Enjoying the Weather

It has been an awesome year so far in the Sonoran Desert. Every day has been 70 degrees and perfect carbon copies of each other.

We put in fake grass in the backyard and we are loving it. The girls enjoy it and of course Matty wanted a putting green so a small portion of the grass is just that complete with a couple of holes. Sometimes we just lay around outside enjoying each other's company. In fact Savannah and her friend Kathy, her Best Woman from our wedding who was in town, laid on the grass literally shooting the breeze for 2 hours.

We also celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 6th. We can't believe it has been so long. We went to Dominick's Steakhouse in the Scottsdale Quarter for the occasion. It was great and we really enjoyed an adult night out.

After dinner we walked to Eddie V's for dessert which is another nice restaurant in the Quarter. They are known for their bananas foster which is legendary. It is not like traditional bananas foster since it has a soft cake like base but it is glorious and we scooped up every last bite.

You will also see pictures below of a visit to our community park, and to the train park. We were lucky and got to the train park early to beat the crowds. It was a great time.

For the development of the girls, Ellie is now walking all over the place and she now prefers to walk (as opposed to crawling). It is now VERY rare to see her crawling at all. She still takes her tumbles but she is getting better every day. She is still very cheerful and her smile is championship level. She is also much more cuddly than Hayden was at this age as she will walk up to you and give you a big hug with no prompting.

Hayden still thinks she owns the world and she is as sharp as a whip. Her mind blows us away at times and now we need to be on our game. In fact, if we have told her something to do or not do, then we break that rule at any point in the next 6 months, she will call us out on it.

Recently we were flipping around the channels on TV and we stopped on The Sound of Music for about 3 seconds before flipping again. She yelled out, "Daddy, I saw Mary Poppins! Go back!" We were bown away as she saw Julie Andrews, in a different movie with a different hair color, but made the connection.

So we are enjoying our family life and watching both girls grow. Perhaps the best part is that they both love each other. Hayden frequently invites Ellie into her room to play and Ellie loves doing anything Hayden is doing. She even calls out for Hayden, though it is indiscernible to the untrained ear: "Tay-Duh". It sounds somewhat like "Dada" but slightly different. Thanks for reading and for the comments. Enjoy the photos.

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Big Girl Carseat!!

Anabelle finally gets to look out the front window!! Yay!!

Jaws

So one of our daughters is now a biter. Yes, she bit a kid at school...multiple times. Now think about our girls for a moment. Go ahead. Close your eyes and think of them.

There's Hayden: dramatic, emotional, type A, thinks she owns the world (nay, thinks the world was made for her).

There's Ellie: docile, chill, easy going, smiles and laughs at everything.

Which one is the class Pac-Woman now? You guessed it, Ellie.

Yes, Ellie Bear is living up to her 'Bear' nickname as she bit the same kid 3 times and got kicked out of school earlier this week. Yes, 1 year olds apparently can get kicked out of school. And when I (Matt) picked her up after said kicking out, I asked the school administrators about how to coach against this behavior and their answer: you can't. So she got kicked out for something that we can't even tell her not to do since she won't understand us. Hmmm.

Anyway, for those of you who have not seen Ellie in a while, she has changed a lot. You might remember the girl with the big, open mouth smile and the cute dimples. The one who could be sitting on a toy for an entire car road trip and not utter a peep.

Well now she is ferocious. She attacks quickly and strikes her prey before they know it - "look at the fangs!"

To give you an update, I have posted a picture. Now for those of you who are squeamish, please turn away. Make sure the kids are not around because in the picture in the link below, you will not recognize her. The bloodthirsty, ravenous beast has overtaken her. It is clear she deals with a dark heart.

So again, WARNING - do not click the link below unless you are sitting down and prepared for the shock. This is what she is now, and this is the last thing that poor little kid saw before his doom:

Scary Ellie Picture

I warned you! Don't blame me.

Happy 1st Birthday, Ellie!

Happy birthday to our Little Miss Sunshine. We have never seen a baby who smiles as much as this one and whenever any of us are down, she instantly brightens up our day. It has been an interesting year with Ellie in our family and she fits in perfectly.

Spring Break '11

In March, Vin, Sheila, Vincent, and Stella Lecce came down to visit from Rochester. They were greeted with amazing weather for the entire weekend and we all had a blast.

On Friday, the guys played golf and the ladies went to get their nails done. Vincent and Hayden even spent some time out by the pool and shook their booties a bit.



After the guys got home from golf and the girls went out to the nail spa, the kids woke up and wanted to go outside. So we went out back and Hayden and Vincent wanted to put their feet in the pool. It was pretty cold, but our feet got used to the temperature after a little while.



Then that night we all went to El Encanto Mexican restaurant in Cave Creek which is a great small artsy, touristy town about 15 minutes north of us. The food is great but the coolest part about the restaurant is that they have a duck pond in the middle of the restaurant. We had to wait a little for our table so the kids fed the ducks and loved it. We were even treated to a couple of songs by a great Mariachi at the end of our meal. He took a liking to our youngsters and the feeling was mutual.



On Saturday morning we ate a feast of a breakfast which included, scrambled eggs, potato pancakes, bacon, toast, and belgian waffles with blueberries and whip cream. YUM!

Then we packed up the kids and went to the Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale. This is one of the coolest parks in the city as it is train themed. There are huge decommissioned engines, rail cars, and cabooses all over the place. Plus, they have a brand new model train building that has all different sizes of model trains. Vincent and Hayden really loved it (and so did Matty and Vinny, their inner boy may have come out).

Also in the park they have a little train that goes all around the park on which park guests can ride. We went on the train and the kiddos loved that too.



Hayden and Vincent also went on the Merry Go Round and played in the giant playground as well.

After the park we went to In and Out Burger, which Vinny loves and must get every time he comes west. However, after tasting a Double/Double Animal Style one more time, he proclaimed that Five Guys Burgers was now at the top of his best burger list. Matty agreed and it was settled for the world.

When we returned home, the kids played around before going to bed. It was good to see Hayden and Vincent get some quality time together as they did everything together from throw balls back and forth, to pushing each other in the wagon. They were great at sharing and taking turns, amazingly enough.

Stella and Ellie also played together. Stella is 3 months older and much more advanced physically, but she took a liking to Ellie. She expressed her love this way:



That night we had more guests join us as Afton and Ashley came over and our good friends Heather and Fermin Moreno were in town from Seattle. We then had another feast for dinner: a blue cheese lettuce wedge salad with crumbled egg and bacon bits was the first course, then the main course was chicken marsala and vodka penne with sausage. Savannah was smart enough to suggest dinner at 8pm so that the kids would be in bed and we could peacefully enjoy it. It was great. For dessert we had silcilian sundaes: freshly baked chocolate chip cookies topped with ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. Sensational.

After dessert we played some games and it was a magical evening with great people. We are happy to share those kinds of nights with the ones we love.

The next day was Sunday - the day of the baseball game. We were on our way to Salt River Fields at Talking Stick - the new Spring home of the Colorado Rockies.

It was a gorgeous day for baseball and we were going to see Ubaldo Jimenez, one of the best pitchers in baseball, pitch. It was a fun day as we had pizza, garlic knots, and ice cream at the stadium. Matty and Hayden were even selected as fans of the game and were on the Jumbotron! (We narrowly beat out Vinny and Vincent, most likely because Vincent was wearing Yankees gear and Hayden had a Rockies shirt on)

The Rockies won, and after the game, the little tykes decided to start their own journey to the majors by running the bases, on the little kid field of course:



It was another great day to keep our string going. That night, Hayden and Vincent decided to have a dance party to Vincent's favorite song, Dirty Bit by the Black Eyed Peas:



The next day the Lecce family packed up and went back east. What an amazing time and what memories. Enjoy the videos above and the photos below.

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6 Months, Half a Dozen the Other

Anabelle turned six months old today and it goes without saying that the last six months have flown by. It's been so much fun watching her grow and transform from a newborn into a baby.

She has such an amazing personality. She is a very relaxed and easy going baby. Don't get me wrong, when she's hungry she's knows how to scream, but otherwise she's just happy to go with the flow. She sleeps really well at night and also goes down really well each night. She smiles all the time and has also begun doing little half laughs. She especially loves to smile and laugh when Hayden plays on the floor with her.

She is a champ at rolling from her belly to her back but has yet to roll from her back to her belly. She pushes herself up on her arms really well and gets her little legs kicking but we have a feeling it might be a little while before she's interested in crawling. As soon as we set her down on her belly she rolls onto her back. Later this week we will start her on rice cereal. We can't wait to start taking pictures of her with food all over her face!

She still loves to be swaddled at night and looks like a little caterpiller in a cacoon. When we wake her up in the morning and unswaddle her she does a full body stretch. It's adorable. Her personality is starting to come out a little more every day and we're so happy she's a part of our family. We have so much fun watching our little girls grow and learn.

Here are some pictures from the past few months. Enjoy!

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Ellie's First Two Months