Potty Prize

Andrew earned $4 worth of stars on his potty chart and he got this Scooby Doo puzzle as his prize!! Maybe NOW I can coerce him.........we shall see!!!

Bella Befana Bazaar

Today we went to a bazaar on base and Andrew got a motorcycle balloon and a hand-crafted wooden train from an Italian dealer. There weren't any rides like we thought, but we enjoyed walking around and looking at all the stuff they had from different Italian vendors. There was a lot Adam and I wanted, but most of it was VERY EXPENSIVE, for example $2500 paintings and $50 for a chunk of cheese!!! We should have won the lottery before being stationed here!!!! But we had fun window shopping anyway!!!!

Reaching

Riley has started to notice things that interest him...AND diving for them!! He noticed the ghost while we were sitting at the table and decided he was going to go for it!!!

The Many Faces Of Riley

As we are trying to eat lunch, Riley decided to put on a little "personality" show for Andrew and I; I couldn't help but snap pictures, first he started smirking and then he stuck his tongue out at me and THEN he decided to laugh about it; what am I to do with these little monkeys? HAHAHAHA!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

The boys struck gold today...Halloween packages came from Grammy and Grampy AND Mimi and Papa!! Lots of candy, cool books, stickers, flashlights, and LOTS more!!! Andrew also got a cool "SPOOKY" shirt and Riley got a pumpkin outfit!! Don't they look ready to SCARE????

BMW 520i

Adam brought his new car home last night... FINALLY!! We were waiting for it to get repaired and inspected before the guy could sell it to us, but it is all set now!!!

"Andrew Whistle"

It is obvious that Andrew watches too much Thomas when....he has his own "Andrew whistle"!!!

Canyon/Teeth

Grammy and Grampy sent a lot of goodies in the box with the halloween decorations; the thing Andrew was the most excited to see was his canyon!!! He is also wearing a Tshirt they sent that has a picture of the 5 of us (Grammy, Grampy, Mommy, Andrew & Riley) from the Day Out With Thomas, you just can't see it very well in the picture!!

In the past month I have also started brushing Riley's teeth, he seems to really enjoy it; like a massage on those sore gums; he is so cute I thought I would share with everyone!!

Window Clings

Grammy and Grampy sent us some Halloween decorations to put up, this is what Andrew decided to do with the window clings; what art!!

Gigglin' Gus

Andrew, Riley and I carved our pumpkin this morning into Gigglin' Gus. I cheated and used a kids pattern book but it was a lot of fun, we'll have to do more next year!!

Discovery

Riley has discovered his feet and he even tries to stick them in his mouth now, haha!! I don't think he realizes quite yet that they are attached though, I am sure if he gnaws them too hard he will figure it out the hard way!! He is even blowing a bubble in this picture which probably means he is....thinking he may want to eat them NOW!!

Our Sunday

Adam was looking at something on the computer and Andrew and Riley were just staring at the screen with him, I thought that was so cute so I snapped a picture!! The boys look so much like him in this picture!! At the grocery store Andrew got a finger painting book; here he is trying it out!! He made quite a mess, but that is the fun of being 3 years old!!!

Past 3 weeks...

We finally got our phone and internet hooked up today, so here is what we have been up to the past few weeks... We moved into our new house on Tuesday 9/29 and then we ended up renting a car on that Friday since we needed to be able to get back and forth to base in order to do grocery shopping and everthing. We found a BMW to buy from a guy that Adam works with and we are going to be getting that later this week so I will post more about that later!! Yesterday we went on a walk around Pordenone and as always were completely and utterly amazed at what we saw and took tons of photos, people look at me like I am nuts, probably because they are used to all of this, but I walk around pointing and staring while they are all rushing past...probably they are thinking "Estupido Americano"...haha!! There are billboards everywhere you look and also some very inappropriate advertisements, they are WAY MORE open about that here than in the US!! We have a nice playground right outside the house here in our neighborhood and there are a lot of kids that Andrew likes to run around and play with so it has been fun, but I still cannot wait until November 12th when our stuff is supposed to get here, it will make things a LOT easier and more convenient!! We have seen lots of lizards and birds and they are right in the backyard. I am not sure if it is a good thing, but you can walk right up to the birds, they are not skittish of humans at all here, I just don't let Andrew touch since I am not sure whether or not they will bite!! Most of the roads here are actually the same width as in America, but they don't have shoulders here which is what makes them look narrow, but that being said there are a few which look like only one car should be able to fit but somehow Italians make it work as a two-lane road!! They drive very fast here, but do everything else very slow, mail takes WEEKS to get even across town we were told and when you call to make an appointment for anything, that can also takes weeks. Everything (stores, restaurants, etc) closes from 12-3 for their "rest time" because they stay up very late here!! They have a very interesting trash seperation system here, we have 5 different trash cans (one for regular trash non-recyclabes, the second for paper & cardboard, the third for plastic & metal, the fourth for glass and the fifth for organic waste such as leftover food). In two of the pictures you will notice bows hung outside someone's house. Here when you get married they hang a white bow on their car and outside their house, a blue bow means they had a baby boy and a pink bow means they had a baby girl. We saw quite a few actually just walking around, must be a good season for babies in Italy!! Now that we have internet we can keep in contact more often and I will take better pictures of the house next month once we get our stuff and it will actually look like a home!!!