Shhh, she's sleeping!

Thomas Comes to Buttonwood St.

Happy Birthday My Dearest Sweetness

The New Cast

All went well with Cla's ortho appt yesterday. He had the staples removed from the incision and new xrays done and everything is healing nicely. They removed the plaster cast and put on this nice new fiberglass cast.

Claudio got to pick whatever color he wanted, but he went with the purple since we are entering a penitential season in the Church. He wanted to be liturgically correct ;)

What We're Learning

Well, Ben is at that delicious spongey age where he picks things up so easily and loves repetition, drilling, and learning in general. So we decided to try and direct him a little in his learning. We are working on a very simple preschool curriculum. You can see the areas it covers each week below. We are doing each unit for two weeks though.


We are learning all about cows this week. Reading about cows, coloring cows, learning what cows say, looking at pictures of cows. And Ben already knows his letters but this lets us really focus on one at a time. We are coloring pictures each day to make a letter book.


We spend however long Ben is willing to sit and do any given activity. If he loses interest then we just move on and come back to it later.

He loves sitting at his new little table and chairs and keeping busy with all of his important work!

We are also trying to learn how to look at the camera for pictures...and maybe even SMILE at the appropriate time!! Here are the results of that lesson LOL..

Oh My Gosh Tomorrow is February!!

I just can't believe how fast time is moving. We are entering the last stretch of winter. At the end of this week Benjamin turns 2. And I feel like he just turned 1. It was a rough crazy year since his last birthday!

Ben is getting more and more verbal and more and more aware of what he hears. Today we were in the car on the way home from the store and the DJ announced that the Doobie Bros. were coming up next and Ben picked right up on it and kept repeating, "Dooby Dooby Dooby". And somewhere he picked up, "Awesome!" LOL....it is just hysterical. Ohh one other he came up with. He was watching trains on Youtube with Claudio and he said, "Ding ding says the trolley!" He is precious and so full of light and so eager to learn.

Guess Who is 6 Months!!

Wish I could share with you lists of all the milestones she is reaching, but she seems to be a lazy baby!! She is just barely rolling, no signs of crawling, and far from being able to sit up. But she is ever so cute, has the hugest smile, and an infectious laugh!

Claudio, Why is Your Leg White and Ginormous?!

So two weeks ago the kids were coming down with colds, it was rainy, and I slept very late due to a bad case of insomnia. So Claudio recommended that I go to the Church across the street, Sacred Heart, for the 10:30 Mass and he would stay with the kids and then he would go to Mass later...

So, I am at Mass and they were just about to start the homily when I see my neighbor at the end of the pew trying to get my attention. He whispers to me that Claudio has fallen down the stairs and broke his leg and is being taken to the ER via ambulance....along with Benjamin who may have hit his head.

WHAT?!?! He rushes me home as the ambulance pulls down the street. The police were still in my home because the baby was upstairs napping. So I grabbed Anna, called my parents to come over ASAP, changed Anna's diaper, grabbed a bottle, a blanket, a diaper, and her bouncy chair and handed her over to my neighbor so I could run over to the ER to see what was going on.

Basically, when I left for Mass Claudio was carrying Ben down the stairs to play with the trains. Claudio was wearing just socks and slipped on the bottom two steps and knew immediately that he had broken his leg. He managed to crawl over to the phone in the basement and call 911.

At the ER Ben was checked out and he was fine. Claudio on the other hand broke his leg in three places and required surgery to put everything back together again. He also broke his hand. So he has two casts on and two incisions in his leg.

After a 3 day stay in the hospital he came home, but because of the broken hand he can't even use crutches. He has a walker he hobbles around on, but he is basically immobile. This Monday we see the orthopedist again who will remove his big plaster cast, remove the staples, re-xray and recast (with a lighter, fiberglass cast). Then he will have 4 more weeks, assuming everything is healing well, before the cast comes off.

So things have been a little nuts here!! But below are a few pictures of the "ordeal".


Ben found only one benefit to daddy's accident.

Claudio's view of Mt. Holly from his hospital window. Luckily he was taken to Mt. Holly hospital which is walking distance from our house. Made my life a little easier.

Anna getting a quick snuggle from Daddy.

The extent of daddy's parenting ability at the moment: Snuggling the kids for as long as they will tolerate sitting in one place. Luckily Ben can always be coaxed over with the promise of some Youtube videos.

Anna Goes for a Ride

Ben Goes for a Ride

I found this bike seat for Benjamin from Freecycle and with a few tweaks Claudio was able to get it up and running for him. Ben got a really cool Thomas bike helmet for Christmas.

I really had no idea if he would freak out or love it. He tends to be a wimp with these sorts of things. And he HATES having anything on his head. So my biggest fear was that I wouldn't even be able to get the helmet on him let alone get him strapped in and off and riding.

But he seemed excited right away and LOVED it. And notice the Thomas train in his hand...not sure which guy that is LOL...

Christmas Day

My usual disclaimer about how awful I have become at taking pictures and documenting things. So here are the few pictures we managed on Christmas Day.

We had a really lovely Christmas. Christmas Eve we always spend at my inlaws because it is my FIL's birthday. They have the entire family over and do their version of the 7 fishes. It is great for all of the cousins to get together (there are 6 grandchildren ranging in age from 5yrs to 5months!). They are all sweet and good playmates.

When we got home my dad and stepmom were pulling up at the same time. They came to spend Christmas with us.

Since we were all getting over colds Claudio and I just went to Mass at the Church across the street and left the children home with the grandparents.

Grandma Judi and Grandpa Bob have a lovely tradition of getting each of the grandkids a new Lenox ornament each Christmas. There are different series: snowman series, santa claus series, disney series, and the moose series. We of course chose the moose for Ben. Here we are hanging it on the tree Christmas morning. He is really cute, with little Christmas lights hanging from his ears.

Here is Anna in her snuggly Christmas jammies. She didn't get too excited about any of her gifts, but she got lots of lovely stuff.

This was definitely the Christmas of Thomas for Benjamin and he received lots of new engines and accesesories. Here is Grandpa Bob helping him to open one of the packages.

And here was the present of all presents for Ben. We were able to get him this used train table for his growing collection of Thomas "stuff". You can hear him say a few times, "Ohh wow!" and counting his trains.





Later in the day my brother came over and we had a yummy ham dinner and just a really nice and quiet day.

We Have Waited Three Years For This!

Here in the Salvucci house we love a blizzard......and we NEVER get them! The last time we had a really good snow storm was before we were married...so that is like 7ish years ago. The last time we had an ok snow storm was at least three years ago.

The year Ben was born the winter was so warm that we were having thunderstorms in January and regularly temps in the 60s and 70s. Nothing but an occassional flurry last year.

But here we are...not even January and a good foot and a half of snow!!!!!!!! WE are blessed indeed!!

The started in the wee hours so as soon as everyone was up we went out for a very quick walk in the snow. It was really to windy for the kids, especially Anna so our plans to walk up Mt. Holly quickly changed into a 3 minute venture out with Anna and a quick jaunt in the yard for Ben.

Ben received these snowpants for his birthday last year and I sort of chuckled to myself.....assumed it would never actually snow again and the pants would be packed away unworn at the end of the winter....

Here is Anna all bundled up. This isn't actually from the day of the snow but it was too cute to leave out and fit the theme and all :)

So everyone was bundled up and Anna was strapped on for safety!!

The no standing of furniture rule was suspended so that Ben could peak out the window whenever he wanted to see the snow.

And most of the rest of the day Ben rambled about looking like Bullwinkle (or was it Rocky?) learning new skills like climbing into the exersaucer.

What is Ben up to These Days?

He is dancing...

He is learning the ABC song. Interestingly Ben already knows all of his letters, but not the song yet. It occurred to me how much easier it is to just learn the letters as opposed to the song! He seems amazed and overjoyed to find there is a song that contains all of his beloved letters!

He is "reading". This is a Thomas coloring book. Currently Thomas is his favorite favorite thing. And you can hear him say "Nomas Nomas" several times.



One of our favorite things he says, "Whatchoo doooo-in?"

Deck the Halls

It starts with a little wassail in the sippy. Roll the flavor of Christmas around in the mouth a bit to get in the mood...



Drinking wassail and getting in the Christmas spirit can take a lot out of you so you might want to sit down while you do this..

Ok, now that you've got the feeling you sort branches with Daddy..

Anna, the perfect mini spectator..


Where were we?? Yes yes...sorting branches...

Once branches are sorted and assembled you add the star to the top of the tree..

Then somehow the tree gets covered in lights and ornaments...and voila the tree is up!

I Can Barely Tell Who's Who!!

Can you tell which ones are Ben and which ones are Burl Ives???