The Many Faces of Miss Eliana Clare

Eliana is such a sweet, fun, loving baby. These are some faces she made for us when I had Cecilia and Thomas trying to make her smile for me. She makes some pretty ridiculous faces when she knows she has an audience! The second picture is my favorite. She always sucks those two fingers and I love when she's just starting to crack a smile.

Schoolwork

Schoolwork is much more fun when you dress the part, don't you think? Actually, I imagine that Briar Rose must have been homeschooled too. She couldn't exactly leave her little cottage lest she be found by Maleficent. While Cecilia's working on her schoolwork, Thomas is usually playing with his/Matthew's Star Wars legos.

What Difference a Year Makes

I was looking through Matthew's pictures from a gathering at his Grammy's house last weekend. I found this picture of Cecilia sitting in Uncle Peter's lap. She had climbed up because she couldn't reach any of the yummy cookies... so she hung out and ate her cookie with him too. She has grown up so much since last year. This may not seem like a big deal, but one year ago, she would never have done this! She was a very social baby, but when she turned 2, she became extremely shy. Especially at these family gathering (meaning large, loud, Italian family), she would stay close to us and not even play with the other kids. Now, I'm lucky if I even see her!

Eager for Valentine's Day

Cecilia has been bugging me to work on some Valentine's crafts. I found this one on a fun blog. I made the trunks for them (which they glued on the paper) and then they just had to add stickers. It was easy and fun (I love those foam stickers--manageable for little fingers). Here is the finished product.

Reminiscing

I was just watching the kids working on their crafts and decided to pull up pictures of them from this time last year. Of course, Eliana wasn't even born yet, but here are Cecilia and Thomas one year ago.

Big Personalities

I've always been quite intrigued by watching the kids' personalities evolve. It amazes me how strong their personalities are--even as infants. Lately I've been watching Cecilia and how she learns. She is the type kid who finds something that interests her and then focuses solely on that. As a one-year-old, she would ask us to read the same book over and over again. I don't mean the same book each night, I mean the same book read as many times as we could stand in a row. We're homeschooling now and Cecilia is doing her kindergarten work. One component of her program is poetry. We've been reading little Robert Louis Stevenson poems and then she memorizes and recites them. She loves this. She'll ask me to repeat the poem over and over again and I can see her little brain working and memorizing the lines. She usually has them memorized before I do. (Maybe she'll appreciate drama later in life... she's certainly theatrical enough.) She also loves princesses right now and Ariel is her favorite. She got the soundtrack for Christmas and she listens over and over again. She'll stand in front of the cd player and replay songs far too many times so she can memorize the words; then she'll sing and dance around the house.

The Best Christmas Present

Here are some pictures from the day after Christmas when we headed to Matthew's parents' house. We exchanged presents, which is way more fun with lots of little ones. The absolute best presents the kids got were matching super-hero suits--personalized! Tita Tamia made them for the kids and for Paolo. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Cousins

And so went our attempt to get a picture of the cousins together... I love it! A couple years ago we got Paolo pj's to match our kiddos. They loved it, so now it's a tradition. Whenever they're able to join us for Christmas, the kids wear matching pj's the day after Christmas when we exchange our gifts. The kids all love Paolo and we miss him already.

Christmas Morning

Here are some pictures from Christmas morning. Christmas is the only time of the year that I feel this strong desire to dress the kids alike. I'm not normally a fan of matching outfits. Oh, but matching Christmas pj's are so very cute! Thomas is a huge Star Wars fan and got a storm trooper blaster! Cecilia was so very excited about a Little Mermaid doll. Eliana, well, she really liked the shiny paper she got on one of her presents. She also dumped out a container of cheerios onto our living room floor (my fault, I know) and that kept her busy for quite some time. (Oh, and yes, I did get the Chia Herb Garden :)

Kiddos at Christmas Time

Here are some nice pictures of the kiddos that Matthew took when we were visiting a friend. Enjoy! (I'm hoping to get back into the habit of posting more regularly again... getting back on schedule slowly.)