Jenna changed her shirt today from a white one to a pink/dark pink (or as she calls it, pinkt) one because she noticed that I had striped underwear on.
Clearly, the white shirt had to go.
She also stood outside the shower and wailed, "Get out! Get out!" during my entire shower this morning while pulling back the curtain.
Why?
Because she's two and the five minute seperation is too much for her to bear.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
"Don't call it a date..."
This Saturday night was Michaela's Scout and Sweetie Dance, held at a local country club, for area Girl Scouts and their "sweetie"- either dad, uncle, grandfather, etc. Dan and Michaela got all dolled up and looked fantastic!
Several girls from her troop also attended and they all sat at the same table. The food was extremely kid-friendly and they had a DJ, a professional photographer (the same photographer who did our wedding) and a great time was had by all. Michaela's soccer coach, Coach Tim, was there with his daughter and he even busted out the tux for the event. They were there for three hours and the DJ played great music and had lots of contests and activities for them to do. Michaela came home very happy with a goodie bag and a pink long stemmed rose. The whole thing was adorable and they both had a great time.
Jenna and I hung out together while they were gone. We made a fun evening out of it and went swimming at the Y, or the YMCH as Jenna calls it, and then McDonald's for a little dinner. A fun night.
Several girls from her troop also attended and they all sat at the same table. The food was extremely kid-friendly and they had a DJ, a professional photographer (the same photographer who did our wedding) and a great time was had by all. Michaela's soccer coach, Coach Tim, was there with his daughter and he even busted out the tux for the event. They were there for three hours and the DJ played great music and had lots of contests and activities for them to do. Michaela came home very happy with a goodie bag and a pink long stemmed rose. The whole thing was adorable and they both had a great time.
Michaela, Grace, Camille and Erin dancing it up at the party
Michaela, who is just starting to understand the whole boy/girl, boyfriends/ love/romance gig, was totally grossed out /embarrassed by Dan calling the evening a "date" and kept saying to him, "Don't call it a date!!" and then giggling wildly.
Jenna and I hung out together while they were gone. We made a fun evening out of it and went swimming at the Y, or the YMCH as Jenna calls it, and then McDonald's for a little dinner. A fun night.
Michaela and Jenna before the dance...
Jenna is very proud of her swimsuit and her Dippies (flip flops)
Friday, March 28, 2008
A cruel wake-up
Happy Spring.
Jenna wanted to get into the action so we bundled her up
and she played "outdide" as Michaela waited for the bus.
Michaela didn't even get a delay. Totally gypped!
The silver lining: It is supposed to get into the 50's by the end of next week.
(No comments, please, from those of you who have been basking in sunshine
and 60 degree weather for weeks already.)
I'm done with the Lion part of March... and ready for the Lamb.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Bad blogger!
I've been a bad, neglectful blogger as of late... too much Easter and chocolate. I have lots of cute pics from Easter that I promise to post soon.
Hang on few more days and I promise to be back...
Hang on few more days and I promise to be back...
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Weekend Fun
The Lady of Honor!!The Libutti Family flew out to Michigan this weekend to attend Baby Kate's baptism. Such fun! We had a great time, even though Mommy was a little nervous about how the whole flight/shuttle/drive was going to go both getting there and returning.
Chillin' on the plane ride outTurned out I had nothing to worry about... we had smooth sailing both times, though Jenna did throw a Mother of All Tantrums at the Detroit Metro Airport Security Gate, which was seen and enjoyed by all. (The crowning moment was when Jenna, in her stocking feet because she refused to put her shoes back on, got off one of the moving walkways in the terminal, turned around, stuck out her little pointer finger and screamed at the walkway, "You're STUPID!!!" It was lovely. And once again I look at her and think, how can my sweet, shy little Jenna get so incredibly angry?? You should have seen the looks on the faces of the other passengers as we approached the gate to board- I was carrying a screaming crying Jenna parallel to the the floor, face down, with her legs kicking. But she was fine once we got seated on the plane and had no other problems.)
The baptism was beautiful, of course and I'm going to let Brian and Beth post all the good pictures from the ceremony and of their beautiful little girl. Brian baptized her and it was all very moving. Add on to that it was Palm Sunday, one of my favorite church services of the year, and it was a hankies-all-around kind of moment. Brian led all the children of the congregation through the sanctuary waving palms and Jenna, Michaela and Cousin Katie joined right in!
Jenna, Michaela, and Cousin Katie (my cousin Eric's daughter, not to be confused with Cousin Kate)
Jenna peeking through the palms
It was so nice to see Brian's church- big and open and a beautiful space- and hear the Senior Pastor preach. After the service we went back to Brian and Beth's house for a day-long party that was really fun and relaxing and great family time together.
Beth thought it would be fun to color Easter Eggs while we were there and that was lots of fun.
In the Bundalo Family tradition, each kid gets a dozen eggs to color.
Uncle Brian worked the Spin An Egg machine, which we all experimented with.
The award-winning eggs
The girls did a bang-up job of making different designs and Beth even made them little award ribbons for the Most Beautiful, Most Creative, and Most Artistic. Amazingly, it turned out that each girl got one of the ribbons. I love it when things work out that way!
They even each got Easter baskets, which were hidden and then found using the Davies Traditional Hot/Cold Method. Here's Michaela helping Jenna find hers.
The next day we visited for a while at the house (which, by the way, pictures don't do justice... it was big and homey and I instantly felt comfortable there. That house has some of the best Karma I've ever felt in a house.) and then Brian took us for a guided tour of the whole church/ school/ church offices complex across the street. There's nothing liker seeing with your own eyes what you've been imagining for two years!
We really had such a great time, I left wanting to immediately go back... so Dan and I started talking already about when our next trip out there will be... maybe in the fall.
Rock on, Detroit!!
Thanks to Brian and Beth for making our trip such a success and being perfect hosts.
We so appreciate all you did to make us and the girls feel comfortable and welcome...
they will be talking about our trip for months!
De Ja vu all over again
Et tu, David??!!??
We were in Michigan over the weekend and all the Michiganites wanted the New York scoop on Eliot and David.
I was too happy to give them my two cents.
We were in Michigan over the weekend and all the Michiganites wanted the New York scoop on Eliot and David.
I was too happy to give them my two cents.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Flashback Friday
It's Flashback Friday!
Here is a long-ago flashback from about 1978-ish... this is me, my cousin Lenny (now an officer in the Air Force overseas) and his brother Eric. It is obviously from a Christmas pageant of some sort...I love the costumes... doesn't every church in America throw old cut-up curtains on the heads of pre-teen boys to make them shepards?
I loved this picture because I so clearly remember my cousins at this age... they were great playmates and turned out to be wonderful men. I also think I see lots of Jenna in my face. What do you think??
Have a great weekend!
Here is a long-ago flashback from about 1978-ish... this is me, my cousin Lenny (now an officer in the Air Force overseas) and his brother Eric. It is obviously from a Christmas pageant of some sort...I love the costumes... doesn't every church in America throw old cut-up curtains on the heads of pre-teen boys to make them shepards?
I loved this picture because I so clearly remember my cousins at this age... they were great playmates and turned out to be wonderful men. I also think I see lots of Jenna in my face. What do you think??
Have a great weekend!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Dreams and Revelations
Two things:
1. I had a dream last night that was sooo interesting (Right away I'm breaking a Cardinal Rule of Interesting Conversations: Your dreams are NEVER interesting to anyone but you. Noone knows what it looked like, noone knows how it felt to dream it, and noone has the same sense of wonder about it because only you saw it. But this was kind of cool and I Promise to keep it brief.) ... I dreamt that I was sleeping and having a dream about being hit on by Justin Timberlake (yes, not even in a REGULAR dream would this happen; only in a dream of a dream. How pathetic.) but then his girlfriend, Jessica Biel, saunters over and breaks the whole thing up. So I wake up from that dream and who am I telling my JT dream to? Kim Kardashian, of the Keeping Up with the Kardashians show on E!! She was quite sympathetic to my plight.
My expert dream analysis has lead me to these two conclusions: A) I watch way too much TV; B) I think my electric blanket is turned up a little too high.
2. I have determined that if I did not get emails about winning foreign lotteries- European AND Asian, thank you very much- growing a male body part larger, finding "Hot Singles in your area!", getting a PayRoll Advance loan, consolidating debt, and buying Canadian pharmacy drugs, I would have a lot more time to spend with my children instead of deleting this ridiculous garbage. And I would only get about three emails a day.
On a related tangent, have you ever seen those hilarious commercials on late at night for talking on the phone with other Hot Singles? The girls in the commercials are so pretty and cute and so obviously not in need of talking anonymously to other lonely people to "have a great time." I can only imagine the foulness of the "conversations" taking place. Yuck.
When I was in college, there was a gentleman's club of ill repute over the border in Canada and they played commercials after 11pm on the weekends.
One of their key tag lines was "Free Hot and Cold Buffet!"
Oh, no, this is not just a table with some crackers, cheese and fruit set out... they have HOT dishes, too... maybe some mozz sticks, chicken wings, maybe even a steaming plate of nachos! Who know what kind of food they serve there! But it's Hot AND Cold!!!
That always struck me as HILARIOUS because clearly people are not going there for the food and a group of middle aged women going out to eat on a Thursday night are not going to be stumped about where to go until one of them remembers: "Wait! I've seen that commercial for Club SuperS*x! They've got a FREE Hot AND Cold Buffet! Let's go there and try it out!"
Or, maybe they're into that sort of thing. I'm not here to judge.
1. I had a dream last night that was sooo interesting (Right away I'm breaking a Cardinal Rule of Interesting Conversations: Your dreams are NEVER interesting to anyone but you. Noone knows what it looked like, noone knows how it felt to dream it, and noone has the same sense of wonder about it because only you saw it. But this was kind of cool and I Promise to keep it brief.) ... I dreamt that I was sleeping and having a dream about being hit on by Justin Timberlake (yes, not even in a REGULAR dream would this happen; only in a dream of a dream. How pathetic.) but then his girlfriend, Jessica Biel, saunters over and breaks the whole thing up. So I wake up from that dream and who am I telling my JT dream to? Kim Kardashian, of the Keeping Up with the Kardashians show on E!! She was quite sympathetic to my plight.
My expert dream analysis has lead me to these two conclusions: A) I watch way too much TV; B) I think my electric blanket is turned up a little too high.
2. I have determined that if I did not get emails about winning foreign lotteries- European AND Asian, thank you very much- growing a male body part larger, finding "Hot Singles in your area!", getting a PayRoll Advance loan, consolidating debt, and buying Canadian pharmacy drugs, I would have a lot more time to spend with my children instead of deleting this ridiculous garbage. And I would only get about three emails a day.
On a related tangent, have you ever seen those hilarious commercials on late at night for talking on the phone with other Hot Singles? The girls in the commercials are so pretty and cute and so obviously not in need of talking anonymously to other lonely people to "have a great time." I can only imagine the foulness of the "conversations" taking place. Yuck.
When I was in college, there was a gentleman's club of ill repute over the border in Canada and they played commercials after 11pm on the weekends.
One of their key tag lines was "Free Hot and Cold Buffet!"
Oh, no, this is not just a table with some crackers, cheese and fruit set out... they have HOT dishes, too... maybe some mozz sticks, chicken wings, maybe even a steaming plate of nachos! Who know what kind of food they serve there! But it's Hot AND Cold!!!
That always struck me as HILARIOUS because clearly people are not going there for the food and a group of middle aged women going out to eat on a Thursday night are not going to be stumped about where to go until one of them remembers: "Wait! I've seen that commercial for Club SuperS*x! They've got a FREE Hot AND Cold Buffet! Let's go there and try it out!"
Or, maybe they're into that sort of thing. I'm not here to judge.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Completely shameless video
Here's video of Jenna being cute... there's no other reason to post this except
to show you how cute I think she is.
And to document her adorable obsession with songs from High School Musical.
Which we listen to every day.
Check out the hand motions, her not-quite lip-sync-ing vocals, and Michaela's shoes that she's wearing and is quite distracted by.
I present... Jenna Alicia Libutti singing "Fabulous"!!!!!
Get a whiff of that new car smell...
In the immortal words (roughly paraphrased) of
Grandpa Griswald to Clark W. Griswald in
Christmas Vacation while admiring the lit up
Griswald house...
"Clark, she's a beaut!"
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Lots of news!!!
Dan was away on business for two days and is now happily back in the fold... I tagged him and told him "You're it!" so he can be with the girls for a bit while I blog to my heart's content. Such luxury.
I'll start with the exciting news first... we bought a new car this weekend! Dan has been shopping for a new car for about two years now and has been incredibly patient and deliberate in his choosing. We went for a test drive this weekend and found out that 1) they are not making the car anymore (it is being redesigned for 2009); 2) the dealership has 11 left; 3) only one was the color Dan wanted; 4) about 7 of the 11 left had navigation systems which we didn't need and would have to pay an additional three grand for. So we test-drove it, Dan loved it, and we decided to buy it before it slipped out of our fingers. We are picking it up on Thursday or Friday and I am so happy for Dan. He has been tooling around in our 1996 Subaru with 160,000 miles on it that we bought the week after we returned from our honeymoon... 11 and a half years ago. We bought an Acura TSX, which is a sporty little sedan; it is charcoal gray with a black leather interior and has a sunroof, heated seats, XM satellite radio, etc. It's a great looking little car. Hooray!
Our second exciting news was that we booked our vacation for the summer this weekend. We decided to go with renting a house on the Cape this year, which goes from Saturday to Saturday, making it the longest vacation we've taken since the girls were born. We are staying in a 3 br ranch in Eastham that is a mile from the ocean and a few houses down from a bike trail. The house has a beautiful big deck and nice open living room and dining room. I am really looking forward to getting there, even though we're not going to the end of August. It was fun comparing a few different places online and looking at all the pictures of the houses and weighing the pros and cons of each. We were close to booking a place in Harwichport but then found out it doesn't have air conditioning, so that was a deal breaker. I can live without a/c but cannot live with Dan living without a/c.
In other news... my dad and I saw The Roches in concert on Friday night and they were awesome as always. We went to see a basketball game on Saturday night between the Middle School teachers and the Elementary school teachers and it was adorable. It was such a "I have school age kids" thing to do on a Saturday night and I got a real charge out of that. By the way, the Elementary team blasted the Middle school team. Victory!
I watched quite possibly the worst tv movie I've ever seen on Monday afternoon... Tori Spelling and her new husband Dean What's His Name in "Houseguest" on Lifetime. (Plot synopsis: House sitter in rural VT tudor home finds her life in danger... who is the bad guy? The house owner... or his brother, who happens to be a plumber and was called unwittingly to the house by said housesitter and promptly goes to bed with her?) Painfully bad and about 90 minutes longer than it had to be. Do you see why I worry about my brain rotting to mush???
I leave you with four funny Libutti girl stories:
1. Jenna has refused to wear anything but her 2006 Christmas dress to church for the last three weeks. This includes Sunday school, church, Lent services AND playgroup.
2. Michaela made a stuffed bear in her vacation Bible school program a few weeks ago. The idea was to donate the bears en masse to African children as a mission project. Michaela's comment:"I don't KNOW anyone in Africa! I'd rather give it to one of my friends here." So concrete. I love it.
3. Jenna took a baby wipe and was wiping the walls of my parents' house. Let me interject here that their house is immaculate and always company-ready and I would without hesitation eat off of any of their floors. Jenna's comment: "I haveta clean this be-tause your house is berry dirty, Gammie."
4. My mom is giving Michaela some kind of cautionary tale which ends with... "you don't want to be a spoiled girl." Michaela asks, "What's spoiled mean?" My mom says, "It means you get everything you want." Michaela says, "I think I WANT to be a spoiled girl!"
I'll start with the exciting news first... we bought a new car this weekend! Dan has been shopping for a new car for about two years now and has been incredibly patient and deliberate in his choosing. We went for a test drive this weekend and found out that 1) they are not making the car anymore (it is being redesigned for 2009); 2) the dealership has 11 left; 3) only one was the color Dan wanted; 4) about 7 of the 11 left had navigation systems which we didn't need and would have to pay an additional three grand for. So we test-drove it, Dan loved it, and we decided to buy it before it slipped out of our fingers. We are picking it up on Thursday or Friday and I am so happy for Dan. He has been tooling around in our 1996 Subaru with 160,000 miles on it that we bought the week after we returned from our honeymoon... 11 and a half years ago. We bought an Acura TSX, which is a sporty little sedan; it is charcoal gray with a black leather interior and has a sunroof, heated seats, XM satellite radio, etc. It's a great looking little car. Hooray!
Our second exciting news was that we booked our vacation for the summer this weekend. We decided to go with renting a house on the Cape this year, which goes from Saturday to Saturday, making it the longest vacation we've taken since the girls were born. We are staying in a 3 br ranch in Eastham that is a mile from the ocean and a few houses down from a bike trail. The house has a beautiful big deck and nice open living room and dining room. I am really looking forward to getting there, even though we're not going to the end of August. It was fun comparing a few different places online and looking at all the pictures of the houses and weighing the pros and cons of each. We were close to booking a place in Harwichport but then found out it doesn't have air conditioning, so that was a deal breaker. I can live without a/c but cannot live with Dan living without a/c.
In other news... my dad and I saw The Roches in concert on Friday night and they were awesome as always. We went to see a basketball game on Saturday night between the Middle School teachers and the Elementary school teachers and it was adorable. It was such a "I have school age kids" thing to do on a Saturday night and I got a real charge out of that. By the way, the Elementary team blasted the Middle school team. Victory!
I watched quite possibly the worst tv movie I've ever seen on Monday afternoon... Tori Spelling and her new husband Dean What's His Name in "Houseguest" on Lifetime. (Plot synopsis: House sitter in rural VT tudor home finds her life in danger... who is the bad guy? The house owner... or his brother, who happens to be a plumber and was called unwittingly to the house by said housesitter and promptly goes to bed with her?) Painfully bad and about 90 minutes longer than it had to be. Do you see why I worry about my brain rotting to mush???
I leave you with four funny Libutti girl stories:
1. Jenna has refused to wear anything but her 2006 Christmas dress to church for the last three weeks. This includes Sunday school, church, Lent services AND playgroup.
2. Michaela made a stuffed bear in her vacation Bible school program a few weeks ago. The idea was to donate the bears en masse to African children as a mission project. Michaela's comment:"I don't KNOW anyone in Africa! I'd rather give it to one of my friends here." So concrete. I love it.
3. Jenna took a baby wipe and was wiping the walls of my parents' house. Let me interject here that their house is immaculate and always company-ready and I would without hesitation eat off of any of their floors. Jenna's comment: "I haveta clean this be-tause your house is berry dirty, Gammie."
4. My mom is giving Michaela some kind of cautionary tale which ends with... "you don't want to be a spoiled girl." Michaela asks, "What's spoiled mean?" My mom says, "It means you get everything you want." Michaela says, "I think I WANT to be a spoiled girl!"
Monday, March 3, 2008
Weekend fun
Whoa. What a weekend. It was busy and fun and a bit stressful and I will post more about all we did when the details have been finalized. (That's quite a teaser, right? Hey, I gotta do somethin' to get people to keep checking back...)
A few weeks ago Dan borrowed Guitar Hero game from his boss and we Libuttis had a blast mastering it. Michaela and Jenna loved playing (both have a strong passion for eighties hard rock) and Michaela actually got pretty good playing Cheap Trick's "Surrender". Dan was most excited about playing but the true master of Guitar Hero in our house was ... ME!! Who knew I had latent guitar skills? I feel like all we did that weekend was play and by Sunday morning I was trying to figure out what chords I would play to accompany the hymns we sang in church.
Here are some pics:
Here Michaela plays while an enthusiastic Jenna sings while standing on the table.
Mimi is all business... look how she's chewing on her lip to concentrate!