Julia

A lot of us were hanging out at Amelia's house a couple weekends ago. We went biking on the Silver Comet trail (the kids had a blast). Afterwards, Jonathan took some pics of Julia- see the cheese!

But really, Julia wanted to take pictures herself.

Amos didn't want to be in the pictures, so Giovanni (grumpily) sat in for a family picture.

Grandparents in Town

My parents came in town for the Easter Weekend. Unfortunately, Giovanni got his second ear infection and was sick for half the weekend. He just wanted to sit on Mommy's lap :(

He did, however, love seeing the ducks at the monestary. There was some fun too.

My boys working on cars.

Easter Egg Hunt

Giovanni was a little sick so he didn't want to hunt eggs at first. Poor little sick pea.

After a nap, he was feeling a little better and looked for eggs for a little while. He thinks of them as balls still.

Luckily he's still too little to care about there being anything inside the eggs!

The Cherry Blossom Festival

Giovanni got to sit on the firetruck and meet the firemen at the festival. He didn't like the hat much, though, so we gave it to another kid after they had run out of them.

He was pretty interested in the Puppet Show. Here's the Puppeteer with "Mr. Bones."

"Having a kid is like flushing money down a toilet"...or "Giovanni learns early the dirty secrets of laundering money"

Another studio test

I needed a model for our new background and posing stools. Luckily, Giovanni volunteered.

Snow!

We had some crazy snow (at least for Georgia) this weekend. We didn't have a good snow coat for Giovanni, so he wore his lion costume. He liked the snow at first but soon got wet and grumpy.

These were from the evening before when it was still snowing pretty good. Giovanni is standing well now, and he can walk a few steps before falling down. I haven't been able to get it on video yet, but as soon as I do, it will be up!

Just some moments from our lives

Giovanni chewing on a sock while watching the garbage truck across the street.

Our good friends' son playing in the cozy coupe.

Giovanni and Jonathan reading a bedtime story.

Giovanni's first sweet- a snickerdoodle (he liked it)!

These pictures show two things that Giovanni does that I want to remember when he gets older. First, he always has that little cloth with him. It used to just be at bed time, but now he wants to have it all the time- when he's eating, when he's walking, when he's playing with something. If he needs both hands to hold something else, no problem! He just puts the cloth in him mouth to hold while he examines whatever is in his hands. I still don't have a good pictures of that, but hopefully I'll get it before he stops.

Second, he very frequently crosses his legs when he's sitting. In his high chair, you can usually look underneath and find his little legs crosses just like this. Here he's "helping" dad make an omelet.

Belated Snow Pictures

I forgot to put these up a while back from our "snow day".

Publix

Let me tell you about why I love Publix.

1. The employees are sooo nice. It's not like they are just polite- they seem happy to be working there. One time Giovanni and I were done shopping and about to go out into the rain with our purchases. A Publix employee ran out with an umbrella and said "Hey- let me walk you out! And then he held the umbrella over me while I put Giovanni into his car seat and the groceries into the trunk. Nice.

2. Space ships. They have carts for kids that are a space ship for kids to drive. Giovanni loves it.

3. Really good bread and produce. I guess that's pretty self explanatory.

4. Samples. They have really good samples on a regular basis. If you happen to be there around 5, they are always cooking up an example meal. They have all the ingredients for that meal gathered right there, so if you need to come up with something quick and healthy for dinner, you can just grab it all in one place and go. Which lead me to:

5. Recipe cards for dinner. They have good ideas for whole meals that you can collect and put in their own nifty recipe books. (I don't do this, but I've heard other people that do really appreciate their system).

6. Baby club. They have a free baby club where they send you a how to raise your baby book and coupons every month. Sometimes the coupons are useful, sometimes not, but it's free so it's worth it for the times you need it.

7. Also, they double coupons and take competitors' coupons, so although they are more expensive, you can make it reasonable. And if you're really smart and diligent (which I am not), it can be a cheap as anywhere.

8. Free balloons! They give free balloons to kids, which Giovanni REALLY loves. We brought one home and he wanted to hold it the whole time he was eating lunch. He accidentally let it go, and it flew to the ceiling. I thought he would get upset, but he thought it was funny. For the rest of the day, he wanted to let it go and then for me to lift it up so he could grab the string and pull it down again.

Look at all those teeth!

This is the first picture I feel like you can really see those teeth well. Today we went to the mall to check out the animals at the pet store. I think we've entered a period of excited shrieking. Every new animal we saw was greeted with a shriek. It was so cute. Then, when we got to the play place in the center of the mall- more excited shrieking. I didn't know if he'd be able to do anything, seeing as how he can't even walk. But he loved it- crawling around and laughing and shrieking. I think I'm gonna like this stage.

Bath Time!

Giovanni loves bath time. I've been meaning to take a picture for the bath time section of his baby book forever, so here it is! I was covered in water by the time this photo session was over...

Finally, Bike Rides!

My parents gave Jonathan a bike for Christmas. He's been wanting a good mountain bike for ages- since we left California. I had seen this nifty baby bike seat on a friends blog months ago and thought it would be a good gift from me to go along with the bike. It's called an ibert, and it's supposed to be a safe alternative to the behind the rider seat. It doesn't mess up the rider's balance at all. Giovanni also loves it because he can see (well, at least I assume that's why he loves it, since he can't actually tell me). Jonathan says every time they get done with a ride and he lifts up the bar, Giovanni puts it right back down and doesn't want to get out. Now if it would just warm up we could go on family bike rides! Yay!

In LaGrange for New Years

The babies (as usual) all had a great time with Mama C (and each other) over the holidays.

Here, Giovanni tries to steal Anya's toy.

Julia says "No, Giovanni- that's Anya's toy."

Then, she gives him a talking to and explains that he can get his own toy, but he cannot steal other people's toys. What a hoot! She's gonna be the new "policeman of the world."

The Corn Hole Game

For Christmas, both Nathan and Jonathan Laws gave Papa C a corn hole game. One of the sets was just painted white so that we could all put our hand prints on it. Then we went out and played for a little while in the freezing cold weather. Despite my nose freezing off, we had a blast.

Giovanni and Anya ended up putting their footprints on instead of their handprints. We were just afraid that paint on the hands of a baby might spell disaster.

Baby Anya seemed to enjoy the process.