Friday, January 29, 2010

Trixie

I just had to post this. I am so glad that we have a cat. Trixie is always doing things that surprise us and make us laugh. Today for instance we found her sleeping in the bathroom sink. Actually in it! Her favorite place to sleep is the bathrooms, but she has never slept in the sink before! Another time she followed me into the bathroom while I took a shower and she jumped up on the tub. She was behind the shower curtain looking at me and then she slipped into the tub! It was so funny. Of course she got out of there pretty quickly after taking a very brief unwanted shower.

Here are some pictures of the new queen of our house:



One morning my parents looked out their window and saw Trixie chasing two squirrels up a tree! Later that afternoon we saw Trixie chasing some other squirrels in the pine trees. Look how high she was:

The Makeover: 1229 Continental Rd

Hi all! It's been awhile sine I (Mary Kate), have posted anything. School is keeping me very busy. I was going to post Cecilia's b-day, but my mom beat me to it. So scroll down to see her birthday post!

Now that our old house is completely done and on the market I thought I would post some pics of the before/after of the house since most of you, if not all of you have been to our old house. I did my best to match the before and after pictures but they are not the exact same angle.

So here goes:








I don't have before pictures of these pics so I just put them together:





When us kids first saw the old house finished, we all wanted to know why it wasn't so nice when we lived there! Please keep praying that it gets sold to the right people soon!

(Also, I promise to do the same thing for our new house, the one we live in, soon!)

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Happy 12th Birthday, Cecilia!

On January 7th we celebrated 12 years of Cecilia's life.



I couldn't resist adding this one where Ben is munching the horse's carrot.









After all the guests had left, these two crashed on Daddy's lap.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Our Christmas

(Once again, this is Teresa - Mary Kate is busy writing a paper on Plato's "Republic", starting to read Aristotle, cramming for an Algebra test, translating long Spanish and Latin sentences, and I don't know what else. If we waited for her to post, it would be Easter. :)

Christmas Eve arrives at last, and we decorate our house and put up our trees (we had two this year!)

Mary and Joseph finally get to Bethlehem (along with all our saints.) It's been a long Advent journey for them from Nazareth - across 2 mantels, down some steps, and across a bookcase. And it was a treacherous trip - St. Joseph and St. Maximilian lost their heads along the way (St. Joseph's was later reglued, St. Maximilian's is still MIA, thanks to Benny), Mary and St. Cecilia each lost a hand) - Yikes!





Christmas Eve dinner by candlelight. Somewhere along the way we developed a somewhat odd tradition of eating Chinese on Christmas Eve - on china, with wine and sparkling cider in wine glasses. What can I say?



All the York Anthony's and Grammy at the 9pm Christmas Eve mass. Despite how awake he looks in this picture, Max had been snoring in the pew during the pre-mass music prelude, much to the amusement of the couple in front of us.

Christmas Morning. Gosh, even now I can remember my own excitement as a kid, that I think all my siblings share, of coming down in the early morning hours and seeing the pile of presents under the tree. Is there any better childhood memory??!


Grandad and Gail sent cold hard cash to the older ones. Can you tell if it was well received? :)

Grammy's favorite gift? Pure Hershey's chocolate!!

Trixie let us know when she wanted back in on the action.

Ben is dreaming of future snow and sledding adventures.

Rosie's favorite gift - Cinderella's Castle.

The boys get an Egyptian Pyramid. I was quickly informed later that afternoon, they wanted the accessories - have to wait until next Christmas, boys.



The kids all love getting each other gifts as well. The fun whispering, secrets passed back and forth, the wrapping all Advent - all leading up to the thrill on Christmas morning of giving their gifts to each other - it's one of my favorite parts as a Mom of Christmas.

Max opened this up and declared "diapers?!" (Actually it was Rescue Heroes.)


Among Ben's favorite gifts - a foam sword. All gift opening paused for a bit while he practiced wielding it.




The post opening hush...
Cecilia contemplates which movie to watch first - Barbie and the Three Musketeers or Spiderman I. It was a tough choice, but have no fear, she has since watched both multiple times.

The boys immediately got on Club Penguin with their new membership cards.

Rosie and her castle.

Ben gets a battery powered Thomas (that I've already changed the battery on three times.)


Christmas breakfast - another Anthony tradition, Eggs Benedict and pear halves with a red and green cherry in their middles.

We added a new tradition to our breakfast - English crackers, hence all of our paper crowns, and cute little British jokes we told each other over breakfast (some of which made no sense to those of us who live on this side of the Pond.)

The afternoon brought Grandma, Papa and Beth, and more presents and laughter. The evening added Brian and Jackie and kids, a turkey dinner, and fun Christmas games. It was a beautiful beginning to our Christmas season.