tuscan's potty progress

today was definitely a mish mash kind of day...our first day without any real plans. so when all else fails, go shopping! we headed to the galleria mall today, a place i havent shopped at in a few years!! and believe it or not we got better deals today then we did at the outlet yesterday. when we pulled into the parking lot and elderly couple was getting into their car and offered us a coupon for macy's, $10 off $25 if used before 1pm...it was only 1153am, we had time!! we had some stinky diapers in the back seat that needed to be changed, so we made a bee line to the bathroom closest to macy's and changed the twins. in macy's we ended up buying 4 sweaters (me 3 and kellie 1) for a total of $27 after the coupon...an amazing deal i know! but while standing in line to pay, tuscan pointed out that he had peed through his diaper...he was soaked and we were shocked! he had only been in that diaper for just about 2 hours, which is why we never thought to check him while we changed the twins. he had been doing so good with using the potty in the mornings that it just didnt cross our minds. kellie took him to the bathroom so i could finish paying and not only had his jeans gotten wet, but his whole stroller seat was wet too, poor guy! kellie said he seemed so embarrased...so then we were headed straight to penny's to buy him a new pair of jeans to wear (macy's didnt have anything worth buying!) and he had to sit on his coat the rest of the day, i really felt so bad for him!

but in some strange way it ended being up ok because while we were eating lunch at jonny rockets tuscan told me that he had to pee...so after a moment of panic because we hadnt really thought about public bathrooms yet, i rushed him to the bathroom and he did it!! i was so proud of him and he was so proud to rush back out to tell aunt kellie!

and it gets better...the twins were feeling better, but getting stinkier by the diaper. i think we ended up changing someones diaper in almost every dressing room we were in! i must say though, with all that chaos in one day, the kids were amazing...they really did a good job tollerating the fact that their day was totally off schedule! my boys amaze me more and more everyday! and the really amazing part was that after that many poopy diapers, kellie still seems willing to stick around her last couple of days! that is a true BFF!

and the girls day out!

frank was off today, so kellie and i took full advantage and opted for a girls day out, accompanied by momma beth! i worked for a bit this morning, but when i got home it was showers and out the door...we started the day at the christmas tree shops!! it just opened on niagara falls blvd...but it is a store that i have loved for over a year now since kelly (syracuse) introduced me to the one near her. we got some good deals, i got a great storage basket for the twins closet, it was the perfect shade of green and only $5.99!! beth got a few things for around the house and a "piano" for tuscan...with a microphone! he loves it, plays it all day long and actually is willing to share it with his brothers. they have learned from him to put the microphone to their mouth and make noise! too cute..
tuscan, the one man traveling band!

from there we headed to kohls, of course found some more really great deals! cant waste coupons!! and we were off to the outlets! we met a friend of beth's at applebees where we ordered a round of pomegranate margarita's and to much fried food! kellie was excited to see that here in buffalo, applebees still serves her favorite chicken sandwich, so that made lunch all the more fulfilling!

we found some cute clothes for the kids, but not nearly the deals we were expecting, my deal of the day was two pairs of jeans at aero for $10 each...and i love them! the best part was, i actually have a butt in them...so of course i had to buy both! and i got a really cute pair of pants at the gap for $6. but i had gone in search of jeans for tuscan and sweaters for me...i didnt get either!

after the mall we picked up some wings and headed home for a homemade pizza party, per kellie's request! when frank and i lived in CO, we through a first annual new years day pizza party, to help everyone over come their hang overs...we made the dough and supplied the sauce and cheese and everyone brought their favorite toppings...well that party 4 years ago made kellie fall in love with franks homemade bbq chicken pizza!! and i must say it truly is delicious...he even made it with a whole wheat crust this time! and we had a philly cheesesteak pizza! maybe now that the house is ours this year we will carry on a tradition we had tried to start several years ago! (pizza party, our house, new years day!!)

kellie also bought wall-e for the kids today, tuscan snuggled up to watch it after dinner tonight...i think its his new fav!! thanks aunt "tellie"

a day with the boys...

i unfortunately had to work a few hours this morning, but was lucky enough that it didnt interfere with us being able to do anything...i was home by 915am!! so i showered and kellie and i got the kids ready and headed up to rochester for the day. lunch at the dinosaur bbq and a play day at the strong museum of play (much thanks to gramma rita - kellie's mom)

kellie and i enjoyed all the driving, it gave us wonderful opportunity to catch up on a year and a half apart! we may have the internet, which we use everyday...and we have the phone, but nothing compares to having your best friend right next to you, chatting, laughing or just being...

lunch was delicious! we had some amazingly tender bbq wings to start and yummy chicken sandwiches...tuscan and the boys shared a bowl of mac 'n cheese (which later turned into matteo's dinner...he ended up eating almost the whole bowl!) tuscan sadly had a belly ache at lunch and the twins were suffering from constipation all day, so it made things a little extra challenging for me and kellie, but together we made it through the day!

the boys were also getting a lot of attention while we were out to lunch, the hostess thought they were the cutest boys ever and kept telling me how blessed i am! so that was really nice to hear, i dont have many opportunities to go out with my kids, so i soak up the compliments when i can! and of course, all three of them were flirting with every girl that would look their way (mandy dont tell lucia and sofia!!)

and we all had a really good time at the strong museum. frank and i have been talking about heading up there for a while now but just havent had a chance...but we will for sure be heading back as soon as the twins start walking! the boys had so much fun and it was amazing to me how much there actually was for them to do. there were even exhibits that we didnt have time to see! there were small areas that were designed for the little guys and they sure did love a chance to get out of the stroller and crawl around!! matteo found a mirror that he enjoyed playing with and he kept crawling at it and bonking his head and then looking at us laughing!

tuscan's favorite part of the whole day was definitely elmo's world! he was in awe at the fact that elmo's world really exsisted...he jumped right on the bench to play the piano...and we had to drag him out of the taxi car...he had so much fun! and on our way out we stopped in the gift shop and silly tuscan, the only thing he really wanted was a ring pop!! i love that boy...a whole gift shop full of toys and he wanted the $.99 ring pop!

the car ride home was nice and relaxing, the babies were all asleep by the time we made it onto the thruway. we stopped for some caffine at the clarence rest stop and thankfully we did because once we got through the toll on the 90 we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic from the monday night bills game.

kellie and i had great intentions to scrapbook when we got home, but once we got everyone in bed we ourselves were about ready to crash...so we hung out for a bit and called it a night, i had a few hours of work ahead of me again in the morning and then a long day of shopping! yeah!!

the birthday bash!!

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTEO AND VINCENZO.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!"

today was the day that so many of us have been waiting for...the twins first birthday party! and it was a blast!! we had homemade white turkey chili and bbq'd pulled pork, pasta with ricotta and homemade red sauce, dill dip and bread, homemade apple cake with caramel buttercream frosting and homemade pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting!

the twins were so excited to have another opportunity to make a mess with their cupcakes, although once again it took matteo a few minutes to figure out the best plan of attack! so instead of getting his hands all dirty like vincenzo was, he decided it would be best to just stick his face right in! we all started laughing and then he looked around the room like "what? whats everyone laughing at?"

we were amazingly blessed with all the things on their birthday wish list! 6 boxes of diapers, wipes, baby food, gerber grads puffs! new jammies, snugly clothes and a few gift cards, an amazing radio flyer wagon (old school style) with all terrain wheels!! and above all, some wonderful friends and family to share the celebration with! this has been a very challenging year on frank and i as a couple and it has truly tested our patience as parents, so it really meant a lot to us to be able to share in our accomplishments with some of the people who mean the most to our family!

tuscan found the new wagon to be a very comfy place to snuggle up and watch some tv!

after the crowd died down, we spent some more quality time with our parents, jess and jake, and matt, bridget and chase... it was such a nice day!! kellie was amazing, getting most of the kitchen cleaned up while we spent some time with our guests. i dont know what i am going to do once she leaves, in just one day she has already kept up with so much upkeep in my kitchen!! (she has always had a thing for washing dishes, when we lived in CO she would come over for dinner and the deal was, frank would cook, she would clean up!! for some reason that always worked for her!)

once the house was empty and the kids were asleep in their beds, we sat down to watch a movie (forgetting sarah marshall) we made it about half way through and decided it was to stupid to continue so we headed to bed, i had to work in the morning anyway.

aunt kellie is here!!

so today was the day i have long since been waiting for!! kellie flew in today...my bff from CO!! and i am so excited...we havent seen each other in a year and a half, since she flew me and tuscan down to visit while she was living in OK in march of 2007!! so she hadnt met the twins yet and what better time to meet them then during their birthday weekend! and apparently they felt very comfortable with her (as they should!!) and matteo didnt think anything of sharing kellie's dinner with her at my parents house! homemade chicken soup hit the spot for everyone!

the evening was followed up with hair cuts, kellie, tuscan and momma beth...and then kellie and i headed home with one less child. tuscan spent the night at nonna and poppa's. the twins fell asleep in the car on the way home so we were able to put them right in their beds and spent the remainder of the evening chatting away!! at around 10:15 we decided bed might not be a bad idea, kellie had been up since 2am CO time and was feeling pretty tired...but i think another hour went by before we finally each crawled into our beds, hoarse from talking so much!

another exciting day on the way, church in the morning and then the big 1st birthday x's 2 party!!

happy birthday babies!!

it is so hard for me to believe that a year ago today my babies were tiny little 5lb 14oz and 6olb 9oz bundles barely fitting into newborn size clothes and now today they are bubbly smiley kids eating cupcakes!! time flies by, especially when you become a parent. and its sad for me to think that this year has gone by particularly fast because with 3 kids, i feel like i have missed a lot. even though i am here with them everyday - there is just always so much going on. my hope for the coming year is that with the twins gain of developed independence we as a family have more time for fun things like playing and reading books, with less time spent on bottle feedings and diaper changes!

so now i get to live the next 6 months saying "i have one 2 year old and two 1 year olds!!"

matteo wasnt quite sure what to do with his cupcake...i dont think he was to fond of the idea of getting his hands dirty! but once he figured it out, there was definitely a mess to be cleaned!

vincenzo on the other hand had his cupcake demolished before i could turn around with the camera in my hand...he was shoveling that thing in his mouth faster than his mouth could keep up with!

once the cupcakes were eaten it was straight to the bathtub!! they were up to their elbows in cake, literally!! but thats whats fun about being one!! you can smash cake all over the place and people just think its cute...if you or i did that people would probably be talking!

and now sunday i get to do it all over again!! although, i will have more help with the clean up sunday...frank was working all day today so it was just me and tuscan singing happy birthday to the babes, and mandy and the girls sent their birthday wishes via mandy's blog!! (which made me cry by the way!!) if anyone would like to see it, pull up "a day in the life" link on the side of my page and look at mandy's blog entry!! its so wonderful to have such amazing friends! i truly am a very blessed woman!

oh dear...the good news and the bad...

so the good news is...our camera is fixed, we have it back and instead of paying the $136...frank is cooking dinner at his friends mom's house, for her, her husband and a few of their friends!! she is paying for the food...frank is cooking it! so not only did we get our camera fixed (for free) but he now also has an opportunity to get his name out there once again for some private party type business!! of course we are going to use the money we had put aside for the repair (part of which was from my mom) towards a little thank you gift for (brandons) mom...but we felt very blessed by the final outcome of that situation...

the bad news...this is the first picture i was able to use the camera on today - my discovery, walking into tuscan's room to wake him up from his nap...that is his mattress laying on the floor and when i walked in he was still sound asleep on it, his butt way up in the air....no sheets or blankets...he had taken those all off too...

his sheets were stuck behind his door, there was a support bar missing from the underside of his bed, how he got his mattress to the other side of the room is beyond me! and the best part is, he apparently did this without making any noise because frank said he never heard a thing!! (the kids were all asleep for the afternoon nap when i got home today) crazy boy...but it inspired me to clean up his room real good, vacuum under the bed, so i guess he did it for a reason!

and on a good note, we have had a really good week so far with potty training. he has been amazing at telling us that he has to go (pee and poop) and he hasnt peed in a pull up in 2 days...so we are definitely making progress and he seems very excited about the idea of not wearing baby diapers anymore! yeah tuscan - i am so proud of him!!

kelly (syracuse) is still pregnant...im hoping by sunday she will go into labor, the plan is to head up there wednesday, baby or no baby...kellie (colorado) is flying in saturday afternoon...and we are looking forward to a fun filled week...outlets, wine, strong museum of play and dinosaur bbq...wine and scrapbooking, syracuse...maybe another bottle of wine and lots of talking, laughing, probably a few good tears...ya know just being us!! i cant wait! its been a year and a half since we last saw each other (when she flew me and tuscan down to OK) so i am so excited for her to see the house since we settled in, to see how much tuscan has grown and matured, to meet the twins!! and to have a whole week to just do whatever we want to do! its going to be a blast! did i mention..i cant wait!!

potty progress!!

big time potty progress...for the first time ever today, tuscan called me into the family room, touched his butt and said "mom poop" and started to pull his pants down...we quickly got his little bottom on the potty and within seconds he was accomplishing his first real #2 on the big boy potty!! and best of all, he was super excited about it!! we have been telling him for weeks that if he has to go poop to let us know so we can put him on the potty and usually we get the very angry face followed by "NO, MA!!" or "NO DA!!" but today was a complete 360! so congrats to my growing-up-way-to-fast little boy! just another step in the right direction - maybe he really can be potty trained the week that kellie is here!!

now what??

so obama won...how disappointing...

a very crazy thing happened to me last night and all i can relate it to is my nerves being shot from this whole election process...

i dozed off on the couch while tuscan was watching curious george...frank put him up to bed and i woke up about an hour later, the election was on and i was horribly sick to my stomach, literally. i felt like i wanted to throw up but i feared it was going to come out the other end as well...i was in a ton of abdominal pain and chilled...and all i could think was that the end of times was here...i was terrified that the kids wouldnt be in their beds when i got upstairs...i ended up throwing up a few times and then went to bed and i think im ok today...but it was really weird and now even today when i think about it and when i think about who our new president is, my stomach gets a little queezy and nervous feeling. i cant wait to go to church on sunday!

i have read the left behind series...and ever since obama became a presidential candidate, i cant get pasted the resemblence of him and nicholae carpathia...it has had me freaked out since the beginning of all this campaigning. and although i am glad this election is finally over, i can honestly say that i am very disappointed with the results. but with the way our country has been turning their backs on God lately, i am not at all surprised with the outcome.

last night i we took a short video of the three boys in the bath together, i was hoping to load it on here but apparently our video camera did not come with the proper cable to hook it up to the computer...new thing to add to the christmas wish list!

its a gorgeous day here again...near 70, yesterday was a beautiful 68! and tomorrow its supposed to be 70!! yes i said 70, in buffalo on november 6th! its amazing, but also scary at the same time...as much as i love the nice weather it also has me freaked out a bit about what the future has in store for us...

but anyway - the twins want lunch, then i think we are taking a walk to the bank before tuscan goes down for his nap. it is much to nice out to not take advantage of it! if anything extremely eventful happens this afternoon (like word on kelly's pregnancy status) i will be sure to add to this post. otherwise i hope you all have a day as beautiful as mine and time to enjoy it!

oh and some exciting news...the twins enjoyed their first full meal without any baby food today at breakfast, they had cheerio's (their new all time fav!) a real banana and some yogurt! very exciting!

GOD BLESS AMERICA - more than ever before!

potty time...

so i forgot to include in my post yesterday the most important part of our whole weekend!! tuscan pooped (once) and peed on the potty like 5 times yesterday...he managed to keep his pull up dry for the two hours that he had it on and used the big boy potty 3 times during that 2 hours!! we are so proud of him...now that he is learning how to better communicate i think it is going to get a little easier trying to train him. my goal is to have him pretty close to, if not completely potty trained before kellie leaves to go back to colorado. i figure having someone else around all day will give me a chance to really focus on him and this task for a week! just one more reason to be extremely excited that kellie is coming to visit!

i also had a chance last night to do something i have wanted to do for a few weeks now. frank and i were both home for bathtime so we put all 3 boys in the tub together. tuscan thought it was the coolest thing ever to really be able to play with his brothers in the tub and the twins thought it was a ton of fun to have that much water to splash in. i managed to snap one quick photo before the camera batteries died on me. its not the greatest, but it captured the moment!

tonight my mom is going with me and the kids to sears for halloween/1st bday pics!! when she made the costumes i had tried offering her money for the materials and she said the only payment she wanted was an 8x10 of the boys in their costumes, so when she offered to go with me, i couldnt really say no! it should be fun, she is coming over right from work, we'll have dinner together and then get the boys ready to go! my mom has never run arrands or go out with me and the kids before like this, so i am really looking forward to it! if i can figure out how to get the proofs from the sears website to my blog i certainly will! (kellie i may need ur help on that one!) i also am going to try and figure out how to get pics from halloween night from facebook to here...someday i hope to know how to really use a computer!