Ode to Natalie

Nat and KD last November


My sweet friend, how I will miss you living in the boot.
We had such great times together, market shopping, eating gelato, visiting new places, complaining about Italian things, meals together, laughing, driving, the language, pregnancy, mood swings, crying on each others shoulders, phone calls, text mssgs, dreaming about new places to live, book sharing and HUGS!
Move on to better things, but know you are loved by me!
Ciao Bella!!!
G-ster kissing Lottie bye, bye

Yesterday I went to say goodbye to Natalie, my friend Michelle and I met and went together. While turning up through "the forest" as I call it a short distance from Nat's house we saw 2 prostitutes and a truck stopped a little farther down the road where there were 2 more- I had to stop behind him while he picked one up. Now this is fairly common around this country. I learned from Gio that prostitution is LEGAL- but being a Pimp is illegal- also if you are caught picking one up there is a fine. ITALIANS!!!
Well, Nicole, Nat's sister had not had the chance to see a Live prostitute yet; so Nat, Nicole, Michelle and I all jumped in the car and went down the road to show her. We ended up driving by a few times and all laughing so hard! we snapped a quick picture while Nat yelled "Say Cheese"!

a Spider, a Web, and a Pig

This year we started getting into the halloween spirit by carving a pumpkin with Amanda and Zeno last week over a bowl full of chili and again this week by carving a round zucchini- Gio wanted to carve a ping-pong table and this is what we came up with (we did our best).




Little Lottie was really afraid of this huge pumpkin, she did not want to be near it!



For breakfast we had Pumpkin Pancakes with Cinnamon Syrup YUMMY!





In the afternoon we were invited to a Halloween- Birthday party for our friend Carter, he turned 2. It was a perfect occasion to plan costumes and be creative! We had a good time!


We went as Charlotte, Wilber and the Web! It was very fitting for us! I made our costumes with things we had around the house, with the exception of Gio's nose and ears- I cut up a hand puppet from IKEA for that!





Happy Halloween to you all!!!

Weighty issues

When Charlotte was born she was small- 5 lbs and 18.5 inches long. She was born 1day after her due date and was healthy in EVERY way full of Energy and Curiosity. through out the past 9 1/2 months of her life so far she has continued to stay the same way- Small, but STRONG and SPunky!


Her Italian Pediatrician has pushed me from the beginning to integrate formula (thinking that the breast milk was not enough) and insisted that there might be something wrong with her. While in the states our pediatrician and friend who specializes in pediatric Gastroenterology said that she is fine and we just needed to slowly increase her calorie intake (this is also after having some blood work done here in Italy). Last week we spent 5 hours at one of the local Hospitals doing more tests to rule out other possibilities, ie: blood work urine, stool samples, sweat test for cystic fibrosis and an ultrasound on all major organs. I had also kept a 2 week diary of everything including amounts of food she ate (plus before and after weights from breastfeeding).
I have felt GUILTY for sometime that maybe there was something I had done wrong during the pregnancy for her to be born small- GUILT again during the 2nd night of her life when they kept her to feed her formula every 3 hrs to help her weight gain and GUILT since then every time her weight comes up- the dumb thing is I have always felt inside me that she is fine- and for some reason I feel like if I write it here it will help me deal with that Guilt. So magically world of blogger- help me rid myself of this GuILT- after all I love my LITTLE LOTTIE just the way she is!
P.S. She took her FIRST STEPS on her own last night!!!!

Normal Days

I recently had a friend comment on something I wrote somewhere questioning me if I ever just stay home in my pj's, and the Answer is ALL OF THE TIME!
Most days are pj days for me, Charlotte and I hang out inside and clean, play, iron(we don't have a dryer so EVERYTHING gets ironed), wash dishes(by hand)and in the afternoons before dinner time we usually get in a short walk to breathe some fresh air. We don't mind being inside, we find things to do even when the chores are done, or I am too lazy to do them, besides it is starting to get chilly here and who wants to spend hours outside with a baby!
I just like to post about the FUN things we do- it makes our life seem more GLAMOROUS!

mouth full of rice grains

Around 6 months Lottie started teething, and by August she had 2 center bottom teeth, a third followed in mid September and now the sweet thing is cutting FIVE yes 5 all at once(one more on the bottom and 4 on top)! She has been prety great about it all- just gets up a few times at night and wants comfort- currently all but one have broken through. In norm with the rest of her these teeth are little. Someone at church told me she looks like she has chicci di riso (rice grains) in her mouth- what do you think?
I did my best to get photos:

Got 6 minutes??

We had a few extra apples around the house last week and on 3 different nights Mr. Gio and I indulged in perfect for the fall baked apples! They were very simple to make.
Core apples (I used my veggie peeler)
sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar (I used brown)
place in microwave proof dish
squeeze some lemon or grapefruit juice on top
add a little water in bottom of dish and microwave on high for 5 to 6 min- throw on a scoop of icecream or whipped cream and ENJOY!
Seriously QUICK, EASY and TASTY!

New toy

Last week I worked on this new toy for my Lottie Bug- she seems to like it so far- especially when I stick my face in the center of the circles!