Christmas in Mamaroneck Part 2: The Rest of Our Stay

We spent Christmas Day over at Mike's sister Donna's house. She always makes a beautiful holiday dinner, with so many great dishes.

Here's Vince sporting his cute new pajamas from Auntie Lisa. He's recently gotten the idea that spoons are a fun toy.....while another new thing is that he has a hissy fit if you take anything out of his hands that he is playing with, so the spoon stayed in the picture. Exerting his will already?

Jack gives a tap on the nose

Vince was completely in awe of the ceiling fan

The next set of pictures are taken from Roy Alletti's house, who happens to be Mike's father's cousin's son (I kept thinking they were saying we were going to royal eddie's...). We were out driving around looking at decorated houses but there weren't too many this year.... however, going to cousin Roy's place made up for everything. His front yard is out of control! There was so much there it was like the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland. Vince was asleep through the whole thing as we walked around it, while Maxie barked and growled at all the moving and singing figures.

And lastly here's a few cute shots of Vince with Maxie. It is very clear that we need to get a dog one of these days, as Vince laughed and had so much fun when Maxie was around. He would even laugh when she barked and growled, wasn't afraid at all!

Here they are sharing some blanket time

Here's a picture just seconds after Maxie stole a face lick from Vince. He wasn't sure what to make of it

Nonna got in on some blanket time too

Vince's First Christmas Part 1: Christmas Eve

Ok, time to recap on our first family Christmas! My motivation comes mainly from the fact that Vince obviously won't remember any of it when he's older and would probably like a description (some day), and also that I got an unexpected day off today..... so I have some time. Although why I decided to forgo sending him to daycare anyway I will never understand. I mean I totally love the boy, and I was thinking I would miss him if he went, but now I wish I would have sent him with Mike this morning so I could have at least a few hours of me time. Lesson learned: it's ok to utilize daycare even if I'm home for a day! Anyway, I've deviated from the Christmas theme so let me get back on track.

I ended up having to work on Christmas Eve day so we didn't leave Boston until 2:30pm, which would still normally be a great time only that it was raining almost the whole way to New York and we hit some heavy traffic for a while. What would usually be a 3 hour drive turned into 4 1/2 hours.... but we rolled in right at 7pm and Mike's family was waiting for us pretty much with knives and forks (and drinks) in hand ready to eat when we got there. Mike's mother is a FANTASTIC cook and had an amazing traditional Italian Christmas spread of appetizers available, while the main course included a Baccala Salad, and Linguini with clams. Italians traditionally have a Feast of the 7 Fishes on Christmas Eve, and Mike's mother outdoes herself every year with amazing recipes. She did announce however, that she's only doing this for another few years and someone else has to take over!

Each year there is a Christmas grab bag that usually is done by Mike's nieces Michelle and Erica-it consists of little presents that everyone gets to pick out of the bag... usually included in these presents are such prizes as tea bags, mints, whistles, etc. This year the Christmas grab bag has been taken over by Amelia and Melina so here's a picture of them going around and letting people pick out presents.

Mike picked out this ornament of Oscar the Grouch, while I picked out a valuable ear plug (only one mind you... the second one was missing), and Vince got some Altoid mints

Vince got pretty good at pulling the wrapping paper off of presents.... I missed the next shot of him putting this all in his mouth

Here's a picture with Pop Pop and his three grandchildren that represent the Swiss and German side of the family, like the United Nations!

Can you find the Swiss, German, and Italian flags in this picture?

Vince sporting his 'My first Christmas' pajamas.. shortly before heading to bed Christmas Eve

We failed to get any sort of Christmas family photo with Vince, maybe I'll try to get one with the cats before we take down the Christmas tree!

We Have A Tooth!

Last week I was running my fingers along Vince's gum line (you'd laugh at my to do list these days....) just to check if he has any teeth coming in. I felt a sharp little ridge on his bottom gums! I had to use a bit of pressure to feel it, but I had proof of the little tooth coming in when I checked the book he had just been chewing and saw little nicks where his lower gums were gnawing. Needless to say, his poor books are probably going to start getting more beaten up now that he is getting his choppers (or one chopper for now). There's no way I can get a picture of it yet, but stay tuned for that. He hasn't really been more fussy due to his teething, but he is getting a bit of diarrhea..... anyone know why those two may be linked? Anyway, this tooth is just reminding us of how fast he is growing!

Along the lines of how fast Vince is growing, I got a shot of him having a meal in his high chair for the first time last night. We tried putting the tray on but his little head barely went over the top and he couldn't see, so we ended up just feeding him without it. Thanks Grandma for the Santa hat!

Getting into the Christmas Spirit!

Getting into the spirit of Christmas, our household got together to create a Christmas Dance to share with everyone! click on the link below to view, and Merry Christmas!

Silvestro Christmas Dance

6 Month Visit... and Other Updates

Today Vince is 6 months old. It's hard to believe it's been half a year since my stint in the hospital... when we welcomed Vincent into the world. To see his latest Stats of height, weight, etc. then take a look at the sidebar. He's managed to move up in the height percentile, move a bit down in the weight percentile... but his head has remained bigger than average at the 61st percentile. I hope it's his Daddy's MIT brain he's got in there!!

Of the other happenings since my last post, perhaps the biggest one is that Vince started daycare last week! I'm pretty sure it was harder on me than it was on him... I pictured him in a corner of the infant room crying and not being held by anyone while hoards of other children are running around and occasionally trampling him. Of course that's not what I saw in reality. Vince's teachers have grown to love him already in two weeks, and he's even starting to notice the other babies in the room. Mike has the job of taking him and picking him up each day because it's so close to his work. Here's a picture of them getting ready to brave the cold weather to walk to the train one morning:



With our Christmas tree finally up, my friend Kathryn and I thought it would be fun to get a photo shoot of our boys in front of the tree. The hard part was not only trying to get them to smile, but trying to get them to smile at the SAME TIME! Here's the best we could get with both of them:

Vince's Big Shoot

We took Vince to a portrait studio on Sunday to have some pictures taken before the holidays. Here's a couple of our favorites. You can click on the link below to see the entire album.

From Vince: December 2008

Santa!

On the way home from my parent's house this weekend, we stopped at the Natick Mall to get a photo with Santa. We figured the line would be relatively short on a Monday morning, and the mall was only 5 minutes out of our way. Here's Vince's first photo with Santa:

Vince looks pretty happy, but Santa, not so much. That's understandable, since Vince had a handful of Santa's beard 30 seconds before this picture was taken (FYI Santa's beard was very real.. not your garden variety fake one).