1st Birthday Celebration for my Lil Man!

Well, tomorrow is the little guys 1st birthday!  I can't believe an entire year has passed!  We had a wonderful family celebration today for him.  My inlaws are in town visiting and they brought with them some delicious and nostalgic mini-hot dogs for the family to grill....all the way from Woerhles in Massachusetts!    We had a picnic-style party at the park and the weather was perfect for it!  He was surrounded by the love of his crazy family!   We decided to take a few snapshots as soon as we got there - and I am so glad we did.  Demetri was a typical boy and was filthy, full of dirt, scraped knees, etc. within minutes of arriving at the park!

Yiayia helping with some big steps! (he is not yet walking)

Birthday Boy with is Nouna

My father-in-law took control of the grill (thanks Granddad! ) and everything came out delicious!

Thanks to the Russells (who brought the horseshoes), the men had some fun playing horseshoes!

And of course, no journal entry would be complete without a little picture of the Birthday Boy eating some cake!

A great day overall.  Tomorrow is his actual birthday and we will be attending Divine Liturgy in the morning. After that, we are going away for a few days and will continue to celebrate and enjoy my inlaws visit.

My Slinging Little Girl

Our little girl has started showing more of an interest in playing with her dolls lately.  She feeds them, reads them stories, blesses them with the Sign of the Cross, dresses them...and she even wears them.  She spent much of her little life in a sling, mei tai or wrap - so it seems normal that she would want to wear her own babies too.  Pictured below she is using a sling and a mei tai that her Yiayia made for  her!    Nonetheless, I still find it endearing to see that she is mimicking what she sees me now do with her little brother.  She is really at that fun age of playing make-believe, role-playing, "cooking" for me, playing dollhouse, etc.  I love to watch her play this way.

Dorofy and Dorofy

The box arrived and my little girl was SO excited, the way she normally is when her Noni sends her "presents"!  So, we sat down after lunch and started opening all of her new treasures.  She got excited with each thing she pulled out....cute skorts, new skirt, shirts to match, sweets...and THERE IT WAS!  I thought to myself "well, my mother-in-law has FINALLY managed to send a bad gift"!  I've never had to deal with this before. All of her gifts are always wonderful, fun, thoughtful...perfect, most of the time.  Except for now.  I see a fishbowl.....gravel.....and I'm pulling out the tissue paper.  I see a Petsmart receipt.  Yup, this must be the voucher that I go and pick up her first goldfish. Wonderful.  Toddler + Infant + Goldfish.  You are seeing where this could end, right?
Well, we'd like you to meet "Dorofy and Dorfy" (Dorothy and Dorothy...my little girl couldn't think of 2 names right away, so I think they both got named after Elmo's fish, Dorothy).

My mother-in-law had quite a laugh when I told her what I was thinking while opening her package.  However, I will also add this:  A few days later, our little angel took Dorofy out of the bowl to wash her with papertowels...put her back (still covered in wet papertowels) and proceeded to feed them Cheerios in their bowl!

My view from the kitchen...

Ahhh, the signs of an active day!  Now if you know my little girl, you know that is probably the worst sleeper EVER!   Naps?  ha!  So, to see her rosy little cheeks glowing as she peacefully sleeps is a beautiful site.  We love that the weather has been so nice lately! We've been able to spend so much more time outdoors and she is getting a lot more physical exercise...which we all love.  I have high hopes for many more satisfying days such as this one!