Christmas Pics

Christmas Greetings

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Pics from weekend at Christmas markets, Bolzano

Video on!

It's been a while since I've put up any video, but I finally grabbed the cam as he was jumping and chatting away last night. Viola!

What November looked like

Some things we did this past month:

-attend a few birthday parties and played our hearts out

-went to a few small town harvest fairs celebrating the fruit and abundance of the season

-read lots of books as always

-attend an organic cooking class

-enjoy the mild temperatures that we have been so lucky to have

What we're looking forward to:

-Christmas with the Canadian nonni

-putting up the tree and lights around the house

-going to Bolzano in the north to see the famous Christmas markets next weekend!!!

Slow updates

on the way but they are coming.
What we've been doing lately:
-going outside as much as possible when it's nice out (being 14/15 out) going for walks out in the country
-swimming once a week. D loves going down the slide head first!
-singing songs. ABC song, the barney song, i can sing a rainbow are our favs
-jumping off the couch, on our heads, anything that seems like an obstacle
-still growing strong!

My weekend in Rome

Sardegna

What to say? Amazing, see for yourself.

More summer shots

What says summer more than an ice-cream and a happy face?

Pics from mountains

Finally, the pics from our 4 day jaunt to the mountains. Had a lovely weekend at the beach, making jam and tomatoe sauce from garden tomatoes. More of that to come.

Going away

We are off to the mountains this weekend for 4 days. Same location as last year. Leaving tonight on a 5 hr drive so we can be ready to go tomorrow morning. I love holidays! Will be back with some pics. Happy weekend to all!

Back from Edmonton

Here are some pics of an amazing 6 weeks spent back home. Thanks to everyone who made time for us, played with us, and reconnected. It truly was amazing, as I hope the photos will attest, and hopefully I can get some video highlights up and running as well. Stay tuned.
The flight back went much better than I expected; he was well behaved, passed out for 3.5hrs into our 2nd flight, and was just an easy going traveller. Yeah...hopefully this continues for all future flights!
Back to normal now. House is up to speed on the cleaning front, items put away. Now that leaves me with organizing the "office" where many things have taken root, develop some pics (I try to keep up but it is so overwhelming sometimes), and try to adjust to the sweltering heat of 30+ summer days. No parks for now, I guess we'll just have to make due with the beach.
Thanks again to everyone!

Dancing at the beach

(sorry no audio on this one)

Summer weekend

We are currently under construction

We started our reno's Monday and in just 3 full days we have (or rather the builder and plumber has) knocked out 2 walls, removed the bathroom entirely including wall tiles and floor tiles, dug a trench in the floor, put up 2 new walls, and managed to create a mountain of debris reminiscent of war torn countries right in front of our house. On the front porch to be exact. Which makes living here quite uninhabitable at the moment. So in the meantime, we are spending our days in Cattolica at the nonnis, eating there, playing there etc. When we come home to our dust bowl in the evening, I have to sweep up all the dust so that I don't inhale it all in my sleep and even try to wash the floor, and clean off the table so that we can have a clean and fast breakfast in the morning. There are some pictures taken, but at the moment I can't be bothered to go down 2 flights to get the camera to then bring it all the way back again. It looks like we will be under this construction until the end of next week (but still don't know if the bathroom would be able to be tiled in that time..)which means that our next few weeks bringing us near our departure date will be filled with dust, dirt and not spending time at home. Everything I didn't want to happen, but now that we are here we are stuck with it.
And we have a surprise visitor this weekend.
Let's hope she likes to help clean.
Pictures to follow.

Dario's 2nd Birthday...already

Yes, what they say is really quite true indeed. That time flies when you have children. And how lucky I am that it does. Having kids teaches you to not take yourself so seriously, to live passionately and intensely like they do, to get dirty, play and most of all laugh. All things we are quite calpable of, but somehow becoming an adult has meant losing some of those childlike, awe stricken qualities. But it doesn't have to. I've always been a kid on the outside almost as much as on the inside, but having Dario here makes me remember how fun it was, and now is my chance to do it again, but better now that I can share it all with someone else.

And some birthday party video:

Another wet and sandy afternoon at the beach

This is one busy boy; digging, throwing sticks and shells, jumping in puddles. What more could a boy ask for?

Our weekend

What we did:

-Thursday night walk around the flower festival, kebab (donair) and ice cream for dinner. Yum!

-Fri long bike ride to beach then early evening aperativo complete with beer and snacks! Early bath and straight to bed for D!

-Saturday picnic at park, ran, played and skipped! (that was me!) D had no nap today either so again in bed by 8

-Sun bike ride to park, then to see horses.

Fun filled weekends are the best!

Pics of last day of play school

My first batch of waffles

I think they turned out pretty good based on the looks on the 2 other boys' faces and voracious engorging of what they had before them. Not bad for a first time.

Old pics!

I didn't know I had these pics on my small camera, but here they are from Oct 2008. Merely 6 months ago, but I can see such a big difference. Already his army pants, my personal fav, no longer fit, neither do his overalls nor shoes. Time for us seems unchanging, but just stop and watch the seasons or children and you soon realise that time doesn't stand still, but perhaps it's just that you are the one to notice less and less. Sadly tis true.

Easter weekend

It is definitely spring here in Italy. My flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, the sun out for what seems like summer like hours. And Dario sure feels the itch to get outside. Wanting to go "out, out!" at every moment means that I am completely bagged at the end of the day. Wishing I had a big back yard to throw him in so he could run around, but instead have to make due with what we have, which in itself is still pretty good; chickens, goats, pigs and big green fields just down the road. Hope everyone had a Happy Easter with family, fun and sunny skies!

Singing at asilo (kind of)

Here he is on the other end of the phone

....so cute!

Weekend in Florence Summary

What I learned:

1. Kids are resilient: although D was feverish the morning we left, we dragged him around all day Friday and Saturday and he had way more energy than I could ever hope to have even on my best days.

2. I get really cranky on an empty stomach.

3. Everything looks the same on a gray and rainy day. This is when one usually gets lots. And does.

4. Losing stuff is inevitable: bye bye hand-made toque :(

Some overdue pictures

What a few last weeks!

First Dario sick, then Marco, then Dario has pink eye, and now I'm sick with a fever again! This has never ever happened to me before, twice sick in as many weeks... So all week we've been at home. Watching a lot of TV, and just let me add here how much I LOVE Elmo! Elmo's world is really cute and funny!

Anyways, some other new things he's been doing lately:

-in the morning looks out his window to see the neighbour's cat

-jumping off his chair, diving onto the floor. Pretty much anything

-hiding behind the curtains and waits for you to find him. Love that!

-playing under the table

-saying more and more words everyday, lots in English. Says hat, shoe, boot, book, hand, bowl, cheerios, milk, button, bee (today's new addition) and in Italian: patata, mela, ciao, ape, pasta, (I'm running out of brain power here. I am technically still sick)

Have fun with these ones!

And....he's 22 months old....I can't believe that he'll be 2 before I know it....wow!

Carnevale and other recent pics

Not much to tell as of late: trying to get through February because although it is the shortest month of the year, it really doesn't feel that way. The weather has been good to us here; warm enough to put clothes out to dry when there is direct sun, and have the park all to ourselves. I'm loving how the extra sunlight creeps up on you slowly; slow enough to notice that there is more of it around...I just love it!

Bittersweet symphony: That's Life

Back home again. Flights and connections all a breeze, apart from the first 3 hours to TO with a screaming boy on the plane (re: Dario). Bags arrived. Unpacked. Slept and now feel the jet lag starting to kick-in. I should be sleeping now but here I am instead.

Here are a whole bunch of pics from our visit. I hope you all laugh a little when you see yourselves and at least think "Damn I'm hot!" Right ladies?! I just wanted to share these all as soon as I could.

Thanks to everyone for making time for us and making our visits to Edmonton so special. And making the re-adjustment a little bit harder...yeah, thanks!

Love,

Diana & Dario

Pics to share

Some pics I can share now that the Christmas cards have all been sent. These were from our "professional" studio experience. Maybe one day that'll be me on the other side of the camera taking pictures for others. Sigh....oh how I'd love that!

and my personal favourite