The End Of Dec.

With most of the Christmas rush behind us, we have enjoyed the last few days immensely! I just threw in a bunch of misc. pictures of the end of our December! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!! (One night Daddy and the boys entertained us by wrestling in the living room! It was very funny to watch!)

Christmas 2008

We had an amazing Christmas! John Paul trumped us all by waking up at 4:30am but Cecilia came in a close second at 6:00am. At 8:30 we sat down in the living room and Ben opened his first present. He was so cute and so excited. We were all surprised by how well he unwrapped his gift. Rose of course wanted to open up every toy, the moment she unwrapped it, and since then, everywhere we go she brings her Cinderella cell phone and lipstick. I asked everyone what their favorite gifts were and Rose said her favorite gifts were, her play cell phone, nail polish, shiny lipstick and her plastic tea set. Max's favorite Christmas present was his stuffed polar bear named, Polar. (Santa gave him Polar). John Paul's favorite gift was the giant wooden castle that he and Max got. Cecilia's favorite Christmas gift was her porcelain doll, but she says that she LOVES everything else! My favorite Christmas gifts were my hair straightener, my bed set, and my CD player. Mom's favorite gifts were her chocolate and ipod. Daddy's favorite gift was his GPS, and Grammy's favorite gift was EVERYTHING!! (Oh and Benny really likes his teddy bear named, Checkers, his Elmo bike, and his wooden train!)

All the pictures except the last one, are of us opening gifts and thanking other family members. The last pic is of our traditional Christmas morning brunch: Eggs Benedict. Daddy makes the most delicious brunch of Eggs Benedict, (eggs and ham on English muffins with a cheese sauce poured on top!), with orange juice in wine glasses and pear halves with cherries! Ooh, it is so yummy!!!
After we opened all our presents, (which took three hours! No joke!) and ate our brunch, we went over to our Anthony grandparent's house and spent the rest of the day with them. And then on Friday we went to Aunt Eileen and Uncle Mark's house and we had so much fun! On Saturday Grammy and the "Anthony Ladies" went up to Elizabeth town for Ania's bridal shower. That was tons of fun as well!
So after all that we are relaxing and enjoying the end of the holidays and the beginning of 2009!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Christmas Eve

Max helping put our tree together!(Yes it is a fake tree)Grammy holding our nutcracker!Cecilia is excited!The HutchOur Christmas Table

Eating Chinese!All decked out for Mass

Dressed up for Mass!

The stockings and railing

Our Tree!!

Every year we decorate the house on Christmas Eve and it is always a really fun day! We end the day with Chinese and Christmas Eve Mass. And of course us kids always sing our special Christmas Eve dinner cheer:

Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah!
Tonight we eat Chinese!
Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah!
Besides it's Christmas Eve!
Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah!

It's so much fun,
We've just begun!
Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah!
OH YEAH!!!

So we had another successful Christmas Eve! (And a very fun one too!)

Our littlest elves!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Third Week Of Advent

With the third week of Advent comes our out door Christmas lights. We don't decorate the inside of our house until Christmas Eve, but we put up our out door lights sometime during the third week of advent. And then today we got some more snow. Not much but still sends our household into a frenzy of excitement!

Not The House

Well early this morning our Realtor called and told us someone else got the Victorian. We are all sad and disappointed, but we all trust that God has the right house for us and that just wasn't it! Please keep praying that we find the right house soon! (It is rather squishy in our currant house!)
Even though we are sad about not getting what seemed like the "perfect" house, we all are at peace knowing that this wasn't the right one for us. One other hard thing is that we really just wanted to know that we had a house. Now we have to start the search all over again!

Rocky Ridge

Every year one of the local parks called Rocky Ridge, sets up thousands of Christmas lights. We don't get to go every year but this year our good friends the McLain's won tickets and so we went with their family last night. We brought hot chocolate and Cecilia made chocolate chip cookies that we ate with the hot coca. There are several different buildings that you walk through in between the outdoor light scenes. One building had a miniture train set up. It had about three or four different trains, a slowly spinning Christmas tree and a small waterfall. Another building had Santa, Max was the only one that really wanted to see Santa so I stayed behind with him in line and he told Santa what he wanted for christmas, a miniture train set and a stuffed animal.
We had our hot chocolate and cookies in yet another building that had tables and food booths. Benny was on my mom's back and through out the whole thing he had this look on his face that said, "what is going on?" It was very funny. John Paul kept trying to screw off light bulbs and got very frusterated that none came off. Each building had a ton a Christmas trees that different groups decorated. (Like one year the homeschooling group decorated a tree). It was a really fun night despite the cold weather.