My babies

You never realize how much something or someone changes until you start looking at old photographs and see how far they have come.  I am with the girls everyday so it's hard to notice how big they are getting, but when I look back at pictures from my first few weeks here, it's unbelievable how much they have grown!  I started thinking about all the changes I've witnessed in them and here's what I've come up with:

-We used to put them to sleep in Rosa and Bruno's bed and then move them to their own beds once they were asleep; now they fall asleep in their own beds!

-The girls used to drink warm milk from a baby bottle every morning and every night; they have officially moved on to cereal for breakfast!

-Vittoria couldn't ride her bike when I first got here, and one day, BAM! she got over the hump and was doing it all on her own!

-In the beginning I would push the girls in the stroller if we ever had to go somewhere that was a bit of a far walk...now they can walk anywhere and we have retired the stroller!

-Started swimming lessons!

-Pretty much all the clothes that were Chiara's when I first got here are now Vittoria's

-The girls are speaking more and more English everyday!

-Number and letter recognition, can draw some shapes, letters, stick people

-They used to wear diapers to bed and now they don't need to

-Vittoria doesn't ride in a carseat anymore (there's not much of a carseat law in Italy anyways!)

-The girls used to need help going to the bathroom and used a booster seat on the toilet but now they can go all by themselves!

It's been truly amazing watching these two special little girls grow and learn over the past year!  I am so proud of them and I feel so fortunate to have been (and continue to be!) a part of their lives, and can't wait to watch them develop into beautiful young women :)

The girls one year ago... my very first day in Naples!

The girls a couple of weeks ago!