That's my brother!

Bobby, you are awesome!

Stuff from March

Mary and Sarah are so inspiring. I really should be taking more pictures of Isabel - she is so very sweet! She is such a content baby. One cute thing she does which probably all babies do, I just don't remember, is that after she wakes up from a long nap, of course she needs to nurse. But after nursing she puts her arms up in the air and does this big stretch which is so adorable. It must be hard work to sleep all day and then eat. :-)

This slideshow includes Mario's 33rd birthday celebration (and my amazing idea that he needed sunglasses, even though he said he didn't need anything) and MJ's birthday party with kids from his class. He's never had a "friend" birthday party as we are usually so fortunate to have the Kazas come over to celebrate. The weather turned out to be beautiful for his sports themed birthday party. We made the football pinata and it was a big "hit" (oh, I am so funny). But really, we made it through 2 full rounds of all the kids taking turns at it, then had to bring out the metal bat! I really didn't think it would make it that long. It's amazing what newspaper, flour, and water can do! I really liked Mario's decorations for the cake. We were thinking even more extravagant, but kept it simple. I think it worked well. There is also MJ's end of the season basketball party and Isabel's 2 month picture. I was happy that I remembered to get 1 picture of her at exactly 2 months. For those who are interested in weight gain, Isabel remains at the 92% for height and 97% for weight (13lbs 9oz). She's 1lb bigger than Sheila at 2 months, so to me she looks pretty chubby - quite delicious.

St. Patrick's Day

Sorry I'm so late getting these up. We also had a very fun St. Patrick's Day. Shepherd's pie for lunch, and for dinner corned beef, green mashed potatoes, and cabbage (I'm skipping this next year and substituting asparagus or something). The kids enjoyed their green dyed sprite which they call the Leprechaun drink. Mario got the green hat from his teacher in school who is from Ireland. For dessert this kids cut out the shamrock jello shapes on their own and we also had green frosted cupcakes. Oh, and the green shamrock plant was from a student in my K RE class...such a sweet gift and it is such a nice decoration.

On another note - have you noticed that we have successfully brought back the name Sheila? As I'm typing there is an AT&T commercial- I think it's been running since the superbowl - and the girl the guy is supposed to be dating is named Sheila. I think I heard that name used in another commercial for a car. This is probably all because people have seen our Sheila running about, have realized how cute she is, and have now decided to use her name.

Isabel's Baptism

I know there are many other pictures out there from all the different cameras, so I'd love to get them together at some point. But here is a start.



Thank you to everyone who made Isabel's baptism such a special day. Deacon Luke celebrated a beautiful baptism, and we are thankful godparents Aunt Mary and Uncle Michael were able to take time from their busy schedules to be with us.

We were happy to have a crowd of beautiful families witness Isabel's joining the Catholic church. Let's hope we didn't also share too many germs.

In our traditional growing family picture - we have 2 more children to our group. The lighting wasn't the best, but the kids were all looking the right way and I think the composition was nice.

Happy St. Valentine's Day

Isabel's gift to me was being SUPER smiley when I picked her up from her crib this morning. And here are a few recent Isabel photos.

The Birthday

Joey says he had a really terrific birthday, and I'm glad that he is able to be so happy without the bells and whistles and over the top celebrating that I could have done. Simple blue decorations and a blue birthday cake made him so happy. For 2 months he's been talking about his chicken nugget, macaroni and cheese, and green bean dinner. I tried to negotiate a more exotic meal for him, but then realized that he was doing exactly what he should do on his birthday which is get the meal you really want to eat. Every other night, Joey is the last one at the dinner table trying to stomach down meals he isn't interested in. So, tonight, he got exactly what he wanted. Plus, I got the dino shaped chicken nuggets...yeah, I'm a good mom. Then we reminded him he hadn't even opened his presents. Seriously, he's just a happy kid.

He also got a special skype call from Daddy (who called on his lap top from the restaurant where he was dining in Tennessee). You'd think that we would do that more often, but this is the first skype call we've had with Daddy.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes and phone calls. Joey really does enjoy talking on the phone.

Joey Boy

Happy 4th Birthday to our sweet Joey Boy!

And here's a slide show with some more pictures