An Italian Feast

We are sooo excited to have discovered some new neighbors recently.  Filipo is a true Italian, and you know how much we love all things Italian!  His wife Karen has stopped by while walking with their two kids, Luca and Cecilia (Chechelia), and we finally made the connection that they also garden in their backyard like we do! So Mike and Filipo really hit it off with "dirt" speak (literally), and the kids love bouncing in the trampoline they have out back.  Well last weekend we were invited to join them for a special "Polenta" dinner which was touted to be quite "fun."  I will admit, I was intrigued by a meal described as "fun" and wasn't sure how Polenta translated into an adventure.
Well it turns out, the true Italian way to eat Polenta is to pour it out over a board as big as a table - put various sauces/meats on top - and FEAST!  Apparently our family-style polenta adventure was a notable feast versus the traditional polenta meal which was considered a very economical way to eat in times of food scarcity.

What a special treat this was and, in particular, very FUN!  The kids loved it and, well, Mike and I are still wondering how we can ever offer an experience quite like this to our future guests!!

Free Babysitter

I have often thought that us mommies should start a list of the "free babysitters" we have found useful for helping us take a 10 minute shower or wash the dishes after dinner.  Mine happens to be lotion.  Kaelyn could play with lotion for probably darn near 40 minutes at a time.  It's nice, but it does tend to get a bit messy ;-)

Welcome Summer

I guess the "Welcome Winter" poster only lasted a week ;-)  The sun came out and boy did it warm up.  We have thoroughly enjoyed the last 10 days of heat.  We fit in some beach time with Sierra - all the way through sunset!

Spent 3 hours at a time in the kiddie pool out back...

And enjoyed a picnic at the park with our dear friends Ryan and Lucie. At 4 years old, they are perfect playpals for Kaelyn -helping her learn how to "bounce pass" the basket ball and all kinds of more advanced kids things!

They even go "get her" when she tries to stray too far from the mommies.  Boy was that a nice feature ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

We did lots of fun things for Valentine's Day this year.  We frosted brownies - this was actually Kaelyn's first "frosting" exercise and she particularly loved the sprinkles!!  Of course, she kept asking if she could "eat it"....

And then we took a trip to Palm Springs to visit our Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Dick who are down from Oregon for the winter months.  It was over 80 degrees in Palm springs which was great.  Kaelyn got to go swimming and we even went out on a "date" - for Date Shakes, that is.  Our first ever, but surely not our last!!  Yum.

Welcome Winter

Well, we're lucky our real winter doesn't really start till January b/c we were a bit behind on making our "Welcome Winter" sign.  It's fun to do a seasonal sign with Kaelyn b/c we can really note the progress she is making on her artistic abilities.  The bottom ball of the snow man shows her ability to "stay within the lines" when the lines are big enough!

New room and other fun things to keep us busy!

We've been busy getting Kaelyn's new room ready. Here are a few sneak previews.  Daddy put up new base boards and crown moulding (big improvement!).  He also made a special shelf above the window that we will hang her curtains on. But the crown jewel of the room is truly a "crown."  I really fell in love with these "bed crowns" they do in France when we visited all of the Chateau in the Loire Valley (before we had Kaelyn). Unfortunately, our budget precluded us from affording one as I found the pricing to be fit for a King (or Queen, I suppose!).  So we designed our own and daddy built it (I do get some credit as I sewed the curtains!).  We are really excited about how it turned out - maybe Mike should start a new ebay business??  Now all we need is the bed that he is going to build to go beneath the bed crown!  

Since we moved Kaelyn's "girly" chandelier into her new bedroom, we needed to come up with a new one for the "wittle broder."  Of course, I got the lampshade conveniently on clearance from Restoration Hardware to match the paint on the nursery walls.  But it was JUST A LAMPSHADE. So who had to figure out how to build the lamp?  Daddy-o!  What an awesome daddy...

It seems we've spent a great deal of time building and getting ready for the new room - but alas, we have found time to do some other things:

Brownie batter ("wick a poon") - this was Kaelyn's first experience with licking the spoon - and no, there were no eggs in there mom...

Growing belly (thanks to brownie batter)

And some potty training - guided by Miss KK herself.  I couldn't resist posting the quintessential potty pic...at least once!

Winter is here!

Our winter has finally arrived and when, when it rains, it pours!
I will admit, when our good friend Christine gave us Sierra's old raincoat, I giggled to myself ("Oh, she fell for the raincoat! I always wondered who bought those").  Turns out,  I have never been more grateful for a hand-me-down!  Kaelyn has worn it every day for a whole week now.  I ended up buying her the rainboots from a used kids clothes store figuring our backyard will be a flood for quite some time now.  Again, she's worn those every day too and loves them!

Of course, there is a story behind this really cool extra large beach ball.  The first day of the rains, we were working on her new bedroom.  She was looking out the window saying, ball, ball.  So I looked out and here this ball was rolling down the street.  After she said "get it, get it,"  I couldn't resist. So I ran out and brought the ball to our backyard.  She can't wait to play with it!!