Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Yo baby!


MidMarch2012004, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

Luca has been experimenting with utensils lately--today I gave him the last bit of his yogurt to try for himself--this was the result! It was even in his ear! But, he seems pleased with himself, does he not?

The girls


MidMarch2012070, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

Here's the class! Norah had tons of fun in this session!

Tap time


MidMarch2012064, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

Norah's most recent class also had 15 minutes of tap built in--so the girls showed us what they learned. Here, I think she is doing shuffle steps.

Look at me!


MidMarch2012032, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

Jete!


MidMarch2012030, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

A leap!

Ballet "recital"


MidMarch2012022, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

Norah had her second ballet "show-the-parents-what-we-have-been-doing" day...here she is having fun with some classmates. Blurry, but I thought she looked pretty pleased with herself!

A little bit of green


MidMarch2012074, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

None of us had any green clothes to wear (that weren't wintery)...but you can see that James and Luca have a little bit of green on! Luca was terrified/fascinated by the firetrucks that went by.

Here comes the parade!


MidMarch2012073, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

Norah was worried that she wouldn't get any candy at first--by the end of the parade, she had too much!

St. Patrick's Day Parade


MidMarch2012072, originally uploaded by Chiara and James Hemsley.

We had a beautiful day for St. Patrick's Day parade--it was about 75 degrees on March 17th! Here are Norah and some of her friends waiting for the parade to start...

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Music Class

Norah had her last singing class recently, and we, the parents, were invited. Here are some of the kids "reading" music notes as Miss Kathy, the teacher points them out.

Bathtime 2

It was all fun and games until Aunt Alessia actually had to WASH Luca. He hates to have his hair washed. Lucia took pity on his cries and started crying, too. So, we had two crying toddlers in the tub (and two laughing adults!).

Bathtime

Luca and Lucia took a bath together when we got home from the freezing gardens. They had fun playing together!

Luca and Lucia

Luca and Lucia kept giving us these dirty looks.....I think their faces were frozen!

Visitors!

We recently hosted Nonna, Aunt Alessia, Ethan, and Lucia here in Chicago. Nonna thought it would be a great idea to get them all bundled up and go to the Botanic Gardens. It would have been, if it was not 29 degrees with 25 mph wind gusts. They were pretty cold!

We took shelter from the wind in the English garden. Don't the kids look thrilled?

Play-doh babies

One of the games at the shower was to sculpt play-doh babies. Here are the results:

From left to right:
Karen's: silliest, I think
Becky's: won most realistic--but she IS a pediatrician--she even put genitalia on the baby!
Mine: most disturbing (see the paddle-hands?)
Amanda's: most creative
Rachael's: cutest

Did you see that?!

Lots of planes fly over Chicago, and us Iowa folk are still getting used to it!
This picture was James' idea, I think.

3 ladies

Three of us at the shower are expecting! Rachael: in June, Karen: in March, and me: in May.

Mini Baby Shower

I recently hosted a mini baby shower for my friend from Iowa City, Karen, who actually recently moved to MI! It was great to see good friends from our time in Iowa City and we had lots of fun!

PJ Day at School

Norah recently had pajama day at school, and she was very excited to wear her special pony pajamas.

Well, we looked for her flashlight for days before this event, and alas, we couldn't find it. So, I gave her Luke's identical (but blue) flashlight to bring. Luke's flashlight is better than NO flashlight, right?

She pouted about it for a good 15 minutes when she got there (as evidenced by her long face in this photo), but by the end of the day, Mrs. Bauer said that she had told everyone that it was her brother's SPECIAL flashlight and that she had to take good care of it!