Helping daddy study??

Donovan is back to school full time and this day Genevieve and the dog were helping him "study." He loves to Ham it up for the camera. When he knows I am taking a picture he makes all his best faces!

Santa Claus is coming to town

Our Christmas tree has been up since the day after Thanksgiving but most of the pictures of us decorating are on a disposable camera as the digital camera was spending some quality time in Donovan's office...Anyhow, here is Adina and Donovan putting the star on and a couple cute ones of Adina and Madison in front of the tree. When we bought this tree, we lived in a much smaller house with much lower ceilings, so we try to compensate as much as we can on the size. We still like it.

So...guess we'll have to try some baby food now!

Since she tried a pickle figured it was only fair to start giving her some baby food. First taste of squash. Despite the face, she actually really enjoyed it.

Gedney, the Minnesota State Fair Pickle!

One of Adina's, Madison's and my favorite foods is pickles. And not just any pickle. They have to be Gedney dill pickles. Adina even includes them on her list of vegetables that shes likes and she only likes 4! And for some reason in Illinois and Indiana they are very hard to come by. My grandma has been bringing me pickles when she comes to visit me for the past 13 years! Yes 13! We had a slight reprieve when our Wal-mart here stocked them, but not anymore (this makes me very sad). Anyhow, Genevieve is becoming very grabby and curious and she was curious about my pickle on my plate so I let her grab it. She loved it! It was pretty funny until her sharp little teeth took off a big chunk (this is the kid who has only had rice cereal so far!) Anyhow the pictures are funny.
Grandma, looks like you are going to have to up your pickle deliveries!

King of the Hill!

Our dog Tommy gets himself into some predicaments at times. Last Sunday it was a pound of chocolate (obviously he lived to bark about it! Thank you Lord, for small favors). A couple of days ago Madison and I were upstairs and I was putting away laundry and I heard the dog barking like he need something, he had gotten onto our computer chair that swivels and was afraid to get down because it would...swivel. Then today he played king of the hill on the back of our couch (with a little help from Donovan). Maybe he is part cat! Although he did manage to get down from this one (once again with a little prompting from Donovan)! Isn't he sweet! (Maria, bet you wish you had 10 of these!!)

Artist in the making!

Adina has always been very creative and loved any type of art project. I was very impressed when she came home with her very own Rainbow Fish today. They had read the story in art class and then got to draw and paint their very own. The picture here may not do it justice. I like it and the colors so much we are going to frame it and hang it in our bathroom which has the blues in it. She really does have a lot of love for art, I hope we can continue to cultivate it. It was funny, the other day I was putting some photos in frames and I wasn't happy with the way one of the pictures looked in a particulare color frame and it was Adina who suggested that I swap some frames so I would like the colors better! And she was right they look good. At this point in life she has aspirations to be a Fashion Designer when she grows up, watch out Vera Wang! I think Adina DeGaetano would be a great designer name or maybe just Adina. We'll see.

Learning to crochet

One thing I like to do when I have time is crochet. I always try to make time at Christmas time and make a couple of blankets for gifts and this year Adina has been begging me to teach her, so I sat down to teach her some basics. She took the skein of yarn with her to bed and has made about a 3 foot chain so far. She is pretty proud of herself. I am very proud of her initiative and how well she took my instructions. Sometimes mom as the teacher does not go so well. But this time it seemed ok.