Sunday, May 10, 2015

March and April Instagram Pictures

A nauseous pregnant tummy has prevented me from posting any new pictures of our lives the last several weeks. But here are my Instagram pictures from March and April. At the beginning of March we were finishing up a wonderful trip in Barcelona. I fell in love with the city! Then we have some daily life pictures and ended up April with a trip to beautiful Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy.




A Big, Yet Little, Announcement!

We are very eager to meet our little baby come November!


Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Heard From My Kids Recently...








Carnival in Milan

We have never been big fans of Halloween. We let our kids dress up and get candy, but we much prefer the safe environment of a church or neighborhood party, as opposed to door to door trick-or-treating, where the costumes/decorations can sometimes be scary. This past Halloween we weren't sad at all to not have any trick-or-treating (Italians don't really celebrate Halloween), but we did miss having an excuse to dress up and show off our cool costumes.

Four months later, in February, the Italians celebrate Carnival. It's a time when the kids (and some adults) get dressed up. There are performances, parties, games, rides and a parade through the center of the city. Carnival lasts for about 3 days, and each city in Italy has their own weekend in which they celebrate it.

I love Carnival so much more than Halloween! Nothing is too scary, and in fact the costumes are very traditional. Lots of clowns, knights, princesses and the occasional superhero. I didn't see any skeletons, zombies, or Britney Spears. Instead of "scary/spooky" being the theme of everything, it was more like "rides/costumes/confetti". It was a blast. The confetti was a highlight too. You can buy a giant bag of loose confetti, then grab a handful and throw it. The week leading up to Carnival weekend, I saw confetti all over the streets of Milan. A lot of people make it a game to throw it at each other.

For Carnival, we all dressed in our Superhero costumes for a few days. We did carnival rides and also watched the parade. It was so much fun, and definitely a memory I will keep for a long time!

The kid's first cotton candy.



A man from the parade throwing confetti and Gabriel.



Enjoying throwing confetti with our friend during the parade.

And here are a couple of fun videos we took while going down the really tall slide ride.


February Instagram Pictures



Thursday, February 12, 2015

Gabriel's Fourth Birthday

My little man. He's growing up so fast. He now will rarely let me kiss him on the lips. When I do he wipes it off, but at least he'll let me kiss his head. He likes to do things by himself: Make a cup of tea, set the table, etc. It's actually quite nice! We encourage the independence. But I'm so grateful that he still enjoys to snuggle. I love snuggling up on the couch and reading together. I hope he'll do that for many more years to come!

For Gabriel's fourth birthday, we took the family bowling. Unfortunately the bowling alley said our kids were too little and weren't allowed to play (say what?!). So we stayed in the arcade area and played games. I think it actually turned out better that way, because everyone had a blast! Gabriel was so excited he couldn't contain himself. The second he got done with one game, he started another. Oh to be a kid again!




Clark Kent glasses and superman poster