't look thrilled about the idea!

- Height 2 ft 3.5 in

- Weight 17lb. 1 oz.

- Rolling over

-Crawling everywhere and fast

-2 bottom teeth...one has popped through and one is close

- Sleeping not so great still....one night he slept 6 hours, otherwise it's 3 hour blocks if I'm lucky....but as always, I'm working on it!

- Maybe TMI but Gino is eating without a shield!!

- And he now eats rice cereal and bannanas and seems to enjoy it!

- Drools a ton, spits up a ton now. The spitting up is very weird for me since none of my kids ever did that...until now.

-Eyes still blue

- Dimples

Giadaisms & 3yr Update

- Height 3' 2.5"

- 34lbs

-" Gino here is a toy you can slobber all over"

-She counts everything, names off colors of everything, announces different letters as she sees them written

-Mike read Giada her fortune from a fortune cookie "You will soon be traveling to a distant land "When he finishes she says "I do want to go to Disneyland".

- Everything is "Lets make a deal"

- Her hair is SO tangly and she rarely lets us comb it but I'm just not ready to chop it off!

- "Mom, hug Gino this is our family "

-Loves to dress herself these days....and it takes forever!

Tahoe, Giada turns 3, Gino eats!

This past weekend we headed to Tahoe with about 8 of Mike's college buddies and their families. It is such a fun group - we have a blast when we get together. Last year we went to Avila and this year we thought we would head to the snow! We headed up Friday night and there was ZERO snow. But it worked out perfectly, it snowed for 12 hours on Saturday, was so much fun to play around in and stopped for our drive home Sunday. Thank you Renee and Caroline for organizing this year - can't wait for the next one! The best part of the weekend was the Busalacchi's saying they would take Giada for a week and return her potty trained!! Hope you remember that Marc :)

Tali brought princess dress up clothes, the girls were so cute, and kept switching back and forth... here you have Snow White and Tinkerbell!

Dinner anyone??

Fun in the snow!

Aubrey loved it and was stomping all around.

Nicole was teaching the kids the best way to make snow angels!

For some reason she enjoyed eating the snow!

Kernal gave all the kids tons of sled rides, then D decided he would try to take Giada. She was all for it, then he said "you're too heavy" it was so funny!

This place had a great sledding hill nearby. We all headed over and the kids and adults had a blast. Gino was strapped into the Ergo and fast asleep so we watched as Mike and Giada went up the hill. He was as surprised as I that she wanted to go down the hill alone. She would have done it 100 times if we let her. All the kids went alone and loved it!

The girls were so sweet to have a birthday party for Giada on Saturday night.

She woke up from her nap to Tinkerbell decorations, party hats, and purple cupcakes!

Emily was such a good helper opening gifts!

Thank you friends!

Love my new fairy wings and Tinkerbell shoes!

All the kiddos (Minus McKella) on the couch! It's the best group shot we could get!

After a weekend of 8 kids 3 and under.....hope you guys haven't changed your mind!! Chris is a darling expectant momma...we can't wait to meet "Brady" in May!

We let the kids stay up so late each night since they were just enjoying playing and dancing with eachother. Giada grew to like uncle Timmer!

Gino had some real food this week. He is eating a little rice cereal. He seems to like it so -so, the problem is he starts laughing or talking when I feed him and then it comes flying back out! He is such a smiley guy!

Sunday Giada turned 3!! I can't believe she is already 3, but she is so much fun. Although this age can have it's challenges; their is much more laughter. The things she comes up with to say all day long are constant entertainment! She brings us so much joy!

She will have many birthday celebrations this week so Sunday, we just laid low once we got home and watched the Niner game. Great season, bummer way to go out!

Although sometimes she can be rough with him...she loves her brother, and making him laugh, makes her laugh!

She has been reading a lot to him lately....Chicka Chicka Boom Boom