Five Months Now!

Lily has been very busy! We have enjoyed watching her reach a few milestones this past month.
She found her toes!
She can grab toys now and roll over from back to front.
She is generally a happy baby and has a smile brighter than any Christmas tree.
One of her favorite activities is kicking and splashing in the tub.
She also loves when Ava talks to her. This instantly brings a smile to her face!

A Very Merry Christmas

This marks the first year that we celebrated Christmas in Columbus, and not Toledo. With two little ones to travel with and one set of grandparents now living here, it seemed like the right thing to do.

We spent Christmas Eve at Mimi and Papa's new house with the Bages and the Tomars. In honor of Tolga and his parents, we enjoyed a Turkish themed Christmas dinner. Not surprisingly, Ava especially enjoyed the Turkish fare.


Then it was on to the opening of the gifts. Here are a few highlights.




After a late night, Ava needed some prodding to get out of bed on Christmas morning. She first needed to be reassured that Santa had left the gifts and was not waiting downstairs for her (she's still a bit afraid of him). Christmas morning was a little more quiet than what we expected!

Lily enjoyed the paper more than anything else.







Later that day we headed back to Mimi and Papa's.





Each Christmas we celebrate our many blessings. We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful family, caring friends, and the means to provide for our two beautiful daughters. May God bless all of you just as he has blessed us!

The Five Days of Christmas

We enjoyed a trip to Toledo to celebrate a Crazy Costanzo Christmas last week. The girls and I were lucky enough to stay for 5 days and we jam-packed as much Christmas fun into those five days as was humanly possible!

On the first day of Christmas, we helped decorate Nan and Grampa's tree:





On the second day of Christmas we went to the mall to see Santa:


On the third day of Christmas we play, play, played:







On the fourth day of Christmas we baked cookies with Nan:


And on the fifth day of Christmas we actually celebrated Christmas at Nan and Grampa's:





Things may get a little hectic with so many little ones around, but we sure love our great big family! Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

A Star is Born!

Today we experienced a parental milestone- the first holiday performance! Ava has had no problem belting out her songs at home, but Aaron and I wondered if she would have stage fright once she stood in front of all those people. Turns out, our worries were all for nothing!

Looking a little nervous...


Getting a feel for the stage...

Now we're feeling it!



A born performer!

Needless to say, we were all very proud of our girl.

Who knows, maybe she'll be Broadway bound some day!