Christmas chez nous!

I had an hour and a half long conversation with my dear friend, Sandrine, from Switzerland today, hence the bit of French. Well, Christmas at our house (chez nous, in other words) is pretty much celebrated, with bellies full of chocolate and cheesecake and turkey and a house full of new gizmos, gadgets, and toys, and oh right, a couple of new things for the kids, ha ha. We celebrated Christmas, Silvestri style, earlier in December which was a much fun and far too much food as every Christmas celebration should be, complete with games which is another Corinna fave. What Luke remembers the most from that event was Julio's aunt, as she has a side business where she dresses up for parties and so she came as a clown and put on a magic show for the kids. Luke clung to us whenever she was around and for days afterwards said, "Auntie Angie scare me, Auntie Angie too much make-up!" He also found the Santa that sings by the ATM machine in Superstore scary so it doesn't take much. Come to think of it, that Santa kind of scares me too. (Jake and Josh, Luke's heroes of whom we hear a lot of)(Guess who?!? She's so great, and every other child was completely enamored with her...)(Lovely Grace...she's getting so grown-up!)(Luke and Eli had their own private dinner that night...WAY TOO CUTE!)

Anyway, I digress...since the train event we have spent some time with my dad's side of the family with cousins who love games and always have new ones so I got to play a new card game called "Mamma Mia" where we all make pizzas. Very cool. Then on Monday, Christmas Eve Day, it was our little Silvestri family's turn to celebrate together. We opened presents in the morning, of which Luke was more excited about the super cheap hockey stick than the basketball hoop that we actually spent some money on. Go figure. I'm sure if Josh or Jake gets into basketball it will be an investment. So we played, we got to put baby Jesus on the advent calendar which was a big deal to Luke, Julio started his ridiculous run of good luck beating me at "Carcassonne", a game he bought ME for Christmas...feels like the other way around somehow...and Samuel napped and chewed on toys. Then, in the evening after supper, Great-Gramma and Nannie came over for birthday cake and we all sang happy birthday to Jesus and we had a helium balloon and a candle and good moods were abounding. It was great fun, very much what I wanted for Luke for this Christmas...where the focus was less on the toys and more on Jesus.(I love that we have 2 whole children, they're so great).("I'm tired but have to look chipper and excited for the kids sake...or is that for Corinna's sake?!?)("I really am chipper and excited just don't zoom in on the bags under my eyes!")("I love hockey. I wonder what Jake and Josh are doing right now...")("I don't know what's going on but Dad is smiling at me so I guess I'll smile back!") (Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Jesus...)

(Great-Gramma and Nannie and the boys).

The next day we went to my parents place for our get together. My mother exudes keenness in every way and for the third year in a row, due to having the youngest children, Julio and I got to have the leads in the pageant once again as Mary and Joseph. This year at least we got scripts so it wasn't totally ad-lib as that makes Julio crazy. It was that day that my mom informed him that he gets to do it all over again on Sunday at a gathering with her side of the family...please pray for Julio's relationship with his mother-in-law these days, things are tense. Actually, he's coping quite well in his old age with my mother's antics.

(I suppose this is our family picture for this Christmas. Very normal for Mary and Joseph to also adopt a shepherd and for Jesus to be 4 months old and Joseph to wear a Roots shirt, right?)

All in all it was a good time, and since then life has consisted of a two-day failed potty training attempt, some trial skating moves in the living room and a lot more Carcassonne. I've completed bombarded this post with pictures and a video attempt, I hope you enjoy!

s,

The Christmas Train...

Tonight felt like a holiday. We ventured out into the cold, drove down Corydon to some lovely property just past the zoo which was transformed into a little winter wonderland. It was beautiful. Arched lights and narrow pathways and bridges and rickety old bikes laying against trees also lit up all leading up to a mini train station run by old men with headsets and loud voices keeping order as hoards of people lined up for their chance to ride the magical winter train. I had Samuel snug against me in a carrier and my jacket around him with a blanket around us both and once he settled into his cozy spot and fell asleep, I relaxed and just took in the crisp winter air and magical feeling that comes with the season and the lights and the people. We went with our friends, Stan and Tricia and their two girls and inched our way closer and closer to the little trains while trying to keep warm and not think about cold toes. The actual train ride was great too. I was grinning the whole time, I think, it went relatively fast and through a couple of tunnels and I was just exactly in the right mood for it all. Luke rode with Julio and I couldn't wait to find out what he thought of it. He talked fast and excitedly the whole way home about it all, so much so that we could hardly understand what he said so I know he had a good time. It was amazing too, because I didn't see one Santa Claus, although Julio said the guy he bought the train tickets from looked a lot like him, but rather a quiet, snowy little nativity scene as we stood in line, Peace on Earth and Christ is Born in lights, and Christmas carols, the kind I grew up hearing in church, on some non-intrusive sound system. It was quite refreshing, to say the least. And then we came back to our house for hot chocolate and poppycock and good conversation with our lovely friends as the two older kids played downstairs and the younger ones stayed with us upstairs and everyone just content as can be. It was truly a blessed night and I already cherish the memory of it.
Here's wishing you enough coldness as you step out your door to make you feel alive and enough warmth as you come inside to make you feel loved as we draw ever closer to the celebration of Christ's birth. Stayed tuned for birthday party news...we are throwing Jesus a birthday party on Monday to celebrate his birth, complete with cheesecake and balloons, and it promises to be a fun-filled day. How else does one explain the meaning of the season to a two-year-old?!?

Soon it will be Christmas Day! In the meantime...

Sammy and Luke and Julio and I went to Bethlehem Live tonight at Gateway Church. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the tour, where there were live animals and people in period costumes, etc, so this is them in the line waiting to get in. Very cool event, unless you're two and people dressed up and screaming aren't your thing and so you cling to your parent with a death grip. And why is Sammy's eye so weird in this picture?!? I just noticed that now...
I'm back from my mini blogging break and hopefully have some noteworthy things to share. I keep thinking about all the things I want to blog about and I'm sure I'll forget most of them now that I'm sitting here. Since dedications, proud grampas, hero cousins in skates and wonky trees, what have we done...hmmm...This first video shows what I feel like consumes a lot of every day. The ABC song. Over and over again. There have been a few times when he's done it completely right from beginning to end but there are many versions of it. This is one of the best I've got on camera. (Now I have two versions...the first is better than the second but since I went to the trouble of doing both I thought I'd leave them...long story.)




The next video I'd like to call "The Pre-Game Show". Ever since the first week Luke went to see Josh, hero cousin, play hockey, he is a) very into hockey and pretends to skate around the house all day long and b) constantly playing with "Josh". He tells us that Josh is downstairs doing this or that, or that he and Josh just did such and such and he talks all the time when he plays and there's a lot of Josh talk there too. It's borderline obsessive or something, but mostly cute. I told Josh on the phone the other day how enamored Luke was with him and he seemed kind of amazed so I hope he takes it as a compliment. Anyway, I digress. This is Luke about an hour before watching Josh play hockey again.

And now for other news. Julio is at home these days due to tennis elbow so we are all bumping into each other all day long and mostly loving it. What is nice is being able to get out here and there for a bit, kid free or with just one of them. The other day Luke and I went shopping for Julio while Samuel napped at home, and while we were out I got the lowdown on my Christmas presents which was kind of a nice sneak peek. Luke said to me, "daddy buy mommy presents, daddy buy mommy jammies! Daddy buy mommy shirt, daddy buy mommy pants..." It was great fun, although I'm hoping he won't spill the beans to Julio about what I bought. I tried to buy really complicated things that he wouldn't know of anyway so hopefully that will help. (That last comment is just to throw Julio off...or is it...ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! I love Christmas secrets!) And on that note, Julio is probably entering his least favorite season of the year entitled "Corinna's unknown expectations". I'm turning 30 on January 3rd and so not only does Julio have to deal with Christmas but that ever looming 30th birthday is just a hop, skip and a jump later. I have to say, having him home is not all bad because it's giving him time to shop! The other nice thing about Julio is he doesn't love secrets so I could get a present every day if I wanted. I have, so far, received two gifts this month. Both of them kitchen appliances, much to my pleasure I'll have you know! The first one was a toaster oven which may not seem that exciting to most of the world, but when you're a celiac and haven't really had toast in two months and you've seen mouth-watering nutella on soft, fluffy, gluten-laden toast, trust me, it's a good gift. We toaster oven everything now. It's so great. Tuna melts on rice cakes abound around here, and today, for ultimate weirdness and wonderfulness, it was brie and blueberry jam on toast. I admit that's a bit odd but I've made a baked brie with peach chutney on crackers before and this was as close as we could come today. It's sort of the trailer park version, you should try it. The other gift was a slow cooker. We've wanted to exit the slow cooker dark ages for a while now and actually get one with a removable inside, and now the incentive has been even greater as my ever keen sister has read and bought this new cookbook called "The Big Cook". The idea originated with 3, far-too organized women, from AB who make a bunch of prepared meat marinades, etc which can be frozen and slow-cooked and so Robyn's keenly made a bunch of meals and I've joined in to the slow-cooker way of life. I think these are my only two appliances coming though, the rest promise to be much less practical and much more personal. Oh the stress. Sadly (for Julio), I'm not low-maintenance when it comes to my 30th birthday. And really I should be because this year, more than ever, I'm so grossed out with all the consumerism and Wal-Mart and China and the works. My best two shopping experiences have been at ten thousand villages, where I walk in and go straight for the fair trade coffee, have a few sips, walk around all the beautiful displays of international Christmas and beautiful rugs and then gag as I read every label and see how much it all costs. It makes me wonder how willing I am to embrace fair trade and ditch low-cost deals. And just to spoil any Christmas shopping fun you may be having, check this out! I felt very "big box-mart-ish" the other day, walking into Wal-Mart with a cart to purchase my $40 piece of plastic in the form of a basketball hoop for Luke. I felt a bit better knowing he got an ornament from Ten Thousand Villages and that I had sewn Sammy's only little gift for him. But only just slightly...And if you're not skipping over this paragraph yet, either due to boredom, conviction, annoyance or anything else, check this out for another great way of celebrating Christmas... www.buynothingchristmas.org. Doesn't that have a lovely ring to it?!? As long as the year we do it doesn't coincide with turning 30 of course...

Okay, enough of that nonsense. How can you tell it's late and I'm just waiting for the video to load and I should be in bed. A couple more pictures before I stop. Here's Samuel in his first jolly jumping attempt. We absolutely loved this stage with Luke and I had major deja-vu putting Samuel in there, right down to knocking his head around and making him mad trying to get him into the contraption. A part from the entry and exit, I think he had fun. We'll have to keep our eye on Luke, though, when he's in it, because he just wanted to push him around and "help" him. Samuel is going to be one tough kid, between Luke and myself. Can you say jolly jumper therapy, anyone?!?

Well, in case I don't get back to blogging before Christmas actually rolls around, a Merry Christmas to anyone who takes a minute to look at any of this. I am really looking forward to this Christmas, just seeing it all over again through Luke's ever-inquisitive and observant little eyes. We're planning a birthday party for Jesus, complete with cheesecake and balloons and do a little advent calendar every day that sets up the nativity scene, so I feel like there's hope for us yet to find a little taste of what Jesus might want us to celebrate this year.

Hunting, Dedicating, Playing, Partying, and Christmas treeing (in no particular order)

I just downloaded a bunch of pictures from the past while and realized I had a few blog-worthy things to say, so here I am.

The first couple of pictures are from my worthy hunter, Julio. They (as in his brothers and dad) went hunting for a couple of days and Julio was the only one who managed to get a deer this time, at 7:30am on the first day. I imagine after being out there for less than an hour and getting the first deer, optimism is at its prime and so they came home a little disappointed that they hadn't been more successful, but I'm proud nonetheless. I think I already mentioned Luke's hunting enthusiasm in a prior post and so he too was proud of his hunter father.

All that orange just looks like a good time, doesn't it?!?The above picture was taken at our neice, Sofi's, 5th birthday party. She absolutely adores Samuel and can't wait for her own little baby to arrive, so I think the best gift we could give her was to let her hold him for a bit. She has quite good baby stamina for a little girl!! So here is Sofi and Leah with our little Sammy...This picture is only here because of Dino's expression...

Nannie and Samuel hanging out at the party...On Sunday Samuel was dedicated at our church. It was all lovely and I'm so grateful for my father-in-law taking pictures of the event or else we would have none. Being there, relatively on time and dressed adequately was enough for us, taking the camera along was far too advanced for us. Luke was a little distressed with having to leave Toddler Zone just as the snacks were coming out, so I found some super sticky granola in my purse and gave it to him just before going up to get Samuel dedicated. His face had granola all over it and he was covered in stickiness right when they called us up so I got a wipe and Julio did as well as he could but time was not on our side. So Luke stood up there with sticky goo all over his face looking a little shell-shocked. But during the prayer he touched Samuel's hand and was all sweet with him so all in all we'll count it as a success. And Samuel, the sweet little stoic that he is, just took it all in, calm as can be. Man, I love that kid.This is Luke after falling off a chair and getting a scratch on his chin. Band-aids are a new novelty, the first one he had he just kept looking at and touching and sort of liked it and sort of didn't and it ended up coming off fairly soon. This chin one didn't last very long at all but I sure love this picture...what a little bruiser, hey?And here are the grandfathers. You will never meet a pair of prouder grandfathers in your life, they both just love our boys and so we love them. This was the first time Tata had held Samuel and he was proud to report that he got him giggling.And here's my dad, Papa Ron as he's known in these parts, hanging out with Luke. This picture is just so very Luke. Intent and content with his tools.Hanging out...for those of you yet to see our mostly finished basement, here it is!This picture I'd like to call "Ode to Josh", Luke's hockey hero. I few weeks ago we went to watch Josh play hockey and Luke has not stopped talking about it. He loves his big cousins Josh and Jake and talks about them daily. This was actually taken with Tata's camera, but due to the prominence of Josh skating in our lives these days, it had to be included.
Setting up for Christmas. The erectile disfunctions of this tree have been rectified in case you were curious... This is our first year having a Christmas tree and it was so much fun setting it up with Luke. Once it was all up Luke said, "daddy, get sawsall, cut tree!!!" And the next day he was playing with the balls on the tree and Julio said, "should we take the tree down? No more Christmas tree?" And Luke, enthusiastically, said "YES!" We'll have to work on his Christmas spirit a little. He did really like the lights though, and kept playing with the adapter that changes the twinkle setting (does that make any sense?). He pretended it was a phone at one point and said, "yeah, lights, a tree, yeah...". This picture was more lovely in real life but the flash made it too bright and the flashless version was too dark...but after it was all lit up, we just sat by the tree for the longest time in the dark with only the lights twinkling...I love Christmas season!!!And not like I haven't written enough, but I have to share a few more Luke moments. I've been thinking that I need to be teaching Luke a bit more about God and Jesus, etc, and so at lunch one day I was saying how God is so awesome, Jesus is so great, etc, etc, and Luke started to get that God was pretty cool and he added, "yeah, God has a BIG hockey stick!!!" And then today, Luke was looking at the Christmas tree and then said to me, "Jesus isn't talking much". Who knows what's all going on it that boy's head. He amazes me daily with what he all comes up with!!

What I saw when I came downstairs part 2

Why is it that when Julio goes away things have to be a little more on the wild side. Julio went hunting for 2 days and was quite excited about it and for days before that was talking to Luke about it. So my sweet little two-year-old has been walking around the house saying, I want to go hunting, I want to shoot a big deer! But that's not the wild part.
On Wednesday we had a fairly uneventful day, went to my church's MOM's group in the morning and on the way home I asked Luke what he did. He said, I have snack, I have movie, I have train! And then he told me about all the kids he played with, saying I have Rachel, I have Ethan, etc etc. It's so fun that he's at the age now where he can tell me things. I guess the flipside to that is that he's so aware of what I'm saying I wonder what he'll say to other people. So far there haven't been any scarring events but I'm sure it's just around the corner.
I invited ourselves (me and the boys) to my sister's house for supper on Wednesday evening which was great. But the wildness didn't really happen until Thursday.
Thursday morning started out just great, the kids slept quite well, we got up around 7:30, ate breakfast and then Luke and I proceeded to have a one hour fight about the banana Luke refused to eat right after asking for it. I was ready to call parenting 911 to get some advice. Does anyone have the number?!? I was trying to recall all the clever advice I'd heard lately but it all conflicted...don't sweat the small stuff, be consistent, give them an inch and they'll take a mile, don't force feed kids or they'll have food issues forever...In the end we just hugged and he played in his room for a bit while I did something else. I think we both knew we needed space from each other...and the banana.
Then my friend Colleen came over with two of her kids which was great. The best part was that Nicole ate Luke's banana so I at least felt good that SOME child was eating fruit in my house. I made Luke thank her too which he seemed kind of confused about but did anyway.
All this and it wasn't even 10:30. At 10:30 Colleen had to go and as she was heading out the door my manager with Norwex walked in with her son and a 15-year-old girl she was hanging out with for the day. So Jax and Luke and Michelle had a blast playing while Jill and I talked about Norwex stuff and then I decided to run downstairs to get something from our office. I walked into the office AND A BIRD WAS FLYING AROUND IN THERE!!!!!!! A WHOLE ENTIRE BIRD! I am apparently afraid of birds, I found out yesterday. So I ran upstairs like a little wimp and told Jill and was kind of screeching and saying, there's a bird down there! And so she took control because it was obvious I wasn't going to, and she and her 3-year-old son went downstairs and proceeded to chase the bird from the office, into the recroom, down the hall, it spent a bit of time in the bathroom, and finally (we think, although it was only mostly confirmed by the 3-year-old) flew out the back door while I stood at the top of the stairs holding a blanket over the doorway so it wouldn't come into the kitchen. That was a legitimate bird-chasing role I felt. I told the 3-year-old that his mom was very brave and he said, I know. I told him that he was brave too and he said I know. And then I said, yeah, I'm not all that brave, and he said, yeah, I know. Oh well, you can't win them all. And the whole time I'm thinking to myself, what would I have done if Jill wasn't here? And why does this happen when Julio's away?!? I think I would've just packed us up and moved to my parents' place until Julio came home. I am an official bird wimp.

What I saw as I came downstairs...

Luke was sitting at his little table, drawing with one hand, holding his hockey stick up to his ear with the other talking to "Gramma Anne". He was saying, "yeah, I am...". He's really into this "I am" phrase, I'm not really sure why...
Sorry there's no picture, but I have to record these things that make me smile or else the things that don't make me smile make me crazy.

Toddler School

Lately I've been thinking more about "educating" Luke a bit and I've found him to be a little bit "teach resistant". You can't teach an old dog new tricks and you can't teach a stubborn 2-year-old that not all circular objects are balls and not all colours are green. I was going through one of his books with him which had a few shapes in it and every time I got to circle he would say, no, ball! And so I'd say, yes, balls are like circles, they are round like a circle, and he'd say, no, ball! So, because we have enough things to argue about these days I'm letting him win that one and for the time being, circles are balls. The ABC song isn't happening around our house either, I think I mentioned in a previous post that the song always morphs into something else. Today it was Luke, Sam, Mom, Dad which was a nice version. Sometimes it's just whiny babble which I could do without. And then there are his colours. Ask him what colour anything is and it's always green. He looks so smart when the thing is actually green, but that doesn't happen too often. And then there's counting. We've been struggling to get Luke to eat more healthily and so we're bribing him with M&Ms. As I'm writing this it seems sort of counter-productive but whatever. At least he's eating more than just beige food (The boy loves his carbs). So after lunch today Julio asked him, do you want one, two or three M&Ms, to which he responded, one, a green one. So he had his one M&M and because I ate almost all my lunch I got a bunch of M&Ms (purely for modeling sake, I've got to set a good example). So, of course Luke wanted some of my M&Ms and so I asked him, do you want 1, 2, or 3? He was onto us now and wasn't going to mess up by just asking for one, so he said, I want LOTS!
So, although he hasn't mastered his abcs or 1, 2, 3s yet, he has a very positive image of school. All of his cool, older cousins go to school and so it is obviously the cool thing to do. We talk a lot about Alexandra or Claire or Jake or Josh going to school and without fail he'll say, kick a ball? He's convinced that all kids do at school all day is kick a ball. I've started to tell him that kids read books, sing songs, etc, and then he'll usually ask me, kick a ball? Thank goodness for gym class, at least I know Luke will like ONE subject! Luke has often had trouble enjoying childcare at our church, but we've almost licked that this year by referring to it as "church school". Who would guess that by calling something "school" it would be more appealing?!?
And then there is music, Luke loves the piano. We have a digital piano which plays a variety of classical pieces and Luke knows how to turn it on and get it to play. I think we all know the first "demo" song far too well. And he always wants me to sit with him, so a few weeks ago I thought I'd give him his first piano lesson. We played all the C's and then all the F's and he kind of got it I think. And then a few days later he asked me, do C's?
My mom came over the other day and was playing some songs on the piano for him, and after playing song and after song and after song, she paused and he looked at her and said, What else? So, there's a little glimpse into the academic life of our sweet Luke.

Our Pasta Making Bee

I don't know what constitutes a "bee", but we have had some serious pasta fun this morning. Julio has been determined to find a way of making rice pasta, so yesterday he borrowed his mom's pasta maker and today is experimentation day. We've bought some rice pasta at the store which tastes reasonably good, although it's about 6 times more expensive than regular pasta. So Julio thought we could save some money (plus it could be fun) to try making our own. I can't say we were major pasta eaters before I got diagnosed with celiac disease, but I suppose the italian in Julio can't let us have a pasta-less house, so here we are. Enjoy the pictures.

help!

I wanted to add that picture at the top but it's MASSIVE! How do I make it less invasive?!? Techie Ellen, any advice?

It's been a while, and for good reason...

Life around here has been a little zany lately. I think having a newborn should make it crazy enough, but add to that getting going on my little Norwex business and finding out I have my very own, actual disease (I am a celiac, it turns out), and having a toddler that thinks he's too good for naps but not for whining, and a baby who's a dream sleeper during the day and a gas-man at night, 3 colds (Julio, Luke and me) and learning how to cook basically everything from scratch so that it's gluten-free...yeah, life has been zany. That sounded like a very whiny run-on sentence, hopefully the rest will be less run-on and whiny but I'm not promising anything. Besides the aforementioned challenges, we do have bright lights in our days, mostly due to our kiddos. Luke is forever making me laugh with the things he says and does...he likes counting now and it goes something like this: one two three four five six seven eight times! (I think nine and ten = times, not sure though). And one time he was counting something and I asked him what he was doing to which he responded, "I'm one-ing!" He understands the -ing verb ending quite well and has told me that he is trucking, lawning (mowing the lawn with one of his outside toys) amongst other things. His new favorite thing is to sing anything to the alphabet song...anything BUT the alphabet. I've found out that two-year-olds sometimes know the alphabet but whenever I try to teach it to him he changes it up. A few personal faves are the version "baketball, baketball, baketball hoop, baketball baketball baketball hoop". Or "Jer, Jaimee, Jer, Jaimee, Jer Jer Jer Jer Jaimee" (Jeremy and Jaimee are friends from our small group at church). We have the Jer Jaimee version on video which is below, although he was aware he was on camera and it just doesn't have the same pizzazz as usual. Note the drumsticks/microphones.

Sammy's fun too, he's quite a little smiler these days and also a good napper! What a treat. I don't feel like I have a ton of funny stories to share about him, but I sure feel a lot of love for the little guy. It's amazing how your own children just capture your heart like nothing else. I love quiet evenings when Luke is in bed and I can just sit and hold Samuel and take him in. He's a gentle soul and very obliging, especially where his big brother is concerned. And don't get me wrong, Luke loves him a lot and is very gentle, he's just loud and very much in Samuel's face a lot of the time. But today I found Luke going to Samuel when he was crying and trying very patiently to get Samuel to keep his soother in his mouth. There was surprisingly little ramming, as other soother attempts have been, but rather a pretty patient Luke trying to hold the soother in saying "no spit it Sammy!". And on that note, here's a Sammy clip. May not make the Academy Awards but we like it. (Blogger is having trouble posting it, perhaps they were looking for more action, I'll try another time.)
And as for me, well, I've been trying to cope with the news that I have celiac disease. Celiac disease is caused by gluten intolerence, where gluten has done damage to the small intestine. So what it means is I have to adhere to a gluten-free diet for life. Which means no bread, chocolate chip cookies, perogies, normal cereal, cakes, cinnamon buns, etc containing wheat, barley or rye flour. It does mean experimenting with gluten-free flour, many of which come from beans, and making chocolate chip cookies that taste like peas. I can almost eat anything with chocolate in them, but this was a bit much for me. The scary thing was, my friend Tricia, also a celiac, actually thought they were good, and I fear I'll one day think anything resembling real chocolate chip cookies are good. Last night for supper brown-rice crusted pizza was on the menu. I think if you didn't actually try and fool yourself into believing it was supposed to be pizza, it may hold a certain, healthy-like charm. Mostly it just tasted like a lot of brown rice with pepperoni and sauce. But on a positive note, some of the new recipes we've tried have been excellent and brown rice pasta is surprisingly a lot like real pasta. So life isn't all bad. And I'm learning a lot too, mostly about fibre and grains like quinoa and sourghum and amaranth and xanthan gum and all sorts of (mostly useless to the rest of the world) interesting health information. But it's amazing how many different things contain, or potentially contain, gluten. Tonight I went to Starbuck's with a friend and was geared up to have a fancy coffee of sorts, but the ingredients were too sketchy so I just had an Earl Grey tea. My nice friend had a no-fat no-whip aka no-fun latte so we were kind of on par. I still can't understand why in a place that mostly serves beverages, most things are off limits because they could contain wheat. Why would anyone want wheat in a latte? Grrr. All in all it's not so bad, I think I will be eating more healthy eventually which will be positive. Although right now I'm just so excited about anything I can eat that I'm probably gaining weight on peanut butter cookies and M&Ms. I figure serving sizes don't apply to celiacs, we have it rough enough.

And now for our life in pictures.

I also have a picture of Luke and me hanging out on the couch, but he wasn't covering the mommy tummy so it didn't make the cut.

The boys hanging out. I was so excited to put them both in the tub at once, it felt so sibling-ish. I hope their nudity isn't too offensive for the web.
Julio and Luke in their new favorite activity...

Time for a haircut boys...

Before...
After...

It was high time. Luke was looking more and more like a hobbit to me with his shaggy hair around his ears and neck. He is now shorn. He hated it. We did Julio's first and kept saying how much fun he was having but Luke wasn't convinced. He did lots of crying and freaking out for the 5 minutes or so it took to cut it all and so now you see why we buzz it so short and let it grow so long...the fewer the haircuts the better.
On to other things, Luke keeps making me laugh with all the funny things he says and every time I sit down at the computer I forget them all, but there's a few that are fresh in my mind so here it goes:
Yesterday while playing hockey downstairs with him I got a "jood (good) job Babe"! Now, I'm sure there are some refined, proper people out there that can not imagine anyone letting their toddler call them babe, but I find it way too amusing and so I let it slide. He knows it's funny too because he always says it with a smile. The boy is addicted to nicknames. I'm mom, Corinna, Auntie Corinna if we've been around the cousins, Momuel (like Samuel), and one day he even called me darling. And Julio gets the occasional "Julelo" and I feel like we named Samuel just for Luke because there are three names in one with that one - Sam, Sammy, Samuel and they all get used regularly by our sweet Luke.
While we're still on the "babe" subject, when I was overdue with Samuel I had a few weepy moments just wanting to be unpregnant, and one time Luke looked at Julio and said, "Babe wants baby out, hey dad?"
This morning he looked at me and said that he wanted to do puzzles, and then he informed me that today was "puzzle day...BIG puzzle day"! And often I hear that it's "blocks time" or "movie time" or some other kind of "time".
We went to the library this evening with the kids and looked around for a while and got some books, and then while I was taking them out Julio and Luke went downstairs to look at the kids books. Luke looked around and asked Julio where the toys were. And then he saw some styrofoam ball with stuff sticking out of it and said, I want that! So glad to see he's really embraced the concept of a library. (He actually really does love books, just for the record...)
The other day we were at the mall and all of a sudden Luke says to Julio and me, "I check someping (something)" and runs down the hall saying "bubbles"! Sure enough, down at the end of the hall was a big picture of a grandma, mom and daughter all lying in the grass with bubbles all around. I guess he just had to check that it was still there! It had been weeks and weeks since we'd been there too!
This morning we were getting ready to go and Luke was playing with his dump truck and I said, "okay Luke, it's time to go". To which he responded, "No! I trucking!"
I think my favorite thing in the world right now, though, is how much he loves Samuel. This morning I got him out of bed, went to do something and then went to look for Luke and found him lying in our bed beside Samuel just talking to him. And Samuel gets an abundant amount of kisses and hugs from Luke, all gentle surprisingly enough, which of course just melt my heart. He talks to him in the car too and I love eavesdropping on all the things Luke talks to him about...it's all mostly about the tractors, trucks or cars Luke happens to see.
That's all my memory and time are allowing me for now...

Here's Samuel at 4 weeks (he's amazingly fun too by the way, even if he doesn't talk. His soft baby hair makes up for it though):