Bits & Pieces

(turn your volume up as she is very quiet!! Remember if yu got ths in an email you need to go to the actual blog to watch the video and press the triangle to play)

Kelsey loves her baby sister!!

She actually did this on her own the first time, I then had to prompt her though to get it on camera.

War Eagle

Whether you ask me or Lou, we will both tell you our girls bleed Orange and Blue. This year it's definitely Orange and Navy Blue. Kelsey was so cute all season saying Waaaar Eagle and Go AUburn and shaking my AU shakers. The girls supported AUburn as they won the National Championships

I made their shirts!

New Sounds....

Kaylee has been "talking" more and more. She definitely has the mamamama sounds down and hahahaha. Lou and Kelsey both swear she said dada on New Years Eve, so I guess she has the dadada sound down as well.

At dinner one night in December, she was in her exersaucer chatting away and Lou started saying dadadadada at her, while I countered with mamamama and then Kelsey chimed in with kelseykelseykelseykelsey...hmmmm I hate to break it to Kels that her name will be a ways off. She'll prob be kakakaka before anything else. (Just like her Aunt Kaka)

Snow Day....

Yesterday on the way to school it was a very gray and gloomy FL day. As we were driving Kelsey says "Mommy it's going to snow so school is going to be canceled today".

Stifling my laughter up front I replied "Sweetie, we live in FL, it does not snow here. So school is not going to be canceled"

To which she replied "But Mommy (she loves to start sentences like that)...in Virginia it snows"

I'm still trying to figure out how she knows school gets canceled in Virginia when it snows??

Pierced Ears....

This is something we had planned on doing with Kelsey when she was a baby. We even bought her shamrock earrings while we were in Ireland when I was 5 months pregnant with her. The Dr's office wouldn't do it until she was 6 months and by that time we felt she was pulling on her ears too much. It just kept being put off and now she is 3. We've been talking about it and she has been asking for it, so today we took the girls to the mall. (Does anyone out there realize how expensive it is...it was gonna be $90 at the Dr's office for both and was $77 at Claire's. Holy Cow!!!) We chose little CZ white gold studs for both the girls. We were going to let Kelsey choose hers, but I had to steer her away from the hello kitty ones. I told her which one we were going to use for Kaylee and asked if she wanted the same or wanted to choose a different one. She said she wanted the same.

 

 

She was a little nervous. I knelt down in front of her and held her hands. They had 2 people piercing so they could do both of her ears at the same time (smart people). She was NOT happy after. She cried for a couple minutes and did her screaming too. Great, now Kaylee was next. Kaylee sat in my lap and was pretty good. I did have to hold her head against my chest so she wouldn't end up with crooked holes. The girl was pretty quick. Kaylee cried for maybe a minute, but then calmed down, found her fingers and was fine. Kelsey was now asking us to take out her ear piercings. :-) By the end of the day she was fine with them. I wish we had done hers when she was little.

New Year's Eve Day...

It was a beautiful day, especially after all of our freezing cold weather here in FL. (Nights were in the 30s and sometimes a windchill of 19...Yikes!) Lou was busy finishing up the gate we had installed, so I brought a blanket out and played with the girl out by the swing set (in our oh so dead grass).

Kaylee was eyeing Kelsey's apple during lunch so I decided to get her mesh food holder out and put an apple slice in it. She definitely did not understand the concept...Kelsey even came over and tried to "teach" her. She enjoyed chewing on the handle though.

Eventually Lou came out and joined us. Kelsey decided she could push her toy stroller on the dead grass, but soon realized that wouldn't work and carried it out to where we were.

The girls were in bed and asleep by 8 and Lou and I enjoyed a wonderful meal and were both asleep before the ball dropped. I did wake up to the countdown, so I still got my midnight kiss. We are looking forward to a wonderful 2011 here at the Roselli house.

In Spanish it means...

(A little background since I have slacked on my posts...Kelsey has been to Puerto Rico with us 3 times in the past year. We talk about spanish words, and got her some spanish puzzle cards and obviously she watches Dora and Diego so that helps)

Kelsey was quietly drawing on the floor and it turns out she was practicing writing letters and words. When she brought the paper to show me I was very proud. She had spelled POP and TOP and then she had written OTO. I told her OTO was not a word, but that she had drawn the letters very well and how proud of her I was for her letters. That is when she looked me dead in the eye and said matter-of-factly  "Mommy OTO means cut in Spanish."

We catch her all the time "speaking" a different language. I think since she doesn't understand alot of spanish, when she hears people speak it she thinks they must just be making things up.

Letters to Santa...

Kelsey just recently told us what she wants from Santa. Last night she made a wish on a star for what she wanted..."I wish I may I wish I might have my wish tonight (she doesn't remember the whole thing)..I wish Santa would bring my a Ladybug Pillow Pet" SO we told her we needed to write a letter and put it n the mailbox to let Santa know. We told her it was magic and it would automatically go to Santa's mailbox. I had her sit in my lap and we wrote her letter. I let her do most of the letters, but helped on the harder ones. Her letter said:

Santa,

  I have been good. Please Bring me a pillow pet.

                            -Kelsey

We then gave it a kiss and put it in the mailbox.

After he was already in bed she asked if her letter had gone yet. We hurried downstairs and outside for her to check the mailbox. She was sooooooo excited when she opened up the mailbox and it was empty. "Mommy, my letter is gone. It went to Santa!"

Thanksgiving 2010

What a wonderful week...My brother Michael and his family came down, as well as my baby sister Kellie, and my sister Cindy and her family. All of the grandkids had a blast playing together, swimming, playing in the cul-d-sac, and going on the boat. I was brave and decided to help make some of the food for this year, mainly so Kelsey could have stuff to eat. As usual, Lou fried a turkey and I made gluten free/dairy free stuffing (seriously from scratch), cranberry compote, gluten free/dairy free mini pie crusts and filled them with pecan pie and a gluten free/dairy free no bake pumpkin pie mixture. Kelsey had been talking about pumpkin pie for weeks, so I knew I had to figure out a way to make it. I also made a pumpkin cheesecake for the rest of us to enjoy.

Eating her special pumpkin pie

I saw these cute jammies a month or 2 before and decided that we needed to take a picture of all the grandkids in them. I ironed on everyones name and put their birth order # on the back. After dinner we hid all of the kids in Aunt Kellie's room and got them changed to surprise Gma/Gpa McD. They were all so cute and had a blast. It's very hard to get 9 kids to do exactly what you want at the same exact time to take pics. We did the best we could.

Halloween Season 2010

While Lou was out of town I took the girls to the Fall Fest at the Methodist church. Kelsey did a bunch of crafts, they had free face painting, free popcorn, & free drinks. We waited in line for a while for the bounce house, but Kelsey got bored so we skipped out.

Lou found some templates of characters and let Kelsey pick what she wanted on the pumpkin. She chose Tinkerbell. For this we needed a tall pumpkin. With that in mind we went back to the Methodist church we go to every year to pick the perfect pumpkin.

We met up with friends in their neighborhood to trick or treat. But first we fed Kelsey and got the girls dressed. Well, one girl because Kayle wanted NOTHING to do with her peapod outfit. Kelsey was Tinkerbell. I bought green and purple toole and hot glued it to her crocs to make tinkerbell shoes. As we do every year we make sure to bring Kelsey by Ms Brenda & Mr. Lloyd's house. The always have a special treat that she can actually eat (they are such wonderful neighbors) As we were leaving our neighborhood (which is finally almost at full occupancy with no more foreclosures), we realized that next year we need to stay here. People were out in their driveways in chairs with tables and making an evening of it. Plus our neighborhood does a hayride as well.

We met up with friends, at Megan & Matt's, just as they were walking out the door. They really do have a great neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating. Kelsey had a lot of fun this year and Kaylee was a trooper. She was good at saying Trick or Treat and enjoyed getting candy, even though she knew she couldn't eat it. We played Trade-or-Treat and she got to trade all of her candy in for a special treat...we made gluten free/dairy free chocolate chip cookies. She did enjoy counting her candy and moving it from basket to basket.

The next day I was able to dress Kaylee in her costume. Kelsey wanted in on the fun as well.

Fall Crafts

 

We started by decorating the house for Fall (and Kelsey will tell you it's also called Autumn) We've painted pumpkins with both paint and glue and then glitter. We've made ghosts and spiders out of pumpkins. We painted masks. We searched the yard for different types of leaves and then painted and pressed them.We've also made pumpkin bread (gluten free of course) and cooked a pumpkin. Made and decorated gluten free sugar cookies with dairy free icing. Made pompom bats and owls (and we even made some for our neighbors) We've worked on the letter P and J (for pumpkin and Jack-o-lantern)

Sea World Reward Trip

Kelsey had a really good first month (5 weeks) on her potty chart. Her reward for earning at least 25 out of 35 stars was a trip to Sea World. So the weekend after the wedding we planned a trip up there. Lou met us at my sister's house when he got in from Puerto Rico and we drove to the hotel. Luckily with Lou's status we got upgraded for free to a suite!! We spent Sunday at Sea World and Lou took Kelsey in the pool as well. On Monday we drove to downtown Disney for a bit and walked around and let Kelsey play at the Lego area.

We got a free coupon to play the frog game.

In the stroller like a big girl

Lou & Kelsey climbing through a tunnel

Lou & Kelsy up above in the net structure...you can get lost in there

We didn't have a bumbo seat or a bouncy seat, so Lou used the suitcase to put Kaylee down in...so smart!