School Starts

August 25th was the first day of school.  I tried to get a good picture of the boys, but they're impossible...this is the best I got.

Diego was not excited at all, Alessandro was but didn't want to show it.  It is only day 5 of school now and the battles have already begun.  That is why I hate school.  It's always a fight with my oldest and he gets such an attitude!!  I understand that it's hard for him and that is probably why he hates it so much, but come on!!!  Stop giving me so much grief!!  It always takes a while to get into the groove of things, so we are still in the painful part right now when he just is not easy to deal with.  I sure hope it gets better.  If not, we are in for a long year!

Two Years Old!!

Happy Birthday Mia!!

We FINALLY celebrated Mia's birthday!!  She turned 2 on August 20th, but we were leaving town that day so we decided we'd celebrate later since she is still young and has no clue which day is her real birthday.  She loved all the attention, the cake and of course the gifts. 

Yes, I realize this is a star wars tent, but I really wanted to get her one of these because she LOVES her cousins, but the girly ones were twice as much and I just couldn't bring myself to pay so much so I went the cheaper route even though it is boyish.  :)

Luckily Grandparents and cousins got her the girly stuff.  ;)

She got these shoes from her cousins and they crack me up!  She absolutely loves them.  She would not part with them for the first 24 hours.  And I'm amazed at how well she walks with heels!!!

After all her cousins left she was dancing around and "singing" into the microphone she got.  It was cute.  This video doesn't really show her moves, but it's the best I could get...it took too long to get the camera out.  :)

Birthday girls

Mia is such a funny girl.  She definitely brings a lot of spunk into this family!!  She loves, loves, loves to dance.  I love watching her as we drive when we have music blasting.  She totally gets down to it.  My favorite move is when she shakes her shoulders.  She is very independent and wants to do things on her own.  She loves to follow her brothers around and try to do what they do.  One of her favorite things is to wrestle them...go figure.  She may love to wrestle, but she has a lot of "princess" in her too.  She loves anything girly or wearing "pretty" dresses.  She will let me do her hair once in the morning but if I try to fix it anytime during the day it is a no go. She doesn't talk much but some of the words she will say are.."Mommy, Poppy, Luca, Pickles, doggie, bye bye, Diego, Lalo, baby, sippy (but it sounds a lot like when she says baby), no (but it sounds like mo).  She is definitely a daddy's little girl.  She prefers to go to him and just squeals with delight when she hears the garage door open because she knows that means he's home.  She knows how to bug Luca and will do it often to get a reaction.  She is loud and loves to "talk" or scream for that matter.  She is such a joy in our lives.  I love how she shakes things up a little bit for us...girls are so different than boys!!  Not sure which is easier, but they are definitely different!!  I could just hug and kiss her all day...she's such a sweetheart. 

We love you Mia!!

Sunflower

Alessandro planted this at school or church, I can't remember where.  But he brought it home in a little cup.  I had no idea what it was but when it started to grow we decided to move it to a bigger pot.  This is the first plant that a child has brought home from somewhere that has actually survived.  He was proud!

Burraston Ponds

We went to Burraston ponds in Mona to have a a picnic and swim.  There is a nice tarzan rope there that the boys had a blast on.  We were all going to go swimming but it ended up being a little windy and chilly so Diego and Alessandro were the only ones who braved it.  They loved it though.

                                                     Diego goes for it

Alessandro's turn

 Since the little ones didn't go in the water this was their entertainment.  What is it about rock and sticks that are so interesting?  I have no idea, but I'm glad they were! 

Udine was teasing Alessandro and pretending to throw him in the water and Alessandro's sandal flew off into the pond.  hahaha It kept drifting farther and farther away so we had to have Alessandro go in and get it.  Not a minute after he got out a canoe of people came by.  Just his luck.  Oh well...we got a good laugh out of it. 

Man vs Food

One show the boys love is Man vs Food.  If you have never seen it, it is with this guy who does food challenges whether it's eating a certain amount of really spicy food or a huge portion that he needs to finish, etc.  Anyway, Udine often does little challenges with the boys and we call it their Man vs Food challenge.  Very rarely does food win.  What is it with boys and their competitive side to always win.  :)  This particular challenge was to suck the juice out of half a lime and the lime had some of Udine's spicy seasoning on it from Guatemala.  Hot hot stuff.  Yuck!!!

Alessandro going for it

Diego's turn!

OWLZ Night

On Thursday night we went to our first ever OWLZ game.  We were planning on going on Wednesday night but we had a huge thunderstorm that night, so we decided to move it to Thursday.  Thursday night was the perfect night for a baseball game, not too hot, not wet, and the sun hiding behind the clouds.  Anyways, I couldn't tell you what the score of the game was at the end, but we had a blast.  The kids spent most of the time wrestling on the lawn, they got to take pictures with the OWLZ mascots and they even got to high five some of the players. 

Mia did not want to have anything to do with the "scary" mascots

Enjoying the game

Mia did not want us to take a picure of her, she kept turning the other way every time we tried

She finally agreed but on her terms (thus the tongue)

Later on we caught her "pole dancing" :)

Overall it was a fun activity

The Springville Museum of Art

On Monday we attended the Community and Family Night at the Springville Museum of Art. It was great!  They had their 37th Annual Quilt Show, which is an exhibition of quilts from around the state.  There were some amazing patterns, my mom would have definitely loved the exhibition.  They also had The Art of Topaz exhibition, which has art depicting the Japanese-Americans during World War II at an internment camp in Utah.  Udine was very intrigued by the history of it, we had no idea this had happened here in Utah.  The kids were not too enthusiastic about the exhibitions, but the exhibitions were just the side note of the evening. 

The Community and Family Night at the museum was great, I would definitely recommend it.  It started with a little presentation about one of their exhibitions, this time was the quilts.  Then we had an entertainment show, this time was a family performing with fiddles and banjos.  Then they had a kids workshop where the kids were able to paint their own quilts.  The kids had a blast and it was a great activity for a Monday night!

Here are some quilts from the exhibition:

This is an example of the Art of Topaz display:

Kids project:

Museum Grounds:

Family entertainment: