Happy Birthday Giada!

Birthday celebration at Ran & Bud's to start off the week long celebration!

 Morning celebration before school.
Gino and I snuck off to get donuts,  so we could sing some birthday wishes before school.

 Kim Duke's famous cookies for the school celebration.  Glitter "6" cookies for all her classmates.  The fun thing about your birthday at St. Anne's, is you get free dress. That is a big deal when you are at a Catholic school with uniforms every day.

 
That evening the celebration continued; Giada wanted Chinese food, so we headed to Sacramento to PF Chang's to do something a little different.  Giada loved everything, and loved their famous lettuce cups!

Tradition continues...rainbow cupcakes for another year. The kids helped me make them all and then Nicole  did the frosting. I suck at doing frosting.  So before we knew it fun rainbow cupcakes were ready for the birthday party.

 Although it has been beautiful weather every year for Giada's birthday, we always worry about weather in January and do indoor parties.  Giada picked the gymnastics place, and fun was had by all the littles. The kids were a sweaty mess after running around all afternoon.

 The rainbow glasses in the favor bag were a hit! Lookin good ladies.

Happy Birthday to you sweet girl! 

 

These are a few things that come to mind when I think about what she is up to these days.

-Loves to read and spell, this has been one of the most fun things to watch her do since starting Kindergarten

- Still doing gymnastics and loves showing us her skills. She is getting pretty good at cartwheels, back bends, and close to the splits. She is way more flexible than I have ever been

-Drawing is a big passion of hers. She is constantly drawing pictures and they are very detailed.

-Starting softball this spring, so that will be a new adventure for us all. She seems excited, but is also afraid the ball is going to hit her in the face, so should be comical as well.

- Definitely can get frustrated when Gino knocks down a tower she has built, or messed up something she is working on, but for the most part, very helpful and sweet playing with him.  They play lots of games together lately. It is funny to see her trick him, even on a simple game of Ro Sham Bo.

- Lots of make believe play and dress up.

- Now that she has mastered bike riding, on the first try no less, she has had so much fun riding around.  Once I can start running, I think it will be fun to run along side her while she is biking. Looking forward to that adventure soon.

-Still a great eater, it is fun to get her to try new things. She is game for it all.

-Lost 1st tooth! The tooth fairy brought her 2 glitter dollars!

Tooth Fairy, Cambria 2015, HAGER, Grandparent's Day, Cooking, Valentine's Day & MORE!

Well folks, this 6 year old has lost a tooth! The day after her birthday party, she got brave and pulled it out! The tooth fairy made her debut at our house and brought 2 glittery dollars! Giada of course wrote her a note, and placed it with the tooth in the pillow pocket. Giada was thrilled with her glitter fairy money, and now there are 3 more loose. I love that missing teeth grin, so darling.

 

 When your dentist is Dr Hilder, it is never scary to go there. An extra bonus that we got to see Dr. Kerry too. I love that the kids call her Dr Kerry!  But now that she has 6 yr old big kid teeth, flouride it is.  She was fine with that as long as there were no x-rays.  The waiting 20 min to eat was so painful for her, you would have thought he said 2 hours. I tried to tell her back when I was a kid my mom made me wait 30 min, so she was lucky...but she could have cared less what I was saying and just asked every min if it was time yet.

 100 day celebration at school. Big deal when you are in Kindergarten.  The only mix up was Giada thought this meant on Monday she would soon be in 1st grade. I think we have that cleared up now.

 Cambria 2015!  A group of our Cal Poly friends try to get together each year with our families. I think the kids have just as much fun as the adults. There are 9 families total so it is a big group. This year we had a few families missing and 12 missing kids.....with the 2 new babies arriving any day from us and Noriegas,  14 more kids to add to the group. Yikes!  The kids all get along so well. It was pouring rain, so lots of painting, play-doh and indoor fun. We snuck out to see the Elephant Seals, always a unique site, and to grab our Firestone's fix. LOTS of laughs.  Until next year friends!

 

 

 Crab Feed time of year. Giada loves crab, so we took her to another one.  It was fun to have her buddies Dylan, Aubrey, Cain & of course brother Gino there, but she was the only kid that would go for it. Gino filled up on about 2 loaves of bread. This year was great, because she even mastered cracking her own!  Next year I look forward to not being pregnant and able to eat WAY more!!

 

 Hager came for a visit.  My dear friend Julie (HAGER) Cannon, came on a visit to CA from Nashville to celebrate her moms 60th birthday.  I was so glad she made the detour to Lodi!  I hadn't gotten that many days of quality time with her for years. Julie was one of the first friends I met in college.  I went down to her room and proclaimed "hey we have the same name" Not sure why I thought that would be the best way to introduce myself but it worked!  Of course we forgot to take any photos together, but here are  few from our adventures while she was in town. Thanks again Gar for making the trip up north! My turn to come to Nashville next! xo!

St. Anne's has had so many fun events so far this year. Grandparents Day was a hit.  Giada is lucky to have 2 Great Grandmas, a Nonni, Nonno, Nana & Pops!

 And the day is not complete without a photo with her best buddy Adelaide!

 Super Bowl 2015. I don't think we have ever not been with friends for the big game. In fact for many years we hosted the party. This year it seemed like everyone was all scattered around and we decided to just stay home. I will say I watched more of the game and commercials than I ever had.  Mike smoked ribs and we had made most of our food early.  The kids played well together and we all enjoyed snacks in the living room.  Another thing that happened was a big ol tea party towards the end of the game. I will say I have never had a lady bug tea party during an important football game!

 

 Stella loves her auntie!

Giada loves to help us cook.
For Christmas she got this cookbook about these Twin Chefs, she has had fun making different recipes so far.  Red Velvet pancakes were first on the list.  Then one night we made Bacon/Turkey mini meatloaves.  I wrote to the Twins on Instagram and Giada was thrilled they wrote back.  That is one thing that is fun about social media! She even got up early one morning to get the crock pot going for pulled pork. Not sure what is next for us to try, but I am sure she will let me know soon enough!

 

Happy Valentines Day! The holiday pics are fun to take to see how much the kids have changed each year.  Gino of course said he loves candy, and Giada was being sweet and said family. We always try to take these holiday pictures with the cousins too. We missed Cole this year, but it may be our best one with Stella yet.

 

The kids get along one minute and then don't want to play with each other the next. But I do love it when I see that they do love each other. One day last week after school they walked hand and hand to the car.

It can be the smallest thing that makes a kid do the big uncontrollable belly laugh.  For Gino it was the the swings at the park on Friday.  He just couldn't stop laughing, it was awesome! For Valentine's Day for years now Mike has made me a gourmet meal at home.  This year I suggested Fondue, since I thought it would be fun for the kids too.  Giada loved it, and always had something in the pot cooking away.  Gino loved the cheese, bread, and dessert of course!  Mike did make the coconut shrimp I love too. That is always my one request to go along with the Valentines meal!