Hip Hop Part 2

This was the scene at Easter dinner. Seven of the cousins at the kid table. One (not pictured) decided he was too old to sit with the kids and joined us at the adult table. Also not pictured are our two darling little girl cousins who were enjoying Easter in sunny Florida...we missed you!

This it the scene at the kids table about an hour later, when all the other kids had eaten all their food and went to play. Of course lil D was still working on finishing his plate. Nothing new.



After dinner the boys did this...all pied on top of one another to watch the PSP action.



The girls played, opened a few birthday gifts and proceeded to watch the new Barbie movie all cuddled up together in Grammys room. I didn't get a pic of it, so I substituted in this cutie...

Now for a little past and present. This is the past...graduation pics.

And this is the present...or at least a little closer to the present! All the wedding pics proudly displayed together. Also notice the hidden Easter egg on the shelf...he,he! It's fun to look back, look ahead and enjoy the moment. Don't ya think?

Hip Hop and you don't stop...

Holidays are all about family. Our family is spread out all over this great state. So holidays = a lot of travel for the Villella family. Our first stop was to see Nanny and Odie. The kids are pet people, they beg me daily for hamsters, parrots, kitties and puppies... I am not a pet person but we love to play with other peoples pets!

Before we left for the holiday weekend, we spent a morning coloring eggs. Lil D was into making deep dark colored eggs and my little munchkin couldn't wait to crack 'em and eat 'em!

Next stop on the bunny trail...Grandpa's house. The cousins enjoyed the outdoors and warm weather and set up a bunny trap. The trap consisted of a milk crate, string and bait. The boys sat on the look out and the girls waited to pull the cord. What a way to keep em busy and quiet on a Saturday afternoon...you should try it!

This is the look I got for quietly creeping over to take a quick pic...

This is one pretty little princess.


Not to be outdone by this little fire cracker!

We got to meet the puppies for the first time! We've heard a lot about them and couldn't wait to meet them. This one is named Daisy and is our fave!

The weekend wrapped up with a yummy dinner...more on that in the next post!

I love you too much.

My beautiful baby girl turned three. This one was extra special because she was really into it this year! We had a family party, a friend party, a school party, a resturant party and we have one more family celebration that she will share with her cousins over Easter weekend. She has loved every minute. Looking back over the last year, she is still the same kid...sassy & sweet. She can be shy at times but is gradually coming out of her shell. She is not a morning person, loves and adores her big brother, could eat all day long, is helpful, loves to help me cook, loves to dance and sing, can be bullheaded but gets her feelings hurt easily, is a girly-girl, and loves to color and do crafts! We managed to squeeze in potty training with a few days to spare before her birthday...this is where her bull-headedness came into play, big time! She just didn't want to do it untill SHE wanted to do it. And, she hasn't had an accident ever since! She is practicing using her big girl words and playing nice with her friends. She is a special little girl and when I tell her I love her she always answers me with "I love you too much". I think it is a combo of I love you too and I love you very much...and I love to her her say it...

She loves this bird...I don't know why but she must have asked me a thousand times to go to Red Robin. So we went on kids night when the big red bird is there, but...we were too late and he had gone home for the evening. When our super-sweet server found out that it was a special birthday wish, she called Red Robin's mommy and asked if he could come back to sing Happy Birthday.

My photogropher friend took these precious pics at her cupcake party.

She loves this book...can you tell!?

I'm three!

A star is born....

Ok, so I've known he was a star for quite a while. He was born with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. He has never been shy for a minute. He loves to perform...

So, I finally got up the nerve to let him audition for the Missoula children's theatre. He got a part as a grumpy caterpillar that later turns into a butterfly. Now, when you have a kid with endless energy and enthusiasm you take the good with the bad. Audition night was nerve wracking for me, to say the least. He was putting on quite the performance. He was the loudest, had to be a step ahead of the others and at times plain annoying.

I took him back for the first night of practice, hoping that he would be a little calmer and "fit in". He did do better but he still took every opportunity to be silly...his one liner of the night was when the teacher asked all the kids to say their name, age and grade, he replied "I'm [lil D], I'm 6 years old and your gonna think this is crazy but...I'M IN KINDERGARTEN!"

By the end of the night I seriously had my doubts that he would be able to stick to the script come the day of the shows. But we pushed on. And, I'm so glad we did.

In the end, he learned his way around the stage, made new friends and boy did he make us proud! In fact I have to say that all the kids were truly talented and amazing. They put together an hour long production in five days and put on two back to back shows on Saturday. They cheered each other on, supported each other and helped out when someone forgot a line. They learned how to be committed, work as a team and have confidence in themselves. The hard work payed off...big time. D took lil D up to turn in his costume and he signed a few t-shirts. And it was over.

The video is a little fuzzy but...enjoy!

Here he's on the right, blue wings.

(video coming later...Blogger isn't cooperating....grrrrr.)

Here he's the third from the left...

A Few Firsts

Ok, so I know it's been a while since I've updated my blog (thanks for the nudge, Jules). Life with kids is all about firsts. And we've had a few around here lately.

FIRST, came the dentist appointment where we found out that our 6 and a half year old had his first real loose tooth! He had been rather bummed b/c other kids in his class had not only loose teeth but had lost one or two already! I myself am not shocked...when lil D was 9 months old I remember taking him to a check-up scared out of my wits because the kid had NO TEETH. I thought for sure Dr. C would tell me that he in fact had been born with NO TEETH. He clearly was not meeting this milestone.

So our beloved, ever positive Dr. C said "Don't worry I promise he'll have teeth by the time he goes to prom". The very next week he started cutting his first bottom tooth. Pfffeeewww.

So, lil D has taken up eating apples. He's hoping it will make his tooth fall out. More power to ya!

NEXT, came the Snowmagetton. I LOVE snow, I do. I love sledding, skiing, snow angels, snowmen, and even shoveling the darn stuff. It brings back so many happy memories from my childhood and from my time in college in Erie PA. The kids had off school, we played in it, we drove around in it and we for sure tried our best to shovel ourselves out of it. Thank goodness a neighbor and an old friend came to the rescue with a snow blower...we couldn't hack it with a shovel. The funny part was that with all the snow he didn't really know where he was hacking away with that machine and we lost a couple landscape lights! But, oh well...it sure was fun!

The view from the house...



Snowball fight!~


And after all the icy fun, we would come in and make these...a total kid-creation. Hot chocolate with M&M's, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup.

Third, was a first I was not looking forward to. My lil A's first haircut : ( She is turning three this month and I had more than a few expectations of myself of a mother of a little girl. I would always dress her cute, she would never go a day without a bow in her hair and I would never cut that said hair. NEVER. I would just let it grow to Rapunzel-like beauty no matter what. So, then came the rats nests. The ends of her hair were getting really angry about being around since birth and decided to give up! I had to give her a trim and she still looks adorable and it will grow back...right?

She loves her new look!

So that's all for now...next up V-day and lil D's on stage debut! Stay tuned!

Ice Fest

Last week was Ice Fest in C-burg and the kids always love braving the cold to check out the awesome ice sculptures! The highlight is always the ice-throne but this year they had something even "cooler" ~ a 40 foot ICE SLIDE...oh yeah, baby!

Of course lil D had an "incident" and one of the C-burg LAX players who were manning the slide had to swoooooop in and save my DS from being pummled at the end of the slide an on-coming slider. He was standing there in la-la land after his breath taking slide-ride...that kid, I swear.

We headed over to a sub shop for a quick dinner and caught the fireworks from the hill down the road from our house. IceFest rocks..and I'd like to give a big shout out to my bestie T-Flo for her hard work to make it all happen and for introducing me to the cool ice carving dudes!

Hitting the Slopes

Daddy and lil D have been doing quite a-lot-a this lately. The weather has been very uncooperative...going from bone-chilling winds to 55 degrees and sunny! To say the least the slopes have been unpredictable which makes it hard for the lil one to work on his boarding skills. He's still a trooper and even though this happened...

...when his dad smacked him in the lip with the safety bar, he continued on...for the love of the sport! They got to go out with our close family this past week when they were up for a vist from the sunny south. The little florida girls loved seeing snow for the first time and all TEN of the cousins got together on Sunday. The boys were playing video games, the girls played dolls and we all had a chance to catch up!

Tiny Town

One bitter cold night we decided to take a quick trip out to Tiny Town.

A visit to this nifty "little" place is a holiday tradition for us. The kids run around and look in all the tiny little windows at the tiny little furniture!




It'a a magical place for little ones to explore. And at the end of the adventure they have this GIANT MUG-o-HOT CHOCOLATE. Funny.

Rewind

New Years Day: Yikes, New Years day morning has been rough for the last 6 years due to the fact that we have kids now and they still like to get up at the same time with the same intensity. For some reason N thought it would be a good idea to have a friend of lil D's come over to play today adding a little extra salt to my wounds. But not all was bad, I did find a way to entertain the two boys by hooking a snow tube to the back of lil D's little 50cc four wheeler and letting them take turns buzzing around the yard (and a little into the neighbors) with one on the tube and the other on the machine. I can only assume the neighbors don't care or didn't see the tire tracks either way so far so good. The kids loved it and I loved watching the action.

New Years Day+1: Time to try out the new snow board. Lil D and I headed out the Whitetail for another round of lessons from his old man. Last year he did pretty good, that is he could go straight down the beginner hill w/out falling. I thought this year we could work on stopping and getting in more control. Today didn't turn out to be a very good day for boarding seeing is that it was as 24deg with 40mph gusts and the slope was beat down to a solid sheet of ice. He got pretty beat up especially when I banged him in the face with the chair safety bar and had him bleeding everywhere. He got new life when he saw our friends TFlo and P hitting the slopes and decided to take a few more rounds. Until next time.....

Posted by Big D

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Better Later Than Never

OK. Here I go. I've wanted to do this for a while and I guess it's better late than never. I don't know if I can do a complete 365 but I'll do the best I can. Happy New Year everyone and I hope twenty-ten treats you right.