Family Traditions

My Mom keeps me busy when she comes in town. We made 10 batches of pesto sauce, 10 mini loaves of zuchinni bread, and she made a couple of dozen loaves of homemade Italian bread. She's 74 years old and I honestly don't know where she gets the energy!

I remember when I was a little girl and my mom would let me help her make bread. I even remember her blessing the bread (putting a sign of the cross and saying an Italian prayer on the bread) as she is doing with Luca. 

They really enjoyed rolling the bread into different shapes.

Here my mom is braiding the bread.

She's excited about the finished product.

Rolling the bread.

Cutting it!  Yikes that's a big knife, Mom!

He is just beautiful!!! I had to fix his bedhead hair in the middle of him making bread!

Look how excited she is!

You can tell she was proud of herself.

Look at my bread, Mommy!

She got the hang of it! Olivia told me the other day that she wanted to work at Sweet N' Sassy and do hair.  Then she told me that she couldn't have kids because the lady at Sweet N' Sassy didn't have kids.  She also told me she didn't want her belly to be cut open.  I told her that not everyone gets their belly cut when they have a baby.  I told her I didn't get my belly cut!

My parents took Luca to Greaters while I went to workout at the gym.  My Dad told me that Luca told him how to get there.  He also said "My brain is a GPS."

The Ohio State Fair!

Corey started his new job this week which he had to travel to Lancaster, PA for training. I invited my parents to come over and go to the Ohio State Fair. Here are some pirates greeting us at the entrance of the fair!  

Merry Go Round with Nonno.

My Dad is like a little kid sometimes.  Can you tell by him riding on the horse with Olivia?

This is definitely one of the kids favorite Slides!  They went on this ride at least 5 times and they are now tall and old enough to go by themselves.

Olivia is about 1 inch short of being 42".  So when she wasn't able to ride the bigger roller coasters I would take her to a ride that she was allowed on.  She met a little friend on this ride. :)

They loved this roller coaster and they had their arms up the entire ride. It was cute because when my parents saw them they said it reminded them of me when we used to go to Cedar Point every year.

Look at the fun they are having! Pure joy!

I love how they would always look for me when they were on the rides.  Look how happy he was that he got to be on the dragon of this ride.

Random cow

There was a different snake guy at the fair and the kids were able to hold this Python.  I liked the colors.  I even touched a snake for the very 1st time in my life.  It's actually pretty smooth.

Here they are again on the slide.  Olivia's rug was a little crooked going down.

Corey's 37th Birthday!

Corey's 37th Birthday was Sunday! We made him a nice breakfast and then he went fishing with Luca during the day while Olivia and I looked at houses. Corey wanted to go to a Columbus Clippers Game for his Birthday. We got lucky as we were in line to buy our tickets a nice couple asked us how many people were in our family and they gave us tickets for free! It was a nice Bday present for Corey. When we got home we celebrated with cake! Luca's monkeys were invited to the party, too!

3rd Annual Camping Trip!

It's very cute that Corey takes Luca, and for the very 1st time this year, Olivia camping in our backyard every year. They get so excited even if it's in our yard.

Like our non fence in the background?  We FINALLY got our HOA to put up a new fence since ours was in terrible condition.  They only replaced behind our house but hopefully it will help with the sale of our house. This was supposed to be put up on O's Birthday - June 18th. Grr! It's way over a month from when they scheduled it, but we are happy to finally have a new fence now!

My little campers in their pj's!

Camping with Dad!

I usually stick around for the Smores/Campfire festivites.  After that, I go back to my soft cozy warm bed.   This Momma Bear is not a camper.  I prefer spas and hotels. :)

The Reptile Guy!

Last year I took the kids to see The Reptile guy at our library and I forgot my camera. Then, The Reptile guy visited the kids at pre-school and I wasn't there so no pictures. This time I was prepared and I couldn't believe my eyes... my kids are BRAVE! They definitely didn't get that from me when it comes to reptiles!

Last year, Olivia held this alligator and it was much smaller and now it's almost as big as her.  This alligator is 3 years old.

Luca was sad because he didn't get to hold one of the frogs which he really wanted to do, so at the end the Reptile guy let him hold a lizard instead.

The lizard giving Olivia a kiss on her nose!

I could not do this at all!

I'm shocked that Luca held the snake.  Last year, he called Luca to come up and he refused, this year he wasn't as scared. So much fun!

More fun with cousins!

Corey's sister invited us over to play and BB-Q at their house. They bought this fun water slide and the kids had a BLAST and played for hours!

Head first!

Luca & Evie

Olivia & Evie

All the cousins.

Hair Cut

I took Olivia to get her haircut at Sweet N' Sassy. Luca said he wanted to go because he wanted to walk the runway. They got a hold of my point and shoot camera before we left and I thought I'd post a couple of pics they took of each other.

Luca winking, which Olivia learned how to wink this week and they also both learned how to snap their fingers. 

So this is Luca taking a picture of Olivia with his foot on her face while she has a bubble on her tongue.  I was cracking up when I saw the pics they took of each other.

Here we are at Sweet N' Sassy and this is her before pic of her crazy and wild hair.

She loved this part and she loved that she got to pick the cotton candy smell shampoo.

These are not in the right order but this is after the haircut. Luca wanted a glitter stamp, too.  The lady was nice enough to give him one on his hand and also gave him a sucker, too.

She loved her new do and her braid.

I made sure to watch the lady braid her hair like this as I have been trying to do this for awhile now, but I've been doing it all wrong.  Now I know only to pull from one side instead of both. 

Lunch at Cheesecake Factory.  Luca does not like trying new foods.  IE this bread he's eating, when he first saw it he said he didn't like it and I said just take one bite and try it which I've really been trying to do this a lot with him to try new foods and of course he said "This is yummy!"

Olivia is more likely to try stuff without me insisting too much.

I think she was over the pictures.

She passed out in the car from all the fun!

Here she is about to get her hair chopped.  We only took an inch off.