Happy Birthday Isabel Kiera!

Isabel's siblings really helped her enjoy her first birthday. Of our children, she may have understood her 1st birthday better than all of them because of this. The night before, they hyped it up for her, and all day long she heard praises to the "birthday girl." Sadly she had a cold on her birthday. We enjoyed our relaxing day, reminisced about her birth and looked at her newborn pictures. She played a lot with siblings and we had her "due date friend" Kelly & her family over to play in the afternoon. I selected Isabel's dinner which somehow became tradition for the 1st birthday -thought she eats everything I definitely could have picked something else.

After dinner all the kids were a bit crazy and poor Isabel bumped her head on an end table. But all was well again by the time she opened her presents. She was so loved by her godparents...thank you! Mary, I'm sorry I forgot to give her your present, so she'll get it this morning. Michael, I didn't give the Christmas gift at Christmas, so she got both on her birthday. We instructed the big kids several times to let her open her presents, and after much patience, she figured out the concept and was really enjoying each new gift. We had to carry her away kicking to have her cake, but once she saw it she reached for it and was excited about that too.

Our baby is 1!

I can't believe Isabel is 1 already! It was only 1 year ago that we were able to great the newest addition to our family - isn't having babies so exciting?! I've selected way too many pictures of Isabel, especially the ones which highlight how tiny she is.

7 years of MJ

We thank God for the blessing of our enthusiastic, caring, inquisitive first-born son. On Jan 16, 2005 you changed our lives for the better. We love you Mario!

The seventh birthday

We went a little crazy and decided that since MJ had no school on his actual birthday and since we hadn't played with cousins or the Franzonello's in a long time, we would maximize play time together by having a sleepover. Tommy, Peter, Catherine, Tony, & Xavier made Mario's birthday SO special. They had dinner together Sunday night, went to bed with a 6 year old MJ, and woke up with a 7 year old! We hear this may have been Xavier's first sleepover.

Our guests made all of the usual birthday fanfare so much more special. We had pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast; ordered pizza (and had a few sides like blueberries which MJ loves) for lunch. The kids played well together - the weather was nice and they spent some time at St. Theresa as well.

Mario created another great cake based on MJ's request. The Kaza family was sure to bring 3 presents: a super bouncy ball, a soccer ball, and a super amazing water gun. The Franzonellos know our family well and got us some Cars 2 figures. By 4pm all of our young guests had left.

Our family party continued as MJ requested steak, rice, and broccoli for dinner. It was extra special that just as we were saying prayers and as Dad Mario was saying extra blessings for MJ, I looked at the clock and noticed it was 5:56pm -precisely the minute he was born. We all took a moment to enjoy that fun fact. Before we even cut into the steak, Joey had another greatly confusing line, "This pork looks like chicken?" Well, whatever it looked like, each person in the family licked their plates clean.

Thank you to the Franzonellos and Kazas for giving your kids to surround Mario on his birthday. Thank you for the notes on the blog and the phone calls. Mario really enjoyed giving the recap of his day and each time he shared his story it made him more excited about all that was done for him.

Now to get ready for our next birthday...