Christmas Cheer

I have not yet found the time to do any "real" Christmas baking.  I do not know if it is the three kids, the full time job, grad school, etc., but I vow that I will, someday, make beautiful cookie plates like my mom did when I was growing up.  That said, we did a little Cristmas "dunking" this year of pretzel sticks and Oreos.  I thought that this again would be a fun filled experience complete with Christmas music playing in the background, but the kids had other ideas.  They showed some interest early on, but soon were on to other things and I was left to finish the activities.  The treats were delicious and everyone loved them...including the kids.  Enjoy the pics!

December 15...St. Andrew's Christmas Program

...Another year, another wonderful and cute Christmas Program at our preschool.  This is the third year we have attended and the boys have been wise men, kings and angels.  Max will graduate from the preschool this spring and Bella will not be part of the program for another 2 years, so this show was a bit bittersweet!  Max was a wonderful king and sang and danced with all of his sweet little heart.  We have made great friends here and a lot of them will be leaving the school in the spring as their oldest child graduates on to Kindergarten.  Hopefully we will be able to keep up the wonderful friendships and make more as Bella climbs up the ranks!

December 4th...Our Christmas tree

Early (and I mean early) on Saturday morning we went out to get our tree...a wonderful family tradition...or so I thought.  We took the kids to Dunkin Donuts first and had hot cocoa and donuts.  Then off to the tree lot...at which we arrived before they opened and had to come back 30 minutes later.  I really did think that the kids would be into it this year, but it was cold and there was a lot of whining.  The boys started off in a good mood and slowly progressed to where they were beating on each other.  Bella was very cold and just wanted to be held...which makes for difficult tree picking .  It makes me laugh to think back on going out to get our tree when we were younger and I am sure we behaved the same way.  I still have fond memories of it and hopefully the kids will too (even though they were not too excited about it this year)!  We picked out a good one and it looks beautiful in the house...I could have a Christmas tree up year round!  'Tis the season!

 this is the one!

 up and ready to go home

 Mommy getting the lights just right

 it started to snow later in the day...where are we and I would like to go south!

 helping Mommy decorate

 Bella loves to pull the sparkly things off the tree..can you really blame her?

Enjoying the view!

Buddy...our elf on the shelf!

It is that time of year again...Buddy has made his way out and is busy watching the kids and reporting back to Santa!  He always seems to find such a creative place to hang out...

Mommy won this gingerbread house from a raffle at the grocery store...

please do not think that I have this kind of talent, patience...or time!

Daddy reading the elf on the shelf book for the first time this year...precious!

Bella loves looking for Buddy in the morning as well...

almost as much as she enjoys getting her advent calendar chocolate!

Thanksgiving (a couple weeks late...again)

We took to the road over Thanksgiving and headed up to Connecticut...Julian's home town.  The kids were as good as they could be cooped up in the car for the 13 hours (lots of traffic) that it took us to get there.  We were able to meet the newest member of the family, Baby Olive, Luke (Julian's brother) and Karen's new little girl.  All in all it was a good trip and it reminds us again how lucky and thankful we are to have such a wonderful extended family!   

Enjoying a trip to Rainforest cafe with the fam!

Bella with Aunt Christine (she really was not to thrilled with the place...

the gorillas just made too much noise)!

Papa Garro and the boys with little baby Olive

 

Max in is Tday wear that he made at school

Bella with Great Grandma Calabretta

Nonna, Luke and the girls

Noma Garro and Bella getting silly

Uncle Aris in his usual mood!

A turkey coma!

...It was a great trip!

Drew's Community (a month late in posting 11/16/2010)

Hi all...so, I am behind again!  I really thought after my class finished on December 1st that I was going to have all of this extra time....who was I kidding??  With all of the kids activities, Christmas shopping..oh yeah, and my full time job, I really donot have any extra time at all!  Anyways, Drew goes to a really neat Museums Magnet school where they get to go on all sorts of fun fields trips and do several community based projects where they really figure out how they fit into the world.  The Kindergarten classes theme was "around town" and each class was responsible for their own centers...bringing in supplies, building, painting, etc.  Drew's class picked a hockey rink, hospital, farm, and sweet shoppe (there may have been a couple others).  Since I work at the hospital, I was able to supply the class with all sorts of fun "Baby" medical supplies.  I had to work the night that they shower off their community, but Julian was able to go and hang out with Drew, who was so proud to show off his hard work!  I was a little uncertain of the magnet program at the start of the year, but they have blown me away with what they are teaching the kids about being a part of our wonderful world!