I've discovered a new type of exercise...

I just did an amazing workout.... you'll never guess.... it was a little of weight training and a little cardiovascular.... Emily and I went to the playground! Its sunny and warm here!! I lugged her all over that place, walking her here and there... pushing on this...etc. She went down the slide AT LEAST 30 times.... so that is lifting 25-28lbs over my head. Then she found a little friend named Jacob who was really friendly to her. He went through this tube thing so that he could go down the big slide. Well guess what? Emily followed him, which meant I followed them. Half way through Emily decides she doesnt really want to go the rest of the way, and somehow jams us inside for a few minutes. Luckily, we got out. :-) So then we stopped to wash daddy's muddy, salt-covered car. I discovered after I had all the soap on the car, that Emily was screaming bloody murder... apparently not a fan of the high-power water wash. After I finished some 4 minutes and a million quarters later, I got back in the car and soothed her. Her eyes were puffy the poor thing. She fell asleep on the way home (with no lunch) so she will skip lunch today I guess, seeing that it is 3pm now. She did have a cheese stick. She hasnt eaten much today so she should eat a lot tonight. Ever see Gerbers serving suggestions? Its a joke... my kid eats what they suggest for a days worth of food by 4pm. Oh, and incase you are wondering...still not walking. Talking lots and lots. But thats it. And while it would be convienant sometimes to have her walking, I personally am thinking this is a blessing. I need to veg out til she wakes up. So if you need a real great work-out, come borrow my kid and take her to the playground for an hour.

Website

We have a VERY basic website. I am trying out new "free" things and here is a quicky that I had found. It is www.costanzos.bravehost.com Hope you enjoy. Emily went to play group yesterday and then to Gymboree (I had an interview there to teach some classes part time). She played really hard and really loved it! Too bad its too expensive to send her there. We started doing our taxes..what a nightmare. Why cant the Gov. just bill us how much we owe each year and they do all the computing! Well, I guess if they did it...we would be paying much much more. Off to work...its an ER night....my favorite show! Today should be a good night

Emily's New Do

Emily's got a new hair-do that I love. You are really going to think she is adorable now! WOW she is really getting big. I just realized how fun it will be to play with her gorgeous hair!

LETS READ MOMMY

<----Downward facing dog! hehehe Do we have a great kiddo or WHAT! Emily loves to read. I thought I would share some pictures of her setting around with her books. The outfit she has on came in a huge care package from my friends in NC - (they supplied Emily with her winter clothing). Emily doesn't realize that Elmo is on this shirt, otherwise I wouldn't be able to wear it on her. Every time she sees an Elmo she kisses and hugs it.

January 17th - My birthday

Last year my birthday was uneventful, except that Emily (just 2 mo old) had threw up, booped, and peed on me all in the first 15 minutes of the day. This year... only slightly different. The cats threw up 4 times (on the carpet of course), Emily and I are both very sick and feel like crap, and I had to dig threw the garbage to find our W2s which we had already received and promptly (like idiots) threw away. Canio and I normally go to Coopers for dinner and although we had plans to do the same thing after I got off work--- I never made it to work and did not feel like going out. Instead, Canio stopped on his way home and got Smokey Bones (its a southern bbq place that I really like especially when I am missing the south). And for the first time since we have been together, he brought home a birthday cake for me!! I was really surprised. Our neighbor, Dorie came over for a slice of cake and that wrapped up my day. Oh, Emily and I did finger paint for the first time. SHE LOVED IT. I will post something in the next few weeks called Emily's Art Gallery. Check back there to see pictures of her artwork.

Phildelphia Zoo

Our Trip to the Philadelphia Zoo - Friday the 13th

Our trip didn't start off great....the weather wasn't 60 as forecasted, but rather foggy and 50. And Emily was starting to get sick (as you can see by her booger breakdown)

Things got better when we got to the children's zoo area. She enjoyed meeting and petting this very friendly goat. I think Daddy was more afraid of it than Emily.

Emily was taking a break, eating a ritz cracker when a peacock came walking by... This was a split second before the peacock snatched Emily's cracker from her hand and swallowed it whole!!! We had never seen a peacock quite so close before.... Unlike most kids who would scream that a strange bird had just taken their cracker... Emily (and mommy) just said.."All done." For Emily flipping her hands and making that gester with the word done (doooh) means she is either done eating or she has eaten everything there is to eat. Overall, we had a great trip to the zoo. Emily ate chicken fingers from the zoo (first time I think) and for the first time she actually noticed the animals and had fun looking at them and seeing the things they do. She slept the entire way down and most of the way back. Despite the weather-forecasting flop, we had a LOT of fun. Emily decided to walk around most of the zoo holding both of our hands. Still not walking though, but she will get there soon enough.

Playground

It was a nice warm day today (51 to be exact). So Emily and I packed up and headed to our favorite playground... Her favorite thing used to be the swings, but now she has changed her mind. she likes to go down the slide now. I set her at the top and then assume the catching position. She scoots her butt down when I tell her OK. This is great! She used to be afraid to even go down with Canio or I. However, she isnt getting any lighter, so after about 15 trips down the slide my arms felt like they were going to fall off. It was such a nice day that we later went to the store to pick up some odds and ends. No matter where we go, people stop me to tell me what a beautiful baby she is. Well of course! Look at her mommy and daddy! haha, just kidding. Current list of words that Emily says: Mom Dadda Cat Book Bahooh (aka Balloon) Sock shoo (aka shoe) Ohhh uck (aka duck) Star Fluff (dont ask...we have no idea why she says this) Ball Og (aka Dog) Baba and today she added Car as we got in the car. She also has down the shaking of yes and no. And she recognizes many more pictures (ie when we say...Emily wheres the____) Well off to make stir fry--- our favorite meal lately and clean up the pile of books she left in her wake. Great! While I was writing this Emily got quiet which means she was up to no good.... and yes... she was pulling out all the wipes from a newly filled wipe container. UGH

Pictures Pictures Pictures

Emily is going to help me install the pet door

"Now mom, it looks like you need to use this tool here"

Emily closes her eyes to pick out which book she will read next.

Hmmm, Miffy sounds good...lets read it!

This is her vogue pose! Isn't she a beauty~

Emily on Christmas Eve playing with our Mark, our neighbor's oldest son - Can you tell Emily LOVES him?

SLURP SLURP--- STRAW NEWS

BEEP DA BEEP BEEP DA BEEP BEEEP

Well folks...she FINALLY did it.

We had to go to Wal-Mart tonight... yes gone are the Saturday nights when we would go to a game, see a movie, or go to a friends house... now we are truly loosers whose entertainment for the weekend is walking around Wal-Mart. It never ceases to amaze me that somehow I aways run into the girl with dyed hair whose black roots are 3 inches down on her yellow/red blonde hair, wearing jeans 2 sizes too small from the 1980s with her ever so attractive "racin' Nascar" t-shirt that shows her buldges all too well. Or that I get in the line that seems to be paused.....as I stand there forever. We also saw Doris, who was one of 2 prenatal teachers we had from Geisinger. She was so nice and still is. She said Emily is beautiful. She then said it was time for another...and Canio and I sighed in unison... uhhhh. ANYWAYS... I was going to make stir-fry for dinner since it is the only thing Emily DEVOURS, but since it was getting late, we opted for Cracker Barrel (thought...is it Barrell or Barrel??). We have tried to explain to Emily how to suck on a straw for about 2 months, but she didnt get it. She would just bite it and play with it (thus the reason we have started to swipe any extra straws we can find so we have an "emergency" toy if needed). Anyways, I put some lemonade in the straw and put it in her mouth and released it. She LOVED this stuff. So I put the straw back in the cup and put it to her mouth when she said "cup" I put the straw in her mouth. And oh my goodness... she INSTANTLY knew what to do. How amazing is that. I was all excited. She also tried lemon today (since most of her play friends have already discovered that for some weird reason kids like lemons bitter, bitter lemons. Emily's cousin, Grace, who is exactly 6 mo younger seems to have some kinda lemon/pickle fetish going. And like all the other babies....she loved it. But the faces are priceless. I guess its just really cool for Canio and I to see Emily learning. She also said “Book” today! YEAHHHHHH FOR EMILY WHO FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE A STRAW!! WHOO HOOO

In the Beginning

Welcome Welcome everyone. First let me introduce ourselves for those who may not yet know our family well. I am Char, about to turn 29 ...and will stop celebrating birthdays after this one. I am married to Canio (said like Connie-O) who is 34. And we have one ADORABLE little girl who is almost 14 months old, Emily. We live in a small town, Swoyersville, PA. And other than the weather and some crabby people in the NE, we love our neighborhood. Canio is in advertising sales for a local PBS station. His new job is going very good and he likes it much better than his previous station. His co-workers are great and we really feel like we made a good decision when he switched jobs. I am working at the Osterhout free library part time and for the most part like it as well. Emily is busy learning to walk. She still will not let go of our hands, but now we are working on her just holding onto ONE hand in hopes of encouraging her to let go soon. Her vocabulary is growing very quickly. She can now mimic a lot of what we say as well. She says cat, mom, dadad, ball, cup, fluff (yeah...we have NO clue why she says this), and duck. She tries to say balloon. She loves reading and pointing out several of the pictures when we ask her things like... "Where's the apple?" We are still battling sleep problems, but for 3 nights she has slept through the night, even though she hasnt fallen asleep until 10:30. Her laugh is absolutely contagious.

We will be posting more pictures of her so keep checking back. We will try to update this by every Sunday.

NEW YEARS We had a nice New Years - we made a ham and our neighbor came over for dinner. Then we played some board games and finished off the night with a movie and watching the ball drop in NYC. It was both triumphant and sad to see Dick Clark back. What a story of recovery for this iconic personality to make it back regardless of any lingering affects, but also so sad to see a man who no one thought would ever get old, struggle to say simple words. But hats off to him. We had to fix our car, get new tires, fix a toilet, and buy a new computer because our old one crashed all within 2 days. But when you hear about the terrible miners in WVA you realize what a blessing it is to have these small insignificant problems.

CHRISTMAS We had a nice Christmas. Emily got a lot of great gifts. Her favorites are a Shout Elmo from Santa, a singing frog from our neighbor, stacking cups from Santa, and a little people/leggo farm that makes animal noises from Mommy and Daddy. Canio's big gift-- XM Radio is all he can talk about. Look out world. He has a new toy! I started researching the Costanzo family line and made a pretty interesting gift for Canio's dad. I have gotten back to Canio's Great-Grandfather in just about 2 weeks worth of work (thanks to my sister Jen who is a geneology guru). If you're interested in that sort of stuff, let me recommend http://www.rootsweb.com or a pay site http://www.ancestory.com. The picture below is a 4 generation photo taken on Christmas eve. It is my little girl, Canio, his dad (Phil) and his mother Verna (aka Baba).