Family

Here we have four generations of ladies - GG (Great Grandma Mancini) who celebrated her 90th birthday this year, Gina Olsztyn (my mom), me and Anna and Emma-Grace.

GG and Emma-Grace

Here is Ken, Anna and Emma-Grace and his cousin Jared and his son Justin who was born 5 days before Emma-Grace.

The Joys of Hospital Food

Because Emma-Grace was a planned C-Section, I couldn't eat 12 hours before the surgery... and then after the surgery I couldn't eat any solid foods until certian things (that will remain unstated) happened. So, I went 41 hours without solid foods. Needless to say, Jello and chicken broth will only sustain you for so long so I was STARVING when I was finally able to eat solid food... Sadly, Jello and chicken broth were so much better than the hospital food... because it was so bad, I decided to tell the story of my meals...

The story starts with what is a tiny little packet called Mrs. Dash Salt Free Seasoning. The hospital apparently owns stock in this tiny little delight. This is served with EVERY meal.

It was served with my cheese omlette and bananna bread breakfast on day one of solid foods. Doesn't it look good?

It was also served with day one lunch, pictured here are grilled veggies served cold (on purpose). Yummy!

Here it is served with the taboleh, seseme chicken and cheesy potatoes... this is all I was able to eat of the meal. Fortunately, Ken and Anna got hamburgers from the cafeteria and I ate Anna's left overs.

Also served wtih this meal was humus and pita, which was very good, but the porportion of humus to pita bread was way off... I was quite sad that I only got two triangles of pita.

The last day I was there, breakfast was quite good, however, very small... I just couldn't figure out what to put the Mrs. Dash Salt Free Seasoning on... My frenchtoast, sausage and bacon?

Or maybe the canned fruit cocktail?

Or maybe the bran muffin?

Oh, I know, I can split it between my strawberry yogurt and Cheerios.

Needless to say, I apparently started my diet while at the hospital!

Big Sister Anna and Little Sister Emma-Grace

Anna already has it down pat on how to calm Emma-Grace down. She is doing an excellent job as a big sister!

Anna also loves to cuddle with Emma-Grace. There are lots of hugs going around!

Cousin Fun!

Ken's parents and brother and sister-in-law came in town on Saturday to visit. It was great because Anna and her cousin McKenna went crazy and played all day. We were able (amazingly) to get the girls to take a nap, of course it was in Anna's castle and they each had a princess pillow and princess blanket. At this point, we are assuming that the castle will remain in our house until Anna is 16 years old... there is no way we will be able to get rid of this castle anytime soon!

Here are the Budry cusins, Anna, Emma-Grace, McKenna and Brayden.

Budry Baby#2 has Arrived!

The new baby has finally arrived! Horray! Emma-Grace Olivia Budry popped into this world on July 23rd at 1:51 pm weighing 8lbs 7oz and was 20.5" long. She was a little shorter than Anna but a little heavier. We are all doing great and recovering quickly.

Fresh out of the oven!

Dr. Budry looks pretty cute!

Fun in the Pool

Our days as a threesome are numbered. We have been working hard in preparation for the new addition, and also enjoying the time together. Here we are again at the community pool. This has got to be Anna's favortie place. She is a fearless mermaid!

Dance Lessons!

Anna started her ballet dance lessons today. Parents can't stay in the dance room, and Anna at first wasn't interested in me not being there, but when given the option of going in the dance room or going home, she picked going in the dance room. She did great for her first lesson. The teacher put the girls on the barre (bar?). It was so cute to watch her! Here is a picture of her in her leotard and some video of her dancing. I am filming through a window with miniblinds and you are actually seeing the reflection of Anna in the wall mirror. So it isn't that great. Also, turn your volume down because there were a couple of little girls who were standing next to me crying because they didn't want to go in the room by theirselves without their moms... poor girls, but no mommies were allowed in the dance studio.

Grampy's Retirement Party & Fun Stuff

My dad retired and we held a party for him a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pictures from it. Anna was all smiles with the balloon.

This is a huge me, Anna with the beautiful smile, Aunt Christe, and Aunt Sara at the party.

The rest of the pictures are Aunt Sara's and Uncle Mike's photo skills of hanging out with Anna. I am proud to point out that she is holding a lady bug in the pictures... and yes, she does have on a ballerina tu-tu at the same time. Go Anna!

funny 34 month old!

Well, I was hoping for a lucky July 13th baby, but the day is almost done and no signs of baby... here's hoping! Below are just some funny videos of Anna... sassy, yes, but sooo cute!

The first is Anna's rendition of "Itsy bitsy spider". She calls all spiders (in real life "ITSY BITSY SPIDER!"). Also witness the turn-coat bipolarism of an almost-3 year old.

This video is of Anna asking to be excused. She has to ask to be excused every time she wants to leave the table at dinner. It doesn't look like she ate much, but she pretty much put away a quart of strawberries by her self... hey, that is better than the french fries! Her expressions are too funny.

Finally, she had a long day today with no nap and going to her friend's birthday party. We went out to dinner and she fell asleep in the car at 5:30pm. Thankfully, she made it through dinner without a melt down. We almost turned around when we realized she was sleeping. So, after dinner, we got home and got her in bed fo the night. Every night, she reads and talks for about an hour. Tonight she was calling for me so I went in and she was hiding under her blanket and wanted me to find her. I told her no, it was time for sleeping not hiding and walked out. I heard her yell that she wanted Daddy to find her and of course, I didn't tell Ken, because he would go play with her (no wonder he is her favorite!). So about 10 minutes later Ken went in to check on her and the poor girl must have fallen asleep while hiding for her daddy... He had to dig her out of her hiding place.

July 5, 2008... the fun continues

We continued to have a fun filled family weekend by taking Anna to the aquatic center. She LOVED it! The little fish couldn't get enough of the water! She was all over the place, in the kiddie pool, down the kiddie slide, in the kiddie fountains and in the big pool. Her immediate reaction to watching Ken go down the big person's slide was "I wanna do it!", but I had to explain to her that she needed to get bigger to do it. We will definately keep up the swim lessons. We went with our friends Ryan, Lori and Caeley. It was a blast!

After an hour of swimming, it was hard to convince her to get out of the pool, but we did. Here you can see her wrapped in her princess towel (of course) and shivering.

After the aquatic center, we went home, took a nap and then our friends came back over for some BBQ ribs. The girls played in Anna's castle, little pool and then proceeded to paint with the crayola sidewalk paints... which are washable and totally fun!