My Big Fat Italian Baptism!

This last weekend Nick, Karis, my Mom and I all ventured to my home town of Chicago Illinois. Home of the world's best beef sandwich, unbelievable traffic and my family, crazy and all! Nick, Karis and I all spent the weekend with my cousin in one of Chicago's suburbs. It was really nice to spend some time with my family and finally get to meet my newest cousin Frank! The two kiddies below are my cousins Abigail and Angelo (my godbaby) with my baby. It truly was the strangest thing to spend all weekend watching Karis interact with her cousins. She is really good with other kids.

On Saturday we decided to be touristy so we took a hike, more or less, to museum campus. On museum campus you have the Field Museum, the Shedd aquarium, the planetarium and right by that is Soldier Field. It was really cool to see all the sites, its seems like its been a million years since I have gone downtown Chicago and it was Nick and Karis' first time to see the museum. We met my other wonderful cousins Matthew and C.J. for the trip!

Although we didn't really get to see any exhibits other than the children's portion it was nice to spend time with my older cousins (Nicole, Andrea, Jim and Chuck) whose children are pictured above. There was a room in the Children's portion of the exhibit that was filled with all sorts of cool instruments. Karis really loved the drums and the chimes!

Karis had a ton of fun. At first she was a little shy but once she saw her cousins playing she was all in. No stopping this one. Angelo and Karis spent a fair share of time trying to climb through this log.

Karis and her cousins (- one C.J., he was too busy banging the drums to break for a photo shoot).

This weekend wasn't completely about us though. It had a purpose and the purpose was to baptise little Frankie. It is pretty traditional in the Italian family to have big weddings and baptisms. No stops for this one!

Here is my sister with her two God Babies, C.J. and of course little Karis!

Here is just a small fraction of our family that was pictured!

My mom and as she calls us: "Her girls"!

Here is some of my other cousins, still a small fraction of the amount of people that attended the dinner!

Being in Chicago with all my family just goes to show how much I really really miss them. There is nothing like being surrounded by family. I miss all of you so much!!!

Mommy's new camera

Since everyone I know purchased a new toy I thought that it was only fitting that I become one of the "In" crowd and fall into peer pressure. I just went out and bought an Olympus camera and I love it. As you may have noticed below my "model" was the perfect person to try out some of the features.
This camera is the type of camera that you NEED to read the manual in order to take full advantage all the features. I am pretty excited. My old camera was okay but it took forever to try and take a picture and for the mother of a 16 month old MONKEY by the time the camera was focused on her doing one thing she was 4 things ahead of me......sooo I splurged, but I am totally glad I did. For those of who who didn't notice most of her previous photos were of the back of her head and side of her face. This camera is so wonderful that you can actually see her face, dimples and ever growing collection of teeth. Hopefully blogging will be more fun now that I will have some quality pictures!

Cute pictures!!

Karis has this new found love to climb on anything, regardless of wether it is living or not. So today I found her sitting on the couch by herself. The sun was in just the right spot which made for some really cool pictures. I swear she might be the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Bucking Bronco

So I am feeling like a bit of a slacker since I haven't posted anything in like forever. I bet all of you thought that it was going to be next year before you saw anything new. Surprised you huh?! Okay, I will say though that the comments section is a little dry. Except for my friend Brittany who is loyal and always posts a comment the rest of you guys need a little encouragement. To post anonymous (meaning you don't have to sign up for an account) just click on the comments section and it allows for an anonymous post. Just sign your name. And you guys were thinking I was the slacker! HAHA!

So Karis for Christmas got this Zebra with a saddle that bounces and plays music. It is actually a really adorable toy and the music isn't bad at all. Anyways Karis has a permanent smile on her face when she plays with it. It amazes me at how much she learns. She figures stuff out so fast!

Christmas 2007

This year we had a wonderful Christmas. It was nice to be with our family and friends. I enjoyed all the time off from work and more importantly just the time spent with my loved ones. Christmas Eve was with Nick's parents and Christmas was spent with mine. We had such a fun time with everyone. Karis got spoiled to pieces this year. Its okay its her first real Christmas! She had so much fun opening all her presents. Next year will probably be even more interesting when she wants to open everyone else's! I hope everyone enjoys the pictures. Happy holidays!
Karis's bucking bronco!

Just peeking at a few of the gifts!

Good morning and Merry Christmas!!!

Karis got a new baby for Christmas. It was so crazy. She new that the baby went in the stroller and that the bottle went into the baby's mouth. I was in complete shock at how smart MY baby was!!

Nana was super excited about her new UGG's!

Karis was a little shy about opening her presents!

The amount of present at Christmas is always huge, but this year it was out of control! It was literally taking up most of the living room. We had to rearrange the furniture in order for all of us to be able to sit in the room.

Karis is dancing to Johnny Cash at Nana's and Papa's on Christmas Eve. We're a little untraditional, we boycott the Christmas music. Karis didn't mind at all. It was so cute. Sorry its crooked I couldn't figure out how to rotate it.

Christmas Cruise

For those of you who didn't know last week Nick, Karis, my sister, Mom and I were all on a cruise to the Caribbean. It was wonderful and challenging all at the same time. I didn't realize quite how much work vacationing with an infant was. Sure we have taken her on lots of trips, but nothing like this. Despite the few tantrums, she was really great through the whole trip (the ariplane was a little difficult at times)! This entry has a lot of pictures (not even close to what I captured) and I entered it with the most recent pictures first. Whoops. So here's a big thank you to Mimi (my mom) who gave us this generous gift for Christmas. Where are we going next year :)!

Let me give you a little set up for the scene here. The rooms on the ship are small because in all actuality you really don't spend a lot of time in them, but when you do and there are three people, 4 suitcases and a pack and play inhabiting a 10x10 room the natives become restless. Karis here decided that she and Dad were going to wrestle. She is enjoying her victory.


Nick doesn't need a boy to teach wrestling moves. He has her. Yes I am going to be the mom in the office at school that gets called because her daughter has just beat up a boy in gym class. Thanks Dad!

Everyday your room attendants clean your room and stock new towels TWICE! But the evening clean they leave an animal made from the towels. Here is a monkey!

Nick, Nikki (my sister) and I went on an excursion in Belize. We decided that snorkeling would be fun (after some serious convincing to Nick. He wanted to do some jungle river tubing and cave dwelling or something). The morning that we went the weather was overcast but there were slight breaks in the clouds where sun would breakthrough. It made for a really great picture. This is a picture of the ship. It was seriously HUGE!

So a boat picked us up to go snorkeling. After passing several larger islands thinking those were all the final destination to snorkel we started to slow as we approached this one. Everyone thought it was a joke but it was the real deal. This is the island that we snorkeled off of. It was smaller than our backyard!

The instructors on the boat explained that as we started to approack the location we should start getting ready. Apparently Nikki and I missed those instructions. We wanted to be prepared for anything at any time. I think people thought we were nuts.

This is the picture that I thought was so cool. There are three ships sitting docked in the middle of the ocean. You had to have a boat come pick you up off the ship and take to you to the actual island. But as you can see the sun was starting to come out. It is directly over our ship which made me feel good.

Here is Nikki and I in the port of Belize. Nick said that I didn't look enthusiastic enough, so I cheezed it up a little. It was 7:30in the morning and cold (probably like 70's)

There weren't a lot of areas that were "kid friendly" so Nick and I did a lot of sneaking around. We are such rule breakers. Here they are playing with the metal horses. Nick is pretending that its eating his hand off. Karis doesn't even looked phased.

Here's the lady responsible for all the fun. Karis and Mimi had a good time together over the week. Mimi babysat for us quite a few times so we could have some adult time. It was a nice retreat and I think Mimi enjoyed the time with her as well. (Who is the lady behind them smiling like an idiot. You would think that she knew us!) We are in Cozumel enjoying a beautiful day on the beach!

Here's the princess herself enjoying a snack. Cute suit huh!

The water was so clear and warm. Karis however was a little unsure. I think that she thought it was the biggest bathtub she had ever seen! Nick had to convince her it was a okay.

Nick and Karis found lots of sea shells! They found quite a few of those Conch shells. Karis thought it was fun to try and put them in her mouth. You should have seen me trying to chase after her!

It was truly unreal being there and looking at my watch seeing the date. Everyone who lives in a climate like ours should really take a vacation like this. It was a little break from reality.

Here is all three of us. We were having such a good time. It has been a few years since I have been to the ocean, and I am not sure if Nick has ever been and I know it was a first for Karis. P.S. Karis has a passport and she is 14 months. Impressive!

Like a postcard!

Here is after we got through the madatory drill (muster drill) where everyone stands out on the deck under their life boats wearing their life jackets like a bunch of idiots!

Here Karis and I are getting ready to get on the ship for the very first time. It was a little chilly in Ft. Lauderdale.

Bath Robe

I think that we have had this bathrobe for ages. It wasn't until today though that we ventured to use it. Karis was so funny. She was wakling around the house like she was 45 year old woman. I was laughing so hard. Eventually though she decided that she had had enough and wanted nothing more to do with it. She almost accomplished the goal, however the tie in the front gave her some complications. Just goes to show that she is never to old for help from mom! In this time frame she also managed to find where diapers were kept. She loves to open cupboard doors so everything is a treasure hunt to her. Unfortunate for me, fortunate for her.