Thanksgiving

Our last two days have been spent with our amazing extended family, eating great food and watching football. It doesn't get much better than that. We spent thanksgiving with the Bellenghi family and had a wonderful day with delicious food. Friday we headed down to Lebanon to celebrate with the Shimmin side. It is so wonderful to have such a loving supportive family.In a year that has been harder then most for us, due to the crazy economy, I reflect back on the year and am more thankful then I have ever been. I am so thankful for my husband who works his tail off to provide for our family and to allow me to stay home and care for Luca and Gia. He is loving, supportive, honest, and an amazing father. I am beyond thankful to two healthy, happy children. They enrich my life and I feel blessed to be their mom. Some pictures from the last few days...

Happy Hour at the Bellenghis

Rob and Charli

Shimmin Family photo

Grandma and Gia

Cousins and second cousins

Luca

I feel like I always post about Gia since she is always doing something new but I thought I would post a little about Luca and his latest happenings. Luca is about 1 month away from turning 3 and is constantly doing and saying the funniest things these days. His newest phrase is "oh pickle juice" I am not sure where it came from but he thinks it is hilarious. He also likes to take his blocks and build birthday cakes. He asks Rob and I what flavor we want and builds one then brings it to us to blow out the candles...the kid loves birthdays and thankfully with his huge extended family we got to a party roughly once a month. He always goes to find his guitar so he can play me music and he sings to me "i love you mommy" over and over. He is such a sweet soul but also is all boy. As soon as Rob or one of his uncles comes through the door all he wants to do is wrestle. He loves his sister, first thing he does when he wakes up is he wants to go his baby sister. We are still working on how to be gentle and soft with her but hey at least she will be tough :) Whenever he gets in trouble and is done in time out he looks at Rob or I and says "smile at me" with a huge grin on his face as to make sure we still aren't mad at him. His favorite show is Super Why a cartoon on PBS where a kid becomes a super hero who's super power is that he can read. Luca will randomly yell out SUPER WHY, WITH THE POWER TO READ!! Yes he has requested a super why bday party. He is a cheeseball but an adorable one of course. We are working on saying sir and ma'am and so now when he sees people in the store he will say oh he is a sir or she is a ma'am, a bit embrassaing when he gets it wrong and they can hear him :) He goes to school with his Maw Maw once a week and it has really been great for him. She works at a school through the church and he gets to go for free! He got in the car the other day after school and said " Mom God made the animals, and God made me!" Melted my heart. He likes to say "no way jose" instead of "no" and he likes to run across the room and then tell us how fast he is. He is just a joy these days, well 80% of the time, he is still 2 after all :)

7 months old

7 months old!!!