A nice day with the ladies!

Today Steve planned a nice lunch for me today to celebrate the arrival of #5. Man it'll be nice to stop saying #5 I could just use his name and tell you but with only 3 more days to go why ruin it.
It was a really nice lunch at La Tavola in Sayville. Steve found this place a few months ago and we just love it there. The food is all delicious! Knowing Steve's love for food I knew the menu would be great and non-stop. It was all perfect from the first appetizer to the dessert!

It's times like this when I am not taking pictures that I wish I had a personal photographer to bring with me. Instead I am pleased to share pictures Samantha took.

Here we have Sophia and Bella - Sam obviously has them saying something to the camera - your guess is as good as mine.



Sophia just assumes this is all for her seeing how it's "HER" baby that's coming. So she opened and read the cards:



then she opened the gift:



she then handed me the gift to hold while she started in on the next gift:



Oh here she let me hold the gift since she couldn't figure out how to open it. Look its a onesie/sock bouquet from Veronica - isn't it the cutest thing!!!


Well that's really all I have. The baby received lots of beautiful gifts. I forgot how much fun it was dressing a boy. Overalls - are so cute!! I can't believe he is gonna be here in just a few days now!!! Steve installed the car seat yesterday without much effort. I think this is the first car seat in all these years that went in without Steve losing his mind. Really it was installed in under like 5 min. YES IT'S INSTALLED PROPERLY. When we got into the car today with the kids they saw the car seat and thought we were going to the hospital to have the baby. At the lunch the kids bought the baby an exersaucer and there was a picture of a baby on the box and for about 10 min. Sophia was convinced the baby was in the box and demanded we open it and let the baby out...lol

Steve - Thank you for a wonderful day it really was perfect! I love you !

It all started with too much time on our hands

September 2001 - Steve took me to the Oakdale Arboretum. Neither of us had ever been. I think it was on our list of places to take pictures during our wedding but we never made it here. We had a really nice time - little did I know then that he was killing time before my baby shower he threw for me later that same day when I was pregnant with Samantha. Anyway, if you ask him about any of his favorites pictures of me he says this one. Really?!?! I think it's a horrible picture and I could think of 1000 others but he says that it's not just the picture but the reminder of that day and how nice it was for us. I know he's a real sweetheart :) He keeps it in his office.

So I recently thought of recreating it. I asked my sister-in-law Lori to come and take pictures of me and the kids and to help me with recreating this picture.

So this is the original one 8 yrs ago - ughhh



August 2009 - 8 yrs and almost 5 kids later and lots of pure craziness here we - well really just me - now. I am in the same area just 1 aisle of Dahlia's up because the row I stood in in the first picture had too many dead flowers in it...lol




Bella and Samantha taking the pose - Sophia said no




I wanted some shots with me and the kids - it turned out to be way to hot and we were getting eaten alive from the bugs. The kids were troopers and did their best.








I can only imagine what she is telling Aunt Lori in this picture....



A year later we went back and had Samantha with us. She was just standing and I have a picture of her standing next to this bird bath - so we made her stand there now. If I get the original scanned in I'll add it later:


Then we have Sam playing in the bird bath many yrs ago - so Lori made Sophia do it this time around:




OK so remember the movie The Family Stone....the one with Sarah Jessica Parker??? Great movie - go rent it if you haven't seen it. At the end Sarah has framed a picture of the mother in the movie when she was pregnant and she gives them to the adult children. It was really sweet but I always loved the concept of the picture. I don't have a lot of pictures of me through my pregnancies so I wanted to make sure to take something similar to the picture in the movie this time. If the kids look at the picture and remember they will be able to figure out who I am pregnant with because of the background or they can just pretend it is any one of them. We tried a few different poses but these 2 were the keepers and the last one has already been enlarged and framed and is awaiting a spot on a wall somewhere in the house.



Lori - Thanks for taking the pictures and for the alterations you did to this one - I really like it the best and had it printed exactly how you sent it!




I had them framed and gave them to Steve for his office. He loved them!

Weekend filled with family, friends food and fun!

Well if anything would have put me into labor it would have been this past weekend but here I sit on Monday morning.......still pregnant :)

(I know this is Wed. but I have been trying to post this since Mon. and the blog site has been having issues)

We started with Saturday and a back to school pool party for the shortman. He invited all his friends over and had a blast. It was nice to get to see all the kids and get to know the parents better than we did. It was a great party - problem is I took NO pictures. I know I can't believe it either but it was HOT and we rarely left the pool. Pictures were taken from other Mom's and I am sure they will find their way to me soon.

After Steven's party we packed up and headed over to my sister-in-laws for my nieces birthday party. Another great time was had. For this I have pictures :)



Sophia getting a push.....



The boys being wild on the slide - Frank jumping - I am thinking he is too big for this now


Here comes Vincent:


Steven who is 30 lbs wet gets a little too much bounce:


A massive water balloon fight broke out:



Uncle Frankie was attacked from all angles and so he cheated using the pail and filled it with water to dump on the kids:


Being the good Uncle he is he gave Sophia a little help with soaking him



Sam tried a sneak attack but got caught and then thrown into the pool



Group shot of all the cousins - hey you try and get 11 kids to all look at the camera at once




Sunday we had the 3rd BBQ for the weekend and I have only 2 pictures. Bella mastering the cannonball and Sam getting thrown into space - you know Steve was hurting the next day for that stunt

Babe you should be so proud !

Well we are coming to end of this pregnancy. I had an ultrasound today to check on the little guy. He is measuring at 6lbs 4ozs. The Dr. thinks he could be over 7lbs. Well I haven't had a 7lb-der since Samantha and she was a little chunky monkey. Anyway since I didn't confirm with the US tech that this was actually a boy and Steve never got a picture I made sure to get one today:

Well he is 100% BOY - we have a penis :)

More Vermont 2009

You have got to love technology. I mean how how else is that I can update my blog while still on vacation. *** PLEASE NOTE IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE PICTURE LARGER JUST CLICK ON IT - STEVE ***

Ok so the other day Steve took Sam and Steven to the waterfall and the kids loved it. When they came back they told Sophia and Bella all about it and Sophia made it very clear that she wanted to go. So Steve rounded up the group and headed out. The short man is leading the way through the stream. Oh and I need to tell you it was ice cold - numbing cold. That is being dictated to me as I type this.

***PLEASE NOTE FOR THE FOLLOWING 5 PHOTO'S ALL FILM CREDIT GOES TO MY FATHER-IN-LAW FRANK L. PEPE. Don't bother asking him to take any pictures for you cause you'll never be given them - I had to steal these from his camera. Sure he takes a good picture but it would be nicer if HE SHARED IT AFTER WARDS.



Such troopers!


They found a salamander and the kids just thought it was the greatest thing! When Sophia came back she was equally excited about seeing the waterfall and holding the buggy.



No I didn't go - but luckily Tara was here and she knew nothing of what she was getting herself into but volunteered anyway. I am assuming this is before she felt the blisters forming on her feet but she is the one that is reminding me of the cold so she didn't feel her feet anyway


Here's Tara taking the girls on a nice little row boat ride:


for her reward Steven dragged her around the lake in his tube:


OK so this started with Sam taking the row boat out for a spin. When she unhooked the row boat she accidentally unhooked the paddle boat - stay with me on this - so she is out rowing around and I see the paddle boat drift off down the lake. I call Sam in and explain what happened. I tell her to go rescue the paddle boat. So she goes and gets the paddle boat and hooks it to the row boat and tows it in. She is going against the current so she got a workout. While this is going on the shortman is screwing around on the boat raft and that gets un-hooked. So now Sam has re-hooked the paddle boat and she comes up with this idea to help Steven and have some fun at the same time. So she gets to him and hooks the raft to the row boat and takes him out to the middle of the lake - yes that's him dancing on the raft:


Steve had a long day today with work but in between calls he looks out and catches the scene. He comes out thinking the kids need rescuing and I explain they are messing around. I am cracking up at their predicament while he takes the jet-ski out to investigate.


By the time he gets to them Steven had pulled the raft to the row boat and switched spots with Sam. They are just cracking up at themselves:


OK it's like a right of passage for the kids when they get old enough to go to the yellow dock. It is about 35 feet or so out. The kids spend a lot of the day at the big yellow dock! Well Sophia for 2 days now says she is going to the yellow dock. She says "I kick my feet to the wellow dock" Well she screws around goes a few feet and turns around after I tell her she has gone to far. She gets so mad.


Finally recruited Tara to take her - have I said thank god for Tara! So off they go and don't gimme crap about no life jacket - she was fine!


She gets there and is sooo excited!


YEAH!!! I did it I did it!


Then after finally getting there and watching the kids jump right off all week Sophia figures she can just jump right off. Good thing Tara was on her toes or rather at least ready to catch:


We visited one of the local fairs - which is like a given on vacation here. Sophia and Bella were very excited for the rides:


Sophia kept wanting to go on the teddybear ride luckily her sisters didn't mind. Steven isn't in this because he is gambling with his Daddy. We had gone to another fair a few days earlier and Steve got Steven hooked on this quarters game. You pick a color to put the quarter on and the guy rolls a ball. If it lands on the color you win the odds that the color has listed. Well the kid made a killing and left with 2 pockets filled with quarters. So when we got to this fair he made it clear that he was headed right for the games and would only be playing the games that he would win money at. Needless to say the kid was up at the nights end:


The kids had been playing on here and Sam called me to get a picture:


We had a nice dinner out. Steve promised Tara's Mom Jean a nice dinner out for repaying her for watching the kids for us a few weekends ago. Here the kids are right before we leave - can you tell how excited they are. I will brag for a moment though to tell you we received some nice compliments from another guest at the restaurant and how well behaved the kids were. It was a nice evening out:



Steven was doing something to Bella's hair and I am pulling his ear to get him to cut it out:




OK now we are all looking - again notice how excited the kids are:




Now they take a picture with Tara and look at their excitement. Such stinkers they are!



I made sure to get lots of picture of Tara with the kids this year. It has been brought to my attention that we got none while in the Bahamas last year so hopefully this makes up for it - minus the sandy beaches.