Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

It's hard to believe our baby girl is 6 years old! Jon and I were sitting here uploading pictures and talking about how much this little girl has changed our lives! We will never forget the first moment we saw her and felt so overwhelmed with the craziest love we've ever known! It was SO hard to pick the best pictures to share - so you may get bored long before our slide show is over! :-)

We love you Sophia!!

What's Going On?

I haven't posted since our vacation, so let me catch up...

We are getting ready to "officially" welcome a new member to the DiCo family (she's already part of us though)! Jon's youngest brother Jeremy is getting married to Erin on May 2nd. Here is a pic from her bridal shower. We are all getting excited for this wedding!















(Shannon, Elizabeth, Erin, Dawn and Fay)

Easter Sunday was a beautiful but COLD day! Can you tell from this picture?! :-)


Other Easter Sunday pictures:

cousin Baby Gordon and Sophia with cousins Georgia & Lily

And the update I've been putting off posting - our addition project has been put on hold. It's a long story but basically our contractor is not available anymore and so we have to start over. Jon is now planning to G.C. the project himself, but there are a lot of things to get in place first, so stay tuned....

NOLA - 'BAMA

We had the BEST vacation! It was so much fun to go "home" to Alabama. (Jon and I had our start there - we moved to Daphne, AL the day we got back from our honeymoon and lived there just shy of 2 years.) First, we flew into New Orleans and got to spend a couple of days with Tina and Skylar! It was so much fun to get to finally meet little Skylar - and the kids had a great time together. Tina took us to the coolest place called "Global Wildlife Center" - we went out in a modern covered wagon and fed a bunch of wild animals - it was a blast! The next day we went to the French Quarter and got all of the local fare we love - beignets, cafe au lait, pralines and muffalettas! Daryl got home from a business trip Friday evening and so we got to meet him and had a nice dinner out together w/out the kids. On Saturday, we drove over to AL and Tina came as well - Tina and I got together with a bunch of the girls we worked with at Ideal Technical Services - it was so much fun to see everyone - everyone was the same, yet so much has changed (kids etc.)!
We spent the rest of our time with Edd and Paulette. We can't even believe we had not seen them in over 6 years - and we vowed to never let that much time go by again! It was so much fun to be with them again - it was like no time had passed and we just picked up right where we'd left off. Our kids loved them and I think the feeling was mutual :-) We just had a wonderful time reconnecting and driving all over the area to see all of the many changes that have taken place since we'd last been down there in '99. We enjoyed going back to our old church and seeing some familiar faces and we also had a wonderful day out at Edd's brother's farm - our kids could turn into farm kids quite easily. We also got to spend some time with Edd & Paulette's daughter and family and our kids really hit it off! It was just an absolutely perfect vacation!

Grandpa & Grandma Visit

Before we left for our vacation, my parents came for a quick visit. We hadn't seen them since October, so it was fun to reconnect! We spent a lot of time playing cards (war!) and watching Mary Poppins. Sophia and Anthony always enjoy getting to spend time and play with them and we're thankful that they have a chance to really get to know their grandparents. Here is a pic from our time together.

Quick Update

It's been awhile since I've blogged and we're about to take off for vacation, so I thought I'd post a quick update.

Addition Plans: Last Monday our plans got approved by the township and so we're ready to go! Our contractor is planning to start the 3rd week of March, so we'll have a little bit of time after we get back from vacation to get ready. Here are a couple of "before" pics (for those of you that haven't ever been to our house)
BACK OF HOUSE (this little existing addition/balcony will be torn off in order for the new addition to go up)



SIDE OF HOUSE

FRONT OF HOUSE (this view won't change)

VACATION: We are taking off for warmer weather!! On Wednesday we are leaving to go to New Orleans, LA and Daphne, AL. When Jon and I were first married we lived in Daphne for a couple of years and so we are going to visit some of our friends from that time in our lives. When we go to New Orleans, we will be staying with my friend Tina and her family. Tina and I worked together at Ideal Technical Services and shared an office for awhile and have always had such a good time together. Tina came and visited us when she was pregnant with her little girl Skylar and I was pregnant with Anthony, so we are so excited to get to meet little Skylar. We will be with Tina, Daryl and Skylar for a couple of days and then we'll drive over to AL. There we will be visiting with Edd & Paulette - our dear friends that are like adopted parents. We haven't seen them since I was pregnant with Sophia so we are so excited for them to get to meet our kids and reconnect with them.

PIC: Here is a "self-portrait" of the kiddos. This is Sophia's latest obsession - every time I turn on the camera, I find more pics of her! (thankfully shes lives in the digital age and we don't get film developed with picture after picture of this) :-)

No Turning Back!

The project has officially begun!

The first step was removing 3 very large trees from our backyard. It was sort of sad to watch them go - but 2 of them would have had to go even if we weren't adding on, as they were dying.

Our backyard sort of looks "naked" now :-)

We go to the township on 2/25 to get approval on our plans, so as long as there are no revisions needed, the actual addition should begin later that week or the following week!

Happy Love Month!

I love Valentine's Day! I know that a lot of people consider it a cheesy, commercial or even "forced" holiday (my husband used to be one of those people)...but ever since we've had kids, it has become a fun holiday for us as a family. I buy the kids Valentine's Day t-shirts, and after dinner, we do chocolate fondue and dance to Ol' Blue Eyes. The last couple of years, Sophia and I have each gotten a dozen roses (she definitely thinks VD is all about her, and maybe she's right!) :-)
Enjoy our playlist of favorite love songs!

Sophia lost her first tooth!

On Tuesday of last week (1/22), Sophia lost her first tooth! About a week or so prior, she came into our bed early one morning telling me that there was something weird on her tooth. I tried to put her off until the sun came up by telling her that her tooth was probably loose, but that actually made it worse because then she was so excited and just kept poking me and asking me to look at it. So, I felt it and sure enough it was loose! She let her babysitter, Lisa, pull it out last Tuesday. I was kind of bummed out to miss the event because I was away at a work meeting overnight, so Jon had to play the role of tooth fairy. I had wanted to get her a special Barbie or something to commemorate the first time she lost a tooth, but when I called Jon late Tuesday night he said he would "just throw a dollar under her pillow" or something like that. He ended up doing a little more than that - he also wrote her a note from the tooth fairy and that is what she was most excited about. He used markers that were in her room and she kept saying, "the tooth fairy must have been writing that note right by my bed because she used my markers!" She also noticed that the tooth fairy spelled her own name wrong (Tooth Fiary - Jon says to give him a break, he was in a rush!). Nothing gets by this girl!
I stopped on my way home on Wednesday and got her a Barbie, and I also ordered her a special tooth fairy doll to put her lost teeth in. But I truly think she was just as, if not more excited about the dollar and the note.
It's just crazy to think that she's already old enough to be losing teeth! Ahhh, where does the time go?!

A Busy Month

I have not had much time to blog lately. January is always a busy month for us, but this one has seemed even more so with Jon working several Sundays. My main purpose for setting up a blog was for my family and far-away friends to keep up with us and see pics of the kids, but sometimes I wish I had time to just write about random things. This past year at work, I took the "StrengthsFinder" - a questionnaire designed to reveal your top 5 strengths. One of mine is Communication. I especially enjoy written communications and I have the opportunity to do most of the communications for my department. But with working full-time, I just don't have as much time to blog as I would like!

Before Jon went back to work after Christmas break, we went to the PA Farm Show with Pop-Pop and Auntie Lizzie. The Farm Show is "the nation’s largest indoor agricultural exposition providing entertainment, great food and an opportunity to learn about livestock, cooking, machinery, and everything Pennsylvania agriculture".
Jon grew up going to the farm show every year and he loves sharing it with our kids. They went last year for the first time and begged me to take off work this year to go with them. Here are a couple of pics from our day. (We stood in line over an hour for these silly balloons!)

The other exciting thing going on in our lives right now is that we are about to start on a 2-story home addition project. We have been working towards this for a few years now and are finally ready to undertake this huge task. We are going to hire a contractor to do the bulk of the work, but Jon is probably going to do most of the finishing work. I will just play the role of decorator :-) I am excited to get to pick out paint, light fixtures, tile etc. We will be adding a family room and a 1/2 bath/laundry room downstairs and a master bedroom & bath upstairs. We were planning on starting this project this coming summer, but it's a good time for our contractor to get started, so we're going to go ahead and probably start in February or March. This will be good because Jon has off in the summer and will be able to work on the parts he is going to do. I'm sure as we go through this process I'll be posting lots of before/during/after pics!

Happy New Year!

Well, this post is going to be an update on the last couple of weeks. We had a great Christmas at home! We celebrated with Jon's family on Christmas Eve over at Grammy & Pop Pop's. It was so much fun this year as the cousins are getting older and enjoying each other more. Highlights included Georgia singing 'Jingle Bells' while in her new Dora undies (over her diaper and tights!), Pappy's homemade ravioli and the purses that Auntie Lizzie knit and felted for all the girls and their mommies. Here is a pic of the 5 cousins - Gordon, Sophia, Anthony, Lily & Georgia - we have yet to get a "good" picture of the 5 of them. Baby Gordon is very cooperative, but we've been trying to get one of the other 4 together since the little girls were babies, but it just doesn't seem to be in the cards! Actually, I love these pics because they're so real!

(click on any of these pics to view them larger)

And here's a pic of Sosi and Lils in their matching Christmas outfits:

Christmas morning was so much fun this year! Sophia & Anthony slept in until 9:00 a.m., but once they woke up, they were very excited to see if Santa had come.

They were both thrilled that they received what they had asked for; Sophia - a microphone to sing all of the High School Musical Songs (and Santa was kind enough to throw in both movies too!) and Anthony - a football helmet - he didn't specify what kind so Daddy put in a special request for it to be the Dallas Cowboys. Anthony is somewhat confused about his allegiance as the other day he wore his Cowboys pants and his Eagles jersey! However, if you ask him who his favorite team is, he will always say "The Vikings" (thanks a lot Truman! Truman is his little buddy who hails from MN) The Packer fan in me cringes each time he makes this declaration! Thankfully, Uncle Jer and Aunt Erin are helping me in my quest to shape Sophia & Anthony into Philadelphia Eagles fans! While on break, we had the opportunity to get together with several friends that we don't get to see often enough. My friend Kelly (my very first Pennsylvania friend!) and I reinstated an old tradition of getting together to bake Christmas cookies - we did this together several years pre-kids but have not been able to make it happen the last couple of years. We baked 5 kinds of cookies and made some nut brittle in under 6 hours (it helps that she has 2 ovens)! Jon and the kids came and joined us that evening when Orazio (her husband) got home and we had dinner together and spent the night there. Every time we go to their house for dinner, we always have to leave earlier than we're ready to part and always talk about spending the night some time and finally did it this time (we live about 1 hour apart). Baby Orazio was with us all day and cooperated beautifully by taking a very long nap and then sitting contentedly in his highchair while we finished up (it helped that we kept giving him cookies!). We also got to go back the next week and help celebrate Orazio's 1st birthday! I love one-year-olds! He is such a cutie and such a good baby!

We also got to be with our friends Greg, Tricia, Lexie and Noah for an evening. We had a great time being in their home, sharing a meal together and sampling some of the great Christmas cookies that Tricia made. Our girls are such great playmates and our boys are getting there too! Our time together always goes too fast!

Our friends Rick, Alicia & Gracie also had us over for a great meal (hmmm, I'm just realizing that we were the ones being treated to all the meals this time, so we'll have many favors to return!) and we had a great time with them. Gracie loves Sophia and Anthony and always calls them "friends" - it's too cute!
Jon and Rick watched the historical Patriots/Giants game after I took the kids home to bed.


Oh, I just realized that we actually did make a meal for someone! Before Bethany, Quenton, Eden, Truman and Briar left for WI for the holidays, we had our annual Christmas celebration together and we made baked ziti! Ok, I'm feeling better about myself now :-) Oh, and we were going to have Jer, Erin and Lily over for dinner but they got sick - - okay, now I'm just trying to convince you that we're not freeloaders!


Since Jon and I were off for so long and did not travel, we were able to get so much done around the house. I cleaned out the kitchen - emptying every cabinet and drawer and wiping them out and sorting things. In addition, I cleaned out the pantry and the refrigerator. Jon got smoke detectors up and running and did some other little things around the house. I also used the time to create some charts for Sophia & Anthony that I've been thinking about doing since I read about the idea on one of my friends' blog. For lack of a better description, I call them "Good Behavior Charts" - basically just a way to help reinforce good habits and values. We haven't fully fleshed out the rewards system yet since this is the first week we are doing it, but we are thinking of having a prize box that they can draw a piece of paper out of, and on most would be activities to do as a family such as play a game, go to a movie etc. We also want to give them small amounts of money for the values they exhibit (we don't want to "pay" them for the tasks). We think this will give us an opportunity to teach them about money too. Any other suggestions?
Our New Year's Eve was nice and quiet. We had some plans with friends that fell through and although we were disappointed to not see them, we ended up having a great night at home just the 4 of us. We played games with the kids, made chocolate fondue and watched "The Princess Bride". They almost made it up 'til midnight, but were both asleep by 11:30. Earlier in the day, we went up to my Aunt Debbie's to celebrate Christmas with her and our cousins Carly, Austin & Andrew. Debbie's sisters girls were there for the 2nd year in a row and we had our second annual Mexican fiesta - we also got to celebrate Carly's birthday. It was a good time together!

Well, for those of you actually still reading this, thanks for hanging in there. I don't usually write such long posts, but it's been awhile...

Happy New Year!!!