Happy 5th Birthday, Luciano!

Lots of exciting things happen when you turn five at the Tonelli home - you get to see Star Wars for the first time, chew gum, and have your first birthday party with your friends. (Can you find Luciano in the invitation picture?)

WOW - what a ride! I must say that throwing a star wars birthday party for 16 boys around the age of five was extremely exciting! (I think they all had fun, too.) We started low speed with a pin the blast sticker on the death star game. After that, we "cleared the meteor field," which was our solution to a pinata gone south when Luciano discovered the actual pinata we were making the tuesday before and cracked it into a million pieces. So, we took all the stuff that went into the pinata and stuffed it all into foil meteor balls hidden around the room. After clearing the meteors, we hunted for the goody bag with our names on them. We took a quick sugar break and then sang happy birthday and Luciano made a wish and blew out the candles. I thought they would all eat cake while Luciano openned presents, but he invited them all to 'help'. And they did! After the presents, serious Jedi training commenced everyone received their light saber and we practiced using the force to find our balloon targets and then spent some time sparring. All the action came to a pause as the 16 Jedis in training went to the station window to watch the train go by... Then... nothing makes us faster than a game of musical chairs - which we played in the musical sardines fashion. Chairs go away, but the players stay. It was fun!

Fun with Daddy

Daddy and Marisa posed for me in their Sunday best. We all had such a good time laughing.

Baby is well

Marisa went for her 6 month well-baby check today. She is in the 98th percentile for weight and off the charts for height. Very tall very chubby girl. (Just the way we like them.) She is now 18 pounds and 12 ounces.

Special Delivery!

Anyone seeing a trend?

Bibby Baby

Papa Steve and Grammy Lil' sent these bibby overalls when Luciano was born. I wish I could up load my pictures of all three kids in them. Have to find a working scanner... Anywho, here she is - Marisa doodle dandy - blowing bubbles (her favorite thing to do) in her bibbies. Isn't she cute?

P.S. She went for her 4 month well baby check yesterday - 15 pounds, 3 ounces. She measured in the 91st percentile height and weight. Little Chubbamuffin.

Beach Boys

The Tonelli boys saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time June 15, 2009. It was such a beautiful day and you can see that the beach was practically empty. We went to Jenkinson's beach on the Jersey shore which also has a fun boardwalk with carnival games, candy stores, an arcade and restaurants. Paolo built sand mountains, and Luciano romped in the surf. Paolo wasn't too keen on getting wet, but he let his dad carry him down the shore line. The boys also played games on the boardwalk and won some cute little carnival prizes. Luciano said, "Dad, when I turn 9, can you buy us a house at the beach so we can live here all the time?" I couldn't agree more. Do we have to wait until he's 9?
Marisa had fun hanging out, too.

Today Mark was filming Marisa as she was speaking. I don't know if it's funnier to see how she phased out at the end like a little wind up toy that had run out of spring action or to hear the stuff going on in the background. Luciano qued up "Flight of the Bumble Bee" on our piano keyboard while he and Paolo were running around completely nutty in the living room. You, of course, only get to hear it, but you can imagine the total chaos that is our daily existence.

Trimming the Lawn

At West Point, the privatized housing company, Balfour Beatty, comes to mow all of the lawns that don't have fences. We, of course, have a fence which we accepted from the previous tenants.

We thought we were being nice not to make the retirement eligibles have to remove it on their way out. Plus, we had a small child at the time with thoughts of more small children - maybe a lot of them. A fence is good when you have small children, isn't it? We thought so!

When Balfour Beatty took over, the somewhat angry Department of Public Works and Housing took back their community lawn mower. So, now we have a fenced, unmowed lawn, and no access to the lawn mower we previously used to mow it. With that option out, I tried to slip the guys with the weed eaters a 20 spot to come spend thirty seconds trimming our yard. It wouldn't even take that long it's so small - but, alas, they yelled something about liability over the noise of the machines and moved on.

So - here we are as a family all cutting the lawn. It's not exactly even or weeded, but the boys sure had a good time. As an aside, Balfour Beaty is giving out a yard of the month prize based on appearance and "effort." I'm not sure about appearance, but I think we should win based on effort alone.

Babble Princess

Marisa Speaks! We caught her on video mimmicking wonderful stuff

like "hi" and "I love you."

She's so smart!

Luciano's Stage Debut - May 3, 2009

The Pirates took to the stage on May 3, to dazzle us with their swords and dance moves. Here is a video of the dress rehearsal (cameras were not allowed on actual performance night. - they told us flashes would distract the dancers - right.) The only thing that's really missing here is the stage decorations from the following recital day.

Luciano seemed to be right at home on the stage and impressively attentive to the instructor. Some of the other boys, as you may notice, are not quite as attentive, but cute as all get out just the same. We had such a great time watching them, and most importantly, I think Luciano had a fun time performing. Special thanks to Brenda Sparrow for taking this video!