She's Got A Friend

We had a nice treat recently when we got to watch Chiara's oldest friend Magdalena.  This is a little clip of the two of them shortly after she arrived with her parents....

Chiara's First Charity Event

Chiara got up early this morning to participate in her first charity event.  This was to raise funds to help various homeless shelters and programs in the Washington, DC area.  

We joined our friends the Schwarz's out on the mall for this walk on what turned out to be a very beautiful day.  Our team was supporting Calvery Women's Services.  The event was a huge success.  We were told that Calvery Women's Services received an anonymous gift of $100,000.00, in addition to the funds that were raised by the walkers.  It always feels good to help people in need, particularly around the holidays.

After the walk, we decided to the National Gallery of Art to see the Arcimboldo Exhibit.  This is the second time we all came across his work.  The first time Chiara did not see much, but her parents did on their babymoon at the Musee du Louvre in Paris.  We have a feeling our precious Chiara may have looked a little like a miniature Arcimboldo painting while we were in Paris, since she was in her mom's belly.

The original poster child for V-8!  The exhibit was pretty neat and there were paintings from other galleries around the world that we had not seen in Paris.  It was more enjoyable this time around, as it was not 100 degrees, there were not thousands of people and we got Chiara's opinion of the work.  In case you are wondering, it just made her hungry!!

Which Purse is Mine?

While mom was away, Chiara realized....

This was not her purse!

So she decided to look for her own purse...

Have you seen my purse (she asked her dad behind the camera)... 

 Here it is!!

I think I'll stand here and wait for mom to get home.  Especially, because I can't walk and dad won't stop taking pictures!

"3" or "111"

Chiara celebrated her birthday since our last blog.  Luckily, she is too young to remember the standard that was set for this occasion.  Our little principessa celebrated her birthday not once, not twice, but three times!! When we asked her about it, she said she would be fine with one party, but her parents wanted to take this special celebration on the road.

Here she is at Birthday #1 at Grammy Sandy's :

Here she is at Birthday #2 at Grandma and Grandpa Lanzettis:

Here she is at Birthday # 3 in her own backyard:

This is her showing off her gift from her Mom and Dad (yes, that is a duck on her helmet):

As if children don't grow fast enough... we made our little girl 3 years old or 111 years old in just 12 months, depending on how you count the candles!!

Chocolate World

This weekend Chiara got to spend some quality time with her Godfather and his family on a weekend trip to Lancaster, PA.  She does not appear in this short video, because she is actually strapped to the camera man (Dad).  However, you do get to see her adorable cousins Aden and Avery in action at Chocolate World...

Catching Up With Chiara Post!

We hate to make excuses, but we are realizing that once a child passes the stage of being a cute potted plant, it is much harder to find spare time once they start crawling around the house!  There have been so many experiences since the last post, we thought it would be easiest to just inform everyone of the latest "firsts" for our dear Chiara.

First Swim

Chiara has always enjoyed her baths, but you never know how things will go for a first dunk in the pool. This little swim took place on the rooftop of her Godmother Sylvia and Zio Dan's condo building. She did fine despite the wind and a small audience.

First Picnic

Lunchtime is always a good time to take a picture of our little gourmand. It looks like either Avocado or Broccoli.  This was an awesome day.  We decided to take a drive to Charlottesville, VA to have a picnic and stroll around the town.  This outing led to two other firsts, but we do not have any pictures of them.  She experienced her first concert, when we ran into a free patriotic music concert on this Saturday before Independence Day.  Unfortunately, she also experienced eating dirt for the first time, when she reached beyond the blanket and helped herself to the most organic food of all...a good old chunk of mother earth.  Luckily, we stopped her at just a taste!

First 4th of July

This was a bit of a two for one First.  This was her first 4th of July and her first 4th of July party.  Tony and Anita invited us over to celebrate with some of their friends over a nice home cooked meal.  You would never believe it, based on how adorable she looks in this picture, but she wound up creating her own fireworks causing us to leave earlier than we hoped to on such a fun evening.  She was clearly exhausted, as she slept through our neighbor's annual live band/fireworks celebration.  While we feared our roof...our roof.........our roof was on fire, our little sweetie slept like a log.

First Wearing

This was the first time Chiara wore this outfit, that she should have clearly wore a month earlier!  Don't worry sweetie, this particular line runs very small ;-)

First Proclamation

This is Chiara's first time proclaiming her Italian heritage.  Zio Rob brought her back this shirt from his trip to Boston.  For the record, he also gave her the famous Douglas the Duck! This is not a two for one first, even though it looks like she polished off her first tray of cannoli or first pound of pasta.  With so many outfits and so little time, we probably should have let her start wearing this one a little earlier too! :-/

First Wrestling Match

While this was Chiara's first wrestling match, her old friend Magdalena looks quite experienced.  We're not sure if Magda scored any traditional points at this stage in the match, but she certainly gets some for style.  Although it looks like Chiara is seriously considering using that foreign object as a weapon (WWF Style), she most likely put it in her own mouth no matter what position Magda decided to place her.

First High Chair at Restaurant

This is Chiara's first time sitting in a high chair at a restaurant.  I know that is a lengthy and trivial honor like (Best Sound Editing for Foreign Short Story).  However, I had to come up with something, because this is such an awesome picture.  She actually did sit up nicely throughout the whole meal.  This was taken in an Italian restaurant, but she still did not score her first cannoli or plate of pasta.  However, her mom and dad provided a heck of a demonstration for her.

First Swim Lesson

This was Chiara's very first swim lesson.  She is enrolled in the Daddy/Daughter swim class at the local recreation center.  She did great for the first time in the big pool.  While some (much older, I might add) kids cried, she was pretty much all smiles. That temporary look of concern on her face was due to her feet getting caught in her dad's chest hair!

First Stroller

This is a picture of Chiara's first ride in her new big girl stroller.  We are all celebrating graduation from the Snap and Go, as it was getting more and more challenging to lug her around in the infant car seat.  This one is pretty sporty.  It came with lots of standard equipment and should last until she is four years old.



                           First Doll (Second Wrestling Match)


This one does not require any further explanation!

Douglas' Revenge

For those of you that know Chiara pretty well, are probably aware that Douglas the Duck quickly became her best little friend after she received it as a gift from zio Rob D'Onofrio.  It might be hard to tell from this picture, but Douglas is a stuffed animal without the........stuffing! 

Just in case you think she was already giggling in this picture and Douglas was tossed at her right before the picture was taken, here is another picture of them enjoying each other's company.

From time to time we noticed what seemed to be a perfectly normal and sweet occurrence.  Every now and then it would appear as if Chiara fell asleep with Douglas by her side and both of them were resting comfortably and very happy.  

As you can see here, we caught a more aggressive side to Douglas in this picture.  Whether it is for throwing him to the ground so many times throughout the day or for keeping him more wet than a duck out of water should ever be, he seems to get revenge from time to time.  His favorite move is the smother!  

As a result of the mounting tension between these two, we have decided that Chiara should start seeing other ducks.  So, her mom brought the tall skinny one shown here next to Douglas home.  We'll see how this works out, but it will be hard for her to move on from her first stuffed love.  Help us name the new duck by voting on the top right side of this blog page.