Christmas Eve

Zoë and Daddy looking full with the Christmas Spirit

This year we spent Christmas at our house, which is a first for us. It was nice to wake up in our own home, and have presents under the tree, and have Vince wake up and discover the amazing surprises that he found in our living room!

First, there was Christmas Eve. I've become used to the amazing feasts that Mike's mother puts out on Christmas Eve, involving Italian traditions of fishes and pastas. This year we were able to continue the tradition in a different way, as we were invited to our friends Danielle and Kevin's house, where they were working hard to make the traditional Italian meals of Christmas Eve. We brought over the baccala casserole, and in exchange were able to dine on calamari, mussels marinara, tilapia, and some shrimp cocktail, among other amazing dishes. Yum! Wow was it all so good. Can't forget the mulled wine which I took a huge part in trying to help finish.

Danielle's mom hard at work

And after all of that, there was a home made rum cake as it was Danielle's father's birthday! This cake had been made the day before so it could sit in the rum/sugar mixture for 24hrs and get soaked in the juices. IT WAS AMAZING.

of course Vince and Max wanted nothing to do with the wonderful food set out before us, so..... they made a gingerbread house instead.


and ate candy....

Max loves his little Zoë

Some more Christmas Eve Lovin....

We all had planned on going to Church together after dinner, but with all the food (and esp. wine)... we never made it to that intention. We did however, rally ourselves to get to another family party that was going on. Kevin is the youngest of 7 children, and every Christmas Eve all of his siblings get together with their kids at his mother's house. He assured us it would be as loud and chaotic as we may imagine. It didn't take much convincing to get us to go over to his mom's house, and as we entered the door I was handed a peppermint candy cane martini drink of some sort. I knew it was going to be a good night. Everyone was so welcoming, and having so much fun we all just got swept up in it. There were about 26 kids running around, soon they swallowed Vince and Zoë into their group. And after that super fun night, I've decided I don't want just 4 kids anymore... I want 7!! haha... Mike went straight for another drink when I announced that (just kidding honey!.... sort of).

Then we came home, and Vince and Zoë got to open a present, new Christmas pajamas!

Time to get ready for Santa, Vince left some cookies and carrots (can't forget about Rudolf)

And of course our other daughter Mary was also with us

Off to bed now! to be cont'd in the next post....

Clearing out the phone...

I finally got around to clearing photos off my phone. Some of the ones below are from a while ago, and some are more recent (yesterday). Enjoy!

This is how old some of the photos are! (Required pregnancy pic)

Here's Vince going to his last day at TSC Child Care Center. It was a pretty emotional day for me, since they were so good to him there.
Here's a pic from our dry-run of camping. We set up the tent in the back yard. I think this was the only time Vince sat in the tent. There rest of the time he ran around or jumped on me.
Here's a pic from when we actually went camping. That's dirt on his face, not a black eye!
Here's Matthew trying to teach Vince how to play guitar.
Vince really enjoyed this push pop!
Pumpkin picking...
Zoë!
Vince got in there on his own. He needed some help getting out.
Here's the first snowman Vince and I made. The snow was perfect for packing that day, and it only took a few minutes to put it together.

Just One Good Picture Please!

How many snaps does it take, until you get one good picture with Grandma......

1

2

3

4

Apparently more than 4. We're still trying....

Gingerbread House Time

Making a gingerbread house with a toddler. Good example of an oxymoron, because it doesn't happen when the house and decorations are edible and sweet. I thought we'd try to make one this morning, we got about half the roof done and ran out of decorations because most of them were in Vince's belly. At least we got a few windows and doors on the house!

Lovin on little sister

Edaville Festival of Lights

A few weekends ago we went to the Edaville Railroad to see the festival of lights. This was our first year to see the amazing spectacle of lights, and it may be our last year as well. Apparently the park is up for sale, which would close down the lights for good.

We brought our neighbor kids along as well as a Christmas present for them, and with the hopes that Vince would want to ride on the rides if he saw his buddies on them. Our idea worked! Vince had so much fun on the kiddie rides. Unfortunately in our fit of getting ready and running out the door, we forgot the camera. So here's a few bad ones with my phone.

He still doesn't want to sit on a horse on the merry go round... so he's sitting with Daddy here

Another great family shot, with a pissed off Vince

All the kids...

Looking like this, Zoë got lots of attention from people