The Gambino Family

Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009 - What a year!

Sorry for my absence the past couple months... Max broke my camera (only just got it in April!), but now I have a new one! (Being kept on a high shelf!). Here's a quick recap of the past couple of months...

Halloween... I worked again... but now Halloween will be on a Sunday next year, so I can actually take my kids out! Here they are... what cuties!

In November I finally sold my store... phew! I finally have time to myself! To celebrate, we bought a new pet (since Johnny is allergic to cats and dogs, we couldn't go that route. So... here's Mango:

She's a Severe Macaw. She's about 2.5 years old. She's loud... and she bites. Well, not me anymore... but we're working on her... she's afraid of Johnny for some reason. Which makes us both sad. But it's only been a couple of months now... so I know she needs more time. :)

On the last day of school, Nicolas went for his first urgent care visit... 5 stitches to his chin! Stitches came out Christmas Eve and you can hardly tell he split his chin open!

Christmas came and went so FAST! I can't believe it's over already! All the kids did great... Santa was very generous!

He even gave them a trip to the Polar Express! We went on December 27th. It was Max's first time seeing snow.... and Nicolas hadn't seen snow since he was a toddler, so it was like his first time too. He LOVED playing in the snow! We're planning on going again next Christmas... and will make sure Nicolas is better dressed! Here's a some pics of our trip to the Polar Express...

Max threw a snowball at me... and it hit the camera just as a snapped the picture.

On the train

First Snow angel!

After we got home, we went mini-golfing

Then ended our vacation with a trip to the Children's Museum.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Friday, October 2, 2009

Gymnastics

Wow... what a busy summer. I haven't posted in about 2-1/2 months! We went to Toronto in the summer (my Dad turned 60 and retired!), my SIL and family came for a visit... Emma just had her 17th birthday on Tuesday. Nicolas is now a Red Belt Decided in Karate... next is black belt recommended! He's almost there!!

Speaking of Karate... karate takes a lot of strength, balance, and flexibility. None of which Nicolas really has. His body is lean and muscular, but he doesn't have the upper body strength he needs for sparring. So I put him in gymnastics. His balance and flexibility have improved immensely, and his upper body strength is improving.

So, thinking about the future... I put Max is gymnastics too (Max actually started before Nicolas). Max, for his size, has more upper body strength than Nicolas. So this should give Max an edge when he starts karate in about a year and a half.

In karate, they have balance beams, a trampoline, a rope for climbing, rings, a parachute, and bars. They do hand stands by walking their feet up the wall, then stay there for the length of time it takes them (or the teacher) to sing the ABC's.

So... this leads me to a cute Max story. Max loves singing, and sings the songs he has learned in gymnastics (Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Row Your Boat, ABC's, Wheels on the Bus, etc). So we were eating dinner one night and I told Max to show Daddy how he can sing his ABC's. So Max climbs down from his chair, goes over to the wall and does a handstand, and sings to Daddy his ABC's. It was so cute!!

Another cute thing from this morning...
Max - Emma is at school
Me - Yes she is. Are you going to go to school?
Max - No
Me - Why
Max - I'm not a big kid!

He's at such a fun age!

Here's some pictures from gymnastics

And, in case you missed it on FaceBook, here's the video of Max singing (viewable only from the blog, not email)

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

They just grow and grow and grow

The tadpoles... not the kids. :) They are now 3 days old, and have doubled in size each day. It's amazing. Here are some pics I snapped today.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

I better get a lot of princes out of this!

So, the frog saga continues. Yesterday morning there was one in the pool. So I finally got smart and put him in a bucket. I had planned to take him to one of the community lakes around here. But I knew the other one was around.... and wanted to take them both tegether. So I left him in the bucket and when I came home from work this morning... wifey was in the pool. I plucked her out and put her in the bucket too. So here they are together. Probably a one night stand gone bad... thinking they would never see each other again... how awkward. LOL :) And just in case you're interested... the frog on the left is the girl and the one on the right is the male. How do I know that? Lots of Googling! The males have bigger front toes than the females. :)

So... Johnny cleaned the pool yesterday... lots of acid and shock. But I did take out a couple leaves out of th epool that had eggs on them and put them in the kids' water table (which was full of rain water). Not sure what I was thinking... but I did read it takes 2-12 days for the eggs to hatch into tadpoles... and the tadpoles "mature" in about a month into frogs.

Try 24 hours!!!! We have tadpoles!!!! No idea what I am going to do with them.... I leave for vacation in 8 days. Probably keep them for a few days so the boys can see them grow a bit, then release them into one of the community lakes (where they will probably get eaten). Anyone local to me want some tadpoles?

I think it's an

awesome experience for any kid to be able to see tadpoles grow. I got to see it as a kid because my grandparents lived out in the country... and I am bummed my kids don't get to have a similar experience.

****UPDATE****

Just found out the true species... they're not Colorado River Toads like I assumed... they're called Couch's Spadefoot. Their tadpoles can turn into "toadlets" in as little as 8 days! Wow! http://www.reptilesofaz.org/Turtle-Amphibs-Subpages/h-s-couchii.html

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Horny Toad Update

Last night the horny toad made so much noise, he/she attracted a mate. So we had two of them in the back yard making a lot of noise. So much noise, in fact, that the neighbors caled the police about "a goat or a duck" in someone's backyard. So at 11:30pm the police were banging on our door. We showed the nice officer the toad in our pool (he was in there AGAIN!) and he had a chuckle and went on his merry way. I plucked both toads out of the pool and came inside. I heard them making their croaking noise until at least 4am.

This morning I went out there and sure enough, they were in the pool again. I guess they like salt water (chlorine would have killed them). As I was waiting for them to surface (every time they see me they dive to the bottom of the pool) I noticed how dirty the pool was from the storm last night. Upon closer inspection... I notice EGGS!!!!! They procreated in my pool!! There were

hundreds of Colorado River Toad eggs in my pool!! All over the vacuum hose, all over the side of the pool, and on a stray leaf. Imagine all the tadpoles we would have!! I imagine pools were used for breeding grounds on a lot of the abandoned pools around here.

I feel bad that the vacuum is going to suck them all up when it comes on in an hour and a half. But such is life!

Friday, July 3, 2009

Horny Toad!

I got cancelled tonight from work, so I have time to make a post. We're having a great and busy summer so far! Nicolas is going to gymnastics 3 times a week, Karate 3 times a week, and he's in basketball. Max tags along for all Nicolas' activities, plus he has his own gymnastics class as well. Busy busy busy!! And we're going away for 2.5 weeks.... leaving in about a week and a half! This summer is flying!

The picture to the left is a little (but NOISY) Colorado River Toad in my back yard. We heard a strange noise in the backyard during tonight's Monsoon/summer desert storm... thought it was a cat stuck out in the rain. Upon closer inspection, we found this little guy. He's still out there making a ton of noise... I can hear him from my computer room, which in on the side of the house and he's in the backyard. I went out later to take some pics, and found him in our pool. I took some pics and video and moved him to the yard. I suspect he'll make it back to the pool. Here's some video I shot... see for yourself how noisy he is!!

(Update - an hour and a half later... I just went out and took him out of the pool again... in the pouring rain!)

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Kindergarten Graduation!

We have a graduate in the house! Nicolas just graduated from Kindergarten! (Well, his last day of school is Tuesday... but the ceremony was Friday evening). It was a cute little ceremony, held outside... which was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was only in the low 90's... which is cooler than normal... and luckily the sun was to our backs. There was a little bit of a breeze... it was just beautiful out! I was originally going to miss it because it was a Friday evening... and I had just resigned myself to the fact that I would miss it (like everything else that happens on Friday evenings). At the last minute I called work and asked to be pushed back to 11pm 9instead of coming in at 7pm) and posted to FaceBook how I was sad to have to miss his graduation. I didn't end up being cancelled at work like I had hoped, but one of my co-workers read my post and offered to cover me for 2 hours so I could attend! (Thanks again Rachel!!!). So Johnny got some video, and I snapped a bunch of pictures. We got a couple pictures with his two very good friends, Ashlyn and Olivia as well.

Video (need to view from the Blog, not email)

Nicolas and Ashlyn

Nicolas and Olivia

So long room J1!!!!