Favorite Girl, Favorite Photo Strips

Visiting the Colaizzi Cousins, May 2012

Gemma and I headed to Pittsburgh last week to pick up a dear friend of ours who came to the Midwest to visit, and while we were there, we had a visit with the Colaizzi cousins.  We all went to Soergel's Family Orchard, where the kids enjoyed a petting zoo, ice cream, and a fabulous playground.  We were also lucky enough to be in town for Celia's pre-school graduation!  Way to go Celia.  We had a blast.  Some pictures of our trip are below.

Soergel's has homemade apple cider

...and a toy store with all of the Melissa and Doug toys.

Celia, Rocco and Reed, the family farmers

We put the kids in jail

A perfect place to stash your ice-cream until you're ready to eat it

Giovanni tried on Gemma's glasses for size.  He looks mighty nice in them, no?

Our little graduate!

Kelli and Gio

tuckered out

Happy Memorial Day!

What does a Cow Say?

Grandma Seal's Visit

Grandma Seal came for a visit this week and it was so much fun!  She and Gemma became fast friends.  Gemma had a blast ordering her very accommodating Grandma around.  Here's Gemma with her Daddy and Grandma Seal at the Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio.  We decided to take a tour of Rutheford and Lucy Hayes' family home.  After we bought three tickets and started the tour Gemma decided she wanted to run around the house and tear things up, so she had to be taken out.  Still it was a gorgeous spring day and a fun trip.

We went to the Zoo!  So fun!

In the aviary we showed Gemma lots of "birdies".  The next day we went outside to play and Gemma pointed up at the sky and said "birdy?"  She learns something new everyday.  Grandma Seal, an art teacher, tought her some of her colors while she was here.  Gemma now knows blue and green.

Grandma decided to give Gemma a lift so she could see into the wishing well.  It was better than the alternative which happened first.  Gemma bulldozed a bunch of other kids out of the way and pushed her way to the front.

Gemma insisted on wearing her monkey backpack.  A leash attaches to the backpack, but unfortunately we forgot that in the car.

EASTER 2012

So, Gemma got LOTS of presents and candy for Easter.  All three grandmas got her treats, toys, clothes and/or candy.  Yesterday we had an Easter dinner and egg hunt at my grandma's house.  We woke Gemma up from nap to leave, took the tickets off of her new Easter dress from Me-ma, put it on her and were walking out the door when...faceplant.  The poor little thing tripped and fell flat on her face.  She was crying, I picked her up and comforted her, and we got into the car when we noticed there was blood all over her sweater and mine.  Her little nose was bleeding!  We felt awful, but cleaned her up, proceeded on our way and ended up having an ok Easter afterall, as you can see from these photos.  Today we woke up to more Easter baskets and then went to church to remember what Easter's really all about.

so cute.

With Great Grandma looking for Eggs

Gemma and her Hoard

finding more eggs

with Daddy

Blood from her nose :(

pretties

Le Artiste