birthday number nine

happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.
happy birthday dear anna/mommy, happy birthday to you!

we celebrated my mom's 57th birthday yesterday (april 25th) with family all around! we all went over to my parent's house after dinner, and spent the rest of the night there, celebrating in her special day. among the many presents that she received, matteo made his very own for his nanna! he coloured her a picture/card and drew her on it as well (his drawings are so cute!) and we also gave her a small flower pot, where we painted her name on it (nanna) and matteo also painted the rest of it on his own, and even added his own sparkles to it! we ate some delicious cake and finished off the night with some great conversation and laughs. my mom is definitely the best mother in the entire world, and i wish her nothing but happiness, health, love and good fortune for her 57th year and the many, many more to come! much love <3

my beautiful mother with my beautiful daughter =)

pinterest craft night

my friend paige and i have been planning to have a pinterest craft date night for awhile now, and we were finally able to have our first one tonight! we decided to go with three crafts for the night, which in total cost us around $40.00 for all of the materials for two people doing three different crafts. the three that we went with for the night were painted flower pots for spring/summer, a date night jar and glittering our keys! below are some details on the crafts and pictures of each one! i'm definitely looking forward to our next pinterest night! enjoy and much love! <3

the first pinterest inspired craft we did were painted flower pots for spring/summer, which you can find here - http://pinterest.com/pin/99219998010540766/ we bought four bigger sized pots, and six smaller sized pots. as well as all of the paint colours that you see above (we used acryclic paint) the paint showed up really well (we did about two coats for each colour that we used) and dried on right away. the picture on the left is one of the bigger pots, and the one on the right is the smaller one, which my son, matteo painted himself =)

the second pinterest inspired craft of the night was taking our house keys, and making them stand out a bit more by adding glitter to them! the link to that can be found here - http://pinterest.com/pin/99219998010243867/ the link calls for using modge podge, but all we used was plain old white glue and glitter! we applied a very thin layer of glue (if its too thick, the glitter wont stick all over and will go on in globs) and then stuck it down on the glitter for a few minutes. we repeated the same procedure on the other side.

the last pinterest inspired craft was the one i was really looking forward to and have been wanting to do for a while.. the date night jar! which is found here - http://pinterest.com/pin/25473554112277211/ all that was needed for this was a jar (it calls for a mason jar, but we used this as it was all we could find), big popsicle sticks, markers and a ribbon of your choosing. the sticks were then divided into three different categories, which we used three different colour markers for. red sticks indicate more expensive dates, green sticks indicate less expensive dates and blue sticks indicate at home dates. we did five of each for now (you can always add more to them later) and depending on what we want to do that night (stay at home or go out) we will randomly pick out one of those colours. i'm really excited for this one!

pinterest inspired crafts!

eight months old

eight months ago today the sweetest, little thing that i ever laid eyes on came into my life! although looking at the time right now, i still was an hour away from getting to see my baby girl for the first time, seven hours after having her. since then, she has grown so much and is learning new things each and every day! my tiny princess is now weighing in at a whopping 15lbs and 1oz! up until a little bit over a week ago, she was strictly breastfed, so its always amazing to see just how much breast milk she is getting and how great it is for her. and speaking of eating and food, we finally started alessia on rice cereal on april ninth! she may be eight months old, but just turned her adjusted age of six months old on the tenth! she tolerated it really well and has been loving it each and every day! tomorrow we will be starting carrots, and then introducing a new solid/food every three days! it will be so fun to see how she does with them all, and what she takes a liking to the most! on top of that, she has been getting bigger and stronger by sitting up on her own more and more each day (she is at about 10 seconds or so before she falls to the side), moving herself in circles while on her tummy and trying to push herself forward, but with no luck! she just decides to give up and cry out for mama :) lol within the past month she has also celebrated her first easter, her first time sitting in a high chair both at home and in a restaurant and finding her voice (and how loud it can get!) more and more! i am so excited to see what the next month brings, and how much more she will grow and learn! happy eight months baby girl! <3

alessia's first time trying rice cereal!

birthday number seven and eight

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.
happy birthday dear lisa, happy birthday to me!

i know i am super late on this post (between birthdays, easter, spending time with family, and even some laziness - haha) i haven't been able to make this post until now. but here goes! i celebrated my 25th birthday on april 4th! its weird for me.. i dont feel 25, yet i don't really know what age i feel. although looking at it, being in a relationship for the past four and a half years and having two kids, definitely does make me feel 25! either way, so far it has been a great 25th year, and it is only the beginning! i am healthy, happy and blessed with an amazing family and on top of that, i also welcomed into the world a new niece, born on my birthday! (keep on reading to see more about that!) i was treated to an early surprise present the night before my birthday from the boyfriend. nothing over the top, just some beautiful flowers! (and what girl doesn't love flowers?) as well as some great gifts from my brother and sister-in-law and my parents! we celebrated the day of low key, with staying in and ordering dinner in, since it was the birth of my niece. we had a re-do on the saturday, going out for dinner to one of my favourite places, red lobster, with some of my family. who doesn't love lobster fest?! all in all, it was a pretty special birthday, and i am looking forward to what my twenty-fifth year has in store for me!

happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.
happy birthday dear giuliana, happy birthday to you!

this is the start to a new birthday in our family! my new niece, giuliana lisa logullo was born at 8:48am on april 4th, weighing in at 9lbs even, making it birthday number eight in our family!she was delivered via a planned c-section and was born a healthy, big girl with a ton of black hair! she is the third child for my brother and sister-in-law, and is the sixth grandchild! i feel blessed to share my name with her (her middle name lisa, was chosen after me since she was born on my birthday) and even more blessed to have another niece! here is to a happy and healthy first year of life, with new first and beginnings! <3

giuliana lisa logullo <3