Summer Summer Summertime.....

We haven't even hit summer solstice but the weather is hot hot hot! I'm not complaining, the summer is SO much better than winter for me. So I'm declaring it summer here already. Here is just some of the summer fun we've been having.

We set out to plant our garden last weekend. We fortified ourselves with Steve's homemade pancakes and dined on them al fresco.

Then off to Home Depot where Dan introduced Cole to some pretty big power tools.

Addie was very serious about being a big part of the planting process.

Cole just liked playing in the dirt.

Since last summer the very beautiful (but very hungry) deer ate any and all vegetables that came up in the garden, this year Steve designed a big ol' fence to surround the plot.

The finished product!

In other summer fun, Addie has been loving the sundresses because they make her feel QUITE fancy

Addie and Cole continue to have a love and scuffle (not hate) relationship. The scuffling is pretty minimal and really only involves the sharing of toys.

Cole has been very serious about his artwork lately. Masterpiece #137. Artist: Cole Robert Silvestro. Title: Recycling Shmecycling. Media: Cardboard. Style: Neoimpressionism. Pants: optional.

Speaking of pants, we went over to Addie's schoolmate Emery's house for a swimming playdate. Having come unprepared, Addie got to borrow some of Emery's duds. Cole just went in a t- and diaper combo.

NOT PICTURED: the point when we realized that ALL of the kids were naked, the only stitch of clothing on the collection of them was Cole's diaper. There was quite the anatomy lesson that day.

And in big news, Cole had his first Popsicle last night. We couldn't do anything to convince him to hold it by the stick, whenever we tried to show him, he got mad, thinking we were going to take away his preciousssssss.

Loving the summer so far :)

Slacker update + Ice Skating

I know, I know. I've been TERRIBLE about updating the blog. Here's the thing...I get overwhelmed by big tasks. So I throw it on the backburner. Then they get bigger. So when I finally get around to an update, I have so much to update it takes me a long time to choose the photos, upload them (on blogspot you can only do 5 at a time and they upload in reverse order, so you have to do some finagling with the order...bah), then I have to come up with the captions....it's a whole evening! So...I've hereby decided (and surely the grandma's will help keep me accountable) to post once a week. If I do it often then it won't be so stressful, right?

Right :)

So....I am behind a few holidays or two (ahem...Easter....ahem...VALENTINES day) but to ease myself back in the waters, I'm just going to do one theme today...ICE SKATING! I give Gaga all the credit for suggesting and nudging us to do this for a long time. We finally got Addie out there and she was nervous at first but she LOVED it so much we went back a second time.

The first time Gaga came with us and was going to skate with Addie, but Addie was nervous and wanted me to go with her --so that's why I'm wearing short pants--not exactly ice skating gear. I was also unprepared with Addie. I remembered a jacket but EVERY other kid on the ice was wearing a helmet from home. Oops. But the cool thing is that the special "tot skate" session means not a lot of people on the ice and they bring out these little walkers that the kids can hold for support. Pretty cool, huh?

The second time I was a bit more appropriately dressed, and we got Addie pretty cool helmet. Oh, and she was wearing actual gloves instead of socks on her hands.


Hey guys? Can I come?



Cole was just a little jealous :) Next year, little man. Next year.

Birthdays, Visitors, Snow White, Etc.

We've had a lot of action and adventure in Casa Silvestro.

Gaga had a birthday! Happy Birthday, Gaga!

And Great Aunt Judy surprised Gaga by coming from the West Coast to help celebrate! Addie enjoyed the couch-reading sessions and the Fancy Nancy doll she was gifted...ooh la la!

Then we had another West Coast visitor--Erin was in town for a conference here in DC, woohoo!
I had a birthday too, but...sigh...nobody took a picture ;) No worries, folks, I had a truly great day, thank you to everyone for the sweet wishes!

Cole is getting more curious by the day. He's constantly doing doing doing. Keys? Let's see if I can open this door. He knows how to unlock my phone and scroll through pictures and he even dialed the phone once. Nothing is safe around here!

He got to spend a bit of time in Addie's classroom last week and had a blast. He's really learned SO many new words lately. We've counted more than 30 words and signs and that doesn't include the very adorable animal noises he can make. My favorite new words of his this week are Bravo and Poop (well, he says bah-bow! and boop--and he says the latter while he's doing the act...is he a boy or what?)

So you may have noticed in the above picture that Addie is wearing a hat. She also opted to wear her Redskins cheerleader outfit to school that day. We deal with a LOT of battles with this 3 year old lately, so as long as everything is covered appropriately, I let her wear what she wants within reason, that is not a battle I want to fight.

Later in the afternoon, she threw a Snow White outfit on top for good measure. With a matching parasol, thankyouverymuch.


Snow White and her dwarf, Drooly



Sitting in the shade all princess-like.


Addie has really amped up the dress-up and pretending to be a cast of thousands (today she was Belle AND Dora...I was Prince Charming and Boots). She is going to be an actress someday, I just know it. I'm working on editing together a bit she did AS Snow White. It's Oscar-worthy, people.



And I leave you with some family cuteness



Funny Coley

A funny video

Farethewell, Lehleh

Remember Addie's imaginary friends? She had a handful--her closest buds were Lehleh and Wap. Then came Yehyeh, Eggy, and Goldilocks. They were often in an imaginary car behind us on the way to the grocery store. They came with her to bed to nap. She talked about them at least 5 times a day. Once we were at Target and Addie was in the cart and she suddenly laughed and I asked her what was so funny and she said "oh, Wap just ran by." And if Addie said something that surprised me I would ask her "Where did you learn that?" and she would usually say "Oh Lehleh taught me." She became their mom, their friend, they just filled in whatever role she needed for the day.


So one day Addie and Cole were doing a project in the kitchen. (Yogurt fingerpainting--hey you gotta get creative with a baby who puts everything in his mouth--we don't want purple poop afterall).



I asked Addie later if she had fun fingerpainting and she said "Yep. Lehleh wanted to fingerpaint too but she's too pretend." At the time I thought--hm, quite a complex thought for a little one. For the record, she had admitted before that her friends were pretend, she never really thought she "saw" them. But perhaps her comment was a bit too real for her because that night she said "I don't want to be a mommy anymore. My friends went away." And from that moment on, we went from 5 to a gazillion references to Wap and the gang a day to ZERO. None, no slip-ups, nada. Where did you learn that Addie? Oh, I watched it on TV.

Dare I say, I kind of miss Lehleh? Or maybe I'm just a little nostalgic because Addie is growing up! We went out to a restaurant for dinner last night and she ordered for herself! Who is this young lady?






:)

And we have a walker...

Steve and I had a little bet going. He said that Cole would be walking before his first birthday, I said he wouldn't. Addie walked a week or two shy of her first birthday and I remember her doing a lot more cruising and pushing a car across the room earlier than Cole did at the same age. Guess what? We were both right. Cole technically took his first unassisted steps before his first birthday. I should know the date, but I don't--it's somewhere on a video on my phone and someday I may go back and find it, but today...you'll just have to believe me :) So...again comparing the kids. Addie wasn't a fast crawler--if you remember, she did a funny one leg in front one leg behind crawl. Cole on the other hand is pretty durn fast. So I think that while he was excited to take some steps, he realized that crawling is just way more efficient. So since he took his first steps almost a month ago now, he still hasn't taken to walking all that much, but here and there, he'll just bust out and go at it.

Happy Birthday, Cole!!

Guess what happened this weekend? Little Cole bear turned 1!!!!

We decided to not have as big of a 1st birthday party as Addie had (there were just under 30 people) mostly because I tend to be a stressball about these things lately and what fun is that? So with the guilt of having a small, family-only shindig instead, I decided that he needed a super cool "theme" for his party--so we decided on a "Moo Baa La La La" theme. For those who are confused and don't know what that means, a cool author named Sandra Boynton has written a ton of great kids books and songs and Cole's favorite Boynton book is Moo Baa La La La. He giggles through the whole book every time--it's adorable. Sooo....theme established, we set out to make it an adorable party!


First off, party favors! Since there were only 3 kids in attendance, the favors could be big. I made t-shirts for the kiddos. Cole was Moo, Julie was Baa, and Addie was La La La

Next--what party is complete without party hats?? So I printed out some of the animals from the book and pasted them on these shiny blue party hats. Rock ON.

The cake--I had it in my head that the cake would look like the cover of the book. I'll be honest that Addie's butterfly cake looked better in my head than it did in reality. But Steve vouched for his copying skills and we armed ourselves with pre-colored fondant and away we went. I made the cake and frosting (and colored it "teal", yeah baby). I also rolled out some of the fondant.

Then Steve got some pretty official tools (is that an exacto knife? Why yes it is...) and....

VOILA!! I am SO SO proud of Steve's artistic skills and practically had tears in my eyes when I saw the final product. Pretty kick ass, huh?

So with some color-coordinated balloons (or "baboo" as Coley calls them)...

and some Aunt-Alli-rockin' streamer action....the party can begin!


Cole rocking his Moo shirt with Poppy.

All the kiddos sporting their shirts.

Cole showing Alli how cool Elmo "Eh" is.

Cole chooses his hat...

...Douggo chooses his "stupid horse" hat :)

Gaga and Uncle Dan

Addie and Yaya

Alli, Julie, and Douggo

Nom nom nom--delicious lunch if I do say so myself.

Then it's cake time! Cole had a big lunch so he wasn't all that interested in the cake at first. Addie was using her high-pitched big sister voice "Coley, it's CAKE you EAT it"

Steve finally took it into his own hands and fed him a piece.

And the rest was history!

Addie had cake AND a matching cupcake.

Presents! Lucky Cole had some help from his big sis.

Cole loves Addie's green Anywhere Chair, so he got a blue one for himself. Yep, he loved it, too!

I LOVE this picture of Doug with the baby cousins!



In conclusion...Cole turned 1. He's still our baby. The party was awesome. We have an amazing amazing family. Life is good!

:)