Ciccio Picolino~ that basically means Little Frankie in Italian.

At first I was going to write a post about all the crazy illnesses, the sleepless night or even the house problems, but I change my mind. If I don't want to hear about why would you? Instead I thought that I would give you a few random Francesco-isms. He cracks me up on a daily basis now and if I don't write them down I will forget.


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He got out a toy that originally had 4 balls to it, now it has 3, and asked me where the 4th one was. I told him I didn't know and could not find it. He proceeds to call out, "Ball, where are you?"
This is were it all starts, he will be another one of those husbands that can't find anything if it not right under his nose ( and then that still debatable).


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Now that he speaks, he never stops calling my name. I use to just say "yes" when he called me but he would continue to say "Mommy?", "Mommy?", "MOMMY?!". So I read an article that said they need you to let them know you are listening and that you are there for them. So I start answering, "Yes, Francesco?" or "I am here, what do you need Francesco?".
One day I sat next to him at breakfast and he started the Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY chant. In my morning fog all I said was "Yes?" He turns to me and say, "No, its...Yes Francesco". Here I thought he never listen to me.


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He loves to do puzzles and when he gets a hard piece in place we say "Good job Francesco." The other day he was doing a puzzle with Michael when Michael put a piece in it's place, Francesco proceeds to say to him, "Good job Daddy!" We cracked up.

Just the other morning we were doing puzzles and when we would finish one he would turn to me and say, "Give me a go five", then he would High Five me. Seriously you would have to be there, it was so stinking cute.



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He is a big Noggin fan and one of his current favorites is Ni Hao Ki-Lan. In the show they are always thinking about what happened any how they can fix a problem that has occurred. Now, when he accomplishes a task he belts out a resounding, "I did it, I did it, I knew just what to do!" The first time he did it I almost died, the words just came out so clear and he looked so proud of himself.



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We try all the time to teach good manners. When some one says "Hi" to him in the hall on the way to daycare I remind him to say "Good Morning", if another family holds the door for us we say "Thank You", if you burp you say "Excuse Me", etc. I am never sure if he really listens and learns or is he just a little parrot repeating the words. Just this morning as Michael and I were getting ready for work we brought him in our room to watch Noggin. Michael was in front of the TV and Francesco proceed to say (totally unprovoked) "Excuuussse meeee!" with just a bit of attitude. I almost fell over.



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It's amazing to think that at one point I thought he was delayed in his speech and that he may never talk. Boy was I wrong (lol)!

Theme Thursday: Restful

I really did not think that I would be able to get a shot for this Thursday's Theme, restful is not a common occurrences around these parts lately. Let's just say, when my boys are teenagers and want to sleep all the time I will be reminding them often of the amount of sleep they have deprived me of (I am not kidding!) We go from one not sleeping through the night, to both not sleeping through the night.

So last night I was fortunate that they both were asleep at the same time for a few hours, I did mange to click off a few pictures. This is the best one, lets just say it was dark, I did not use the flash and the ISO was so high the noise was loud. I processed it quite a bit and this was my best rendition.


Shutter 1/4 sec.
F-Stop f/1.8
ISO 1600
Focal Length 50 mm
Flash - None

Just looking at this picture make me tired. Head on over to The Land of K. A. for more Theme Thursday: Restful.

Wordless Wednesday

Just in on the fun over at Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes For Mom.


We call this Freggie Soup. Its a lovely mixture of wooden fruits and vegetables.

Best Shot Monday: First Shoes

My baby got his first pair of walking shoes on Saturday. We took him to a place called Lou's Bootery, its a small family owned shoe store. It's a tradition in our family for Mom-mom to get the kid's first pair of shoes and to always go to the bootery. I think we had just as much fun as the gentlemen that worked there.







For more Best Shot Monday photos head on over to Tracy's at Mother May I.

Theme Thursday: Laughter

While stuck in the house during the snow storm we tried to keep two small energetic kids occupied. We moved from trains, to coloring, to cars, to puzzles, etc.
One activity that they both loved was setting up and knocking down the dominoes. Francesco was really good at getting them set up and Nicolo was amazing at knocking them down (LOL). They both cracked up every time the dominoes fell, so we did it over and over and over again.









Isn't it amazing how the little things in life can bring out the laughter. Head on over to The Land of K. A. for more Theme Thursday: Laughter.

A little bit of process.

I really love taking pictures and learning new ways to process them. I am partial to black and white photos but at times it feels so flat. I have played around with "Color Variation" but I never seem to get the feel I am looking for. So when I saw Stacy's Photos of the kids in the snow I asked what she did. I love learning something new. It was really simple (which tend to be the best tips) and I got the look I was going for.

Here is the photo in color:


Here it is in plain B&W:


Here is my favorite: this is with an adjustment layer of a B&W gradient map and then and adjustment layer of Hue/Saturation, like I said simple but effective.


Thanks for the tip Stacy!

Best Shot Monday: unexpected

This is one of those shots that SOOC was really off but with a little playing around in Camera Raw and a little antiquing turn out to be one of my favorite from the bunch. I always love the unexpected Best Shot.