....Week full of Firsts....

COOOOOOK! That is a word we have been hearing very often at our house. Coooook the Elf has made his way into our little house this Season. I will be the first to admit that he is not very good at hiding....hopefully this year will be practice for next year when C gets it. But for now he finds places to pop up at all times of the day....and is always greeted with a big hug and slobbery kiss from Celie. He has already had an outing and gone to daycare for the day...she just loves him up!

This week has been a whirlwind of firsts at our house. It is amazing all the little things that Celie has picked up on and how fast she is growing up! This week she has shown us that when she makes a mess she is able to walk over to the towel drawer, grab a towel, wipe up the mess, and put the dirty towel back in with the clean ones! She also loves to do laundry and shake it out before she hands it off to be folded :-) Maybe she will love doing laundry and I won't have to!! Amongst her firsts this week were....

A Brunch with Santa!! Celie LOVED...well sort of LOVED meeting the big guy. She was a little hesitant when it was her turn to visit...but once she was done LOVED peeking at him around the corner!

 CHRISTMAS COOKIE BAKING (well tasting :-) !)

 This isn't a first but I will leave you with a giggle....As Celie was taking cooking lessons tonight she was in charge of the cheese for the pizza.....you can see how well that went!!!!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

We didn't leave our house today and it was one of the best day's we have had in a long time. Christmas spirit was all around us today and our Celie was SO EXCITED for the day that she skipped her morning nap and didn't crash until 2!

Celie discovered a surprise this morning as Coook surprised her with a new felt tree (Mommy's handiwork) and a little lesson on decorating and sharing our toys!

After spending the weekend with Nana and Papa's tree we discovered that she likes to take the ornaments off and put them back off by herself....which she is not quiet coordinated enough to do yet. Needless to say Nana lost an ornament this weekend So we decided to kick off our tree decorating with making salt ornaments.... Lets just say it was quiet the adventure...

She was so fascinated by the whole process...it was well worth the mess to see the joy on her face!

















Celie was in charge of the kneading....and the flour!

This was our finished product.....A very messy little girl!!

Celie's Not So Perfect but Perfect in every way ornament!!

Celie and her "Unbreakable" Tree!

The expression of the day... !

Kicking off the Holidays!

....Well...my blogging has taken a backseat (clearly as my last entry was June)....so here it is June through now has been quiet the adventure...in recap we searched for a house, bought a house, I started school, we painted the entire first floor or the house, replaced all the doors, window and floor trim, put carpet in, and refinished the floors in the bedrooms and hallways (I will have to post a New house entry soon...but not today). OH and then our little Celie turned ONE!! :-)

SOOOO.....I have decided to restart my blog...with more dedication this time and thought what better way than during my favorite time of year. Christmas is a time full of family, love, tradition, giving to others, and a time to reflect on the wonderful gift of Baby Jesus. It has always been a time of year that has warmed my heart and brought excitement and anticipation for 25 whole days and now that I have Celie I feel like this feeling has only intensified. I can't wait to make cookies with her, read her Christmas Stories, share our blessings in the buckets of the bell ringers, wrap presents, dance to Christmas music, bake a birthday cake for Jesus.....the list goes on and on.... So with all this excitement I thought we would share our Christmas Celebrations with you and your family and hopefully inspire you to enjoy the Holiday Season as much as we will making new traditions for our little family.

We decided to kick off the season with a new little friend coming to visit us! Coook the Elf (it is a funny name for an elf we know....but it is a new word to Celie's vocabulary and when she puckers her little lips to say it she just looks SO CUTE!) has made his grand arrival. Celie is a bit young to understand the mischievousness of most of the Elves on Shelves but we are hoping he can teach Celie about the True meaning of Christmas and she can give him kisses when he is being good and teach him how to be good when he decides to get into a little mischievous!

8 months is going to be BIG!!

At only 8 months and 3 days Celie is making her momma proud! In those three days she showed us that she knew how to wave bye bye when her Uncle K and Jess left after their visit. Celie started cruising on the same day she waved bye bye.....she is WAY too brave. She hasn't quiet learned that she can't cruise her way to the otherside of the room so her compromise is to reach out to the object she wants, let go of the couch with both hands and crash. I am surprised we don't have any bruises on our little face yet.

Our biggest and most impressive conquest in the last few days is that after one demonstration of how to climb the stairs CELIE DID IT HERSELF!!! Nana and Papa Pattarozzi have some very nice stairs that Cecilia finds to be GREAT for climbing. She needs a little gaurding as she has performed a beautiful summer sault once already without any tears. I have the baby who can't crawl in four point but can climb the stairs! (Pretty impressive!!)

 

A Chicago Meet up

We kicked off the beginning of Luke's free month by heading into Chicago (well actually Downer's Grove) to meet up with our friends we met during our one year stint in Michigan. Chicago is only about 3-3.5 hours from Fondy, however we did need a stop break because now that we are mobile Celie doesn't like riding in the car as much. So were did we stop...THE JELLY BELLY FACTORY. This fabulous place is very close to where I went to PT school....Belly Flops (the not so perfect Jelly Belly Beans) and Hodgepodge gave us just the sugar high we needed!

 We stayed in Downer's Grove meeting up with Jen and Eric who we became very good friends with out in Michigan. Luke worked with Eric and I worked with Jen. The last time we seen them we were packing up to head home to Wiscony and I was 7ish months pregnant. This was there first time meeting Cecilia. She loved them right up!! We had a weekend full of ice cream, great food, the Brookfield Zoo, swimming, and just enjoying the company.

We had a fabulous weekend and it was a GREAT way to kick off the summer! We secretly wish Eric would get a Coaching job in Wiscony so that we could get together more often. We are excited for our next few get togethers as Eric and Jen's May Wedding will be here before we know it!

Miss Independent

Four day's into my summer vaction and I must say I am LOVING my snuggle time with Celie and am enjoying all the new little things that she is doing every day. The PT in me has been helping her along this week to pull into stand and take a couple of steps with support at her waist of course :-) I may regret it in a week or two but for today I am pretty excited she is *Almost* pulling up to stand on the couch independently!

I would also like to announce that Celie Bug has become Little Miss Independent! I think Luke and I may be in trouble as Celie's personality is emerging a little more every day....and I think we are going to have one sassy little girl!! She has found a love for peach popsicles, especially on the hot days and has decided that she no longer needs to eat from a spoon. No matter what is on the spoon, as long as we are holding it she won't eat it! She LOVES her finger foods...avacodo, sweet potato,  noodles, and string cheese are topping the list this week. I am thinking I may need to get a little more creative in my food options...because clearly she has decided that spoons are not the way to go!

 

(If you look closely you can see the blonde Mohawk Celie has been sporting :-) !)

Summer is Here!

Summer has FINALLY arrived at the Pattarozzi house! I have been working in the school district with special needs kiddo's since January and have come to love the school hours....which includes a summer vacation. I never thought when graduating from PT school I would find myself having summer's off to spend time with my Little Love Bug!

Celie spent last week (a whole 4 day's) away from us with her Gran Gran and Pappy in Barron. It was a nice break for Luke and I. It gave us some time to appreciate each other on a couple of date nights and realize how much we miss Cecilia when she is gone! Coming back from a week being spoiled Celie has a few more rolls...apparently I was not feeding her enough, a desire to take a bottle from me, and a Diva personality which I'm pretty sure she got from her Auntie Livy!!

My mom stayed until Saturday. It was nice having mom her to kick my butt into doing some chores around the house and to go treasure hunting with and today is a day of relaxation...Naps included! Celie has enjoyed kicking off the summer in her pool and playing in her new tent! We even checked out Walleye Weekend here in Fondy....it was HOT and Celie napped through most of it. We had an interesting time doing some people watching, realizing how old we have gotten as we bit our tongues instead of telling the people with bad language that there were kids everywhere, eating cheese curds, and Luke having a Walleye sandy!