Christmas Day

Julianna and Alessandra woke up early and run to my room ... Julianna kept asking to go downstairs to see if Santa ate the cookie.
I called my mom and we waited for her to open the present

Julianna gave all the presents she picked for witch one of us at the Dollar store and felt very important and happy with her choices.

Later in the day we had friends over and we had a great Christmas dinner together

Fat Santa

On Christmas Eve, we left cookies and milk for Santa Claus. Julianna was moving the sofa and when I asked her what she was doing, she told me:

Mommy, since we all know that Santa is fat, let's leave him a lot of room

Sabrina present

Aunt Sabrina gave these clothes to the kids... we spent the day with some great friends

Meeeee

Anything you ask to Alessandra she answers ... meeee

She is too cute and always happy ..

Who wants cereal ?
Alessandra - Meeeee
Who wants to sleep ?
Alessandra - Meeee
Who loves Mommy?
Alessandra - Meeee

I can do this the whole day ...

1st real kiss

Alessandra's first kiss was to Alexandre ( my brother in law).

Alessandra is still very selective to whom she gives a kiss... but the first kiss we never forget :-)

Disney Not so Scary Halloween Party

The Halloween party at Disneyworld was very fun.. Julianna was Ariel and Alessandra was Minnie Mouse.

Alessandra was dancing for a long time with Donald Duck and Daisy. She did not want to leave. It was amazing to see how she is growing up. She is very funny and really enjoys making people laugh ( reminds me of Jason).

Disney

We spent one week with my sister in Orlando. The time went very fast

The best part was to see Julianna and Alessandra playing with Giovanna and Pedro Henrique. They get along so well even though they don't really speak the same language. Julianna would come to me ask how to say .... in Portuguese. She would then go and try to tell the kids what she wanted.


From playing tent to princess, the time spent at the hotel was precious.


The first day was hard. It was very hot and very humid and everybody had a hard time adapting to the Florida weather. By the second day however, everything was great.

I wish our families lived closer so our kids could spend more time together

1st timeout

Today was Alessandra's first timeout.

She decided that it is funny to pull Julianna’s hair.

I told her that it was not nice and she just smiled at me...
the 2nd time, Julianna was lying down and she grabbed a hand full of hair from Julianna ... I yelled at her and said NO ...
... after 1 minute she ran to Julianna and did it again.

Jason picked her up and put her facing the wall ... she stayed there for less than one minute but for me felt like an eternity... she was really upset and came to give me with her bottom lip sticking out as far as possible (how do they learn to do that?), gave me hug and cried for a little bit

This daddy is so mean :-)

Matilda

Julianna started pre-K ..next year she is going to Kindergarten

The teachers asked the students to bring a friend to introduce to the class. Julianna chose her Unicorn ... She forgot the name of the Unicorn and for the last 2 days she has been trying to remember it - Matilda

Every 5 minutes she would ask me what was her name again ?

Any way .. she went to school and had a very good day ... when she got home, I asked her how was Matilda and Julianna said: "Matilda?? Matilda who ??"

She came home from school with a fever so she is going to spend tomorrow at home with Daddy.

VOVO

Alessandra said Vovo (Portugese for Grandma) for the first time today.
I am not sure what my mom did to Alessandra but now she says Vovo the whole day long.

Every day that my mom comes to my house, Alessandra sits in her little chair and puts her feet up so my mom can color her toenails. That one is going to be very high maintenance.

so far, she knows the words: Ball, Dog, Vovo and.. Uh-oh

I love you from the sky to the floor ...

When we are dropping Julianna at school or putting her to sleep, it is always the same thing...

"Mommy or Daddy

I love you with all my heart, from the floor to the sky, and all the world with all the things in it and from the sky to the moon "

... I just want to remember this forever

I love you the same way Julianna

Sharing is caring

Alessandra was not sharing...she started out just fine. She was helping Julianna build a castle with some block toys (kind of like Lego). Of course, she was destroying the castle more than helping but at least they were playing together.

Suddenly, she grabbed one of the pieces straight from Julianna's hand and took off! At first Julianna got very sad and almost started to cry... but she managed to compose herself and with a sudden burst of maturity, she firmly said "Alessandra...Sharing is Caring!"

She said that she learned it at school.

I guess I need to go because Alessandra just destroyed the whole castle and now Julianna is crying.

Alessandra buggy car

I recently got a little red push car for Alessandra. I got it on Craigslist for $10.00

Alessandra loves her little car... we use it instead of a stroller and she feels so proud when she's "driving" in it. A few days ago, I put her in the car when we went to a few stores and the whole time, she had a huge smile on her face and waved at everyone that passed by.

It was too cute ...

Nap time trouble

Julianna is having a hard time at school during nap time. For the past few days in a row, she has brought home a note from her teacher saying that she does not listen at nap time (sometimes with a sad face drawn on the note for emphasis!). We've stuck to a standard punishment whenever she gets one of these notes: no candy, no juice, no dessert, no TV... for the rest of the night.

With the bad notes coming fairly regularly, we needed to find out why this was becoming such a big issue for her. After a lot of discussion, I found out that the problem is that Julianna does not want to sleep. She swears she is not tired and she just gets too bored lying down in her cot looking at the ceiling for 2 hours. She ends up playing with things around her and making noise, which can wake up the other children.

I explained to Julianna that she needs to follow the school rules and that she needs to listen to her teachers... However, even after our "talk" Julianna still did not listen. Jason and I decided to add more things to her " punishment" and Juliana had to go to sleep 30 minutes earlier. She was clearly upset and stayed in bed.

We told her that if she did not listen again, we would take away her favorite toy and she would not be able to play with for a few days. I asked her what her favorite toy was and she told me "the Bouncing ball"; and inflatable that she can sit on and bounce around the room. I told her that I was going to take the bouncing ball away the next time she did not listen in school.

Well the next evening, when I went to pick her up at school, the second I got there she starting gushing about how much she LOVES this little pink pony that she has at home. I told her okay but I did not know why she kept repeating that over and over... she loves the Pink pony, the pink pony is her favorite toy, etc.

Guess what.. when I talked with the teacher, I was informed that Julianna did not listen again at nap time.

When we were leaving the school, Julianna was in unusually high spirits especially considering that she knew she had a bad day and she didn't listen to her teachers. In the car, she told me that she knew she had to be punished when we got home, and that I could take her FAVORITE pink pony away... Suddenly I understood what she was doing! So tricky!

I told her that I was not going to take the pink pony, and that I would take the bouncing ball away from her instead... and immediately she started to cry :-(