miss independent

Miss independent is growing up too fast. She insists on trying to feed herself (she pushes, I mean, smacks our hands away), she is holding her own bottle, and now she is on the brink of walking and takes off down the sidewalk by herself! In a flash, she has become a big girl. Where was I?

even the dogs are shocked!

she still needs me to bring her upstairs and put her down for a nap, when she runs out of gas. love that leah bug

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Here is a great little video of Lee flying down the sidewalk :)

a patchwork dress and the beach

Oh... how I love this dress! If they made one in adult size, I would wear it! I love the halter on Leah. Whom ever designed this dress most certainly had a daughter.

I love this little poser, so serious. meticulously plucking the perfect strand of grass to place in her mouth... just small enough that she knows I can't reach it before it goes down the hatch ;)

We took the little devil puppies to the beach tonight. It was beautiful! Not too crowded, not too many dogs, and most importantly... low tide!

Leah crawled all along the beach following Vin as he hit the ball to emma, she loves her daddy!

My Teddy Bear, the social butterfly. He tormented all the dogs on the beach and would come and hang with me on the towel for a short break before going off to play again.

Emma, the warrior, only got into two fights tonight ;) She hates when other dogs even look at her ball, that is just asking for trouble!

what a sand eater!
I love that little leahbug!

playing around

We went to the park this weekend for this cool beach church that my friend Julie knows about, it was pretty cool and the best was that we got to sit outside on such a beautiful day! People bring their dogs and a cup of coffee and just enjoy the surroundings while being at church, pretty cool. Vinny of course had to torture lee with a pine needle, poor kid had no idea, she kept slapping her ear and thinking it was some sort of bug!

These are from today, aunt jacky was playing around with the bug. She has a new play space under the stair area, and she loves to climb around in there, all her toys and a big mirror, what more could a girl want? Kinda like her little fort!

love that leah bug

pots and pans

Future chef? Who knows, but this kid loves the pots and pans, more specifically, opening the cabinet and rummaging through the stuff inside...

there is something so cute about diaper butt.

love that curious little leah bug

eggs and bunnies

Leah's first Easter! We went to the park today where they had an Easter egg hunt. The loud speaker announced, "Parents, this is a children's egg hunt, please don't run and push children out of the way!" I laughed so hard, can you imagine? Anyway, it was so cute ;) Leah was adorable in her new dress (compliments of the New York family) and she totally crawled around and picked up eggs that Vinny pointed to.

Where in the world did this smile come from? kinda devilish, but cute none the less ;)

Later this afternoon we went to lunch at HB's and sat on the water. This is the reason we live in Florida, it was gorgeous today!

I love my family doting over leah, she is spoiled already!

Happy Easter Leah Bug

the big apple

We just got back from our New York trip! It was quite a trip... family, family, and more family! Vinny has the biggest family ever! Just when I thought we had seen everyone, we were back in the car on our way to Brooklyn to see some more cousins! We left on Saturday afternoon, cancelled flight first, then we re-booked and our new flight was delayed. If I had to grade Lee on the way there, she got a D, she cried, was pulling seats and did not sleep but for the last 30 minutes of the flight! Nonna was so happy to see Leah! She hasn't seen her since she was born, so it was exciting to see her face :)

We walked down the street to Aunt Pina's house and were met by smiley Aunt Pina, cousin Vivi, Matthew (vinny's partner in crime) and Unlce Phil

Getting sleepy already!

Then we headed into Brooklyn to see Cousin Yoli and her family where they had a big dinner waiting for us and Lee met Gabriella who she LOVED! I am nto sure of the family relationship, but for sake of confusion we will call her cousin Gaby.

Aunt Yoli was the only one who could get Lee to eat anything, she was boycotting food the whole trip!

On Monday we were supposed to go to the city, but it was pouring, so we stayed in Staten Island and made Vin take me for some deli food, I love, love, love kinishes, this is a homemade spinach kinish, yummmmm!

When I was pregnant with Leah, all I ate were the half sour pickles like you get in the deli. Aside from her 1 piece of bread the day before, she ate pickles, lots of them!

They had a pickle bar! Pickles as far as the eye could see, cold, crunchy, um... my mouth is watering!

Matzo ball soup + rain= a great afternoon

That night, we had a big dinner at vin's house, cousin Lisa came over with the twins Christopher and Vincent, and her little clone Arianna. Leah loved them!

Joey and Vincent

Arianna and Leah

Hamming it up for her cousins, she was all smiles with them

Lisa knows everything! She has 3 kids who from 3 weeks old slept through the night! I should have called her earlier!

The next day we went back to Brooklyn to see Aunt Lina and Uncle Joe and some more cousins

This is Little Gabriella, she has a new brother named Michael and she was very good with Leah. Gaby was so cute hugging and kissing Lee, it was too cute!

Little Michael

Lee was showing off her crawling to cousin Michael, she is almost walking too, her little Nike's make it so easy :)

Cousin Adelina, she got Lee the cutest outfits! I can't wait to take pictures of her in them. Just wait, cutest ensembles you have ever seen!

Uncle Joey was so cute with Lee. He would shove me out of the way so he could sit next to her ;)

I love this picture!

so we can check off first big trip and plane ride, been there, done that!

Love that Leah (who went to the big apple) bug