Christmas fun

We had another wonderful Christmas this year. I was all prepared this year to fully decorate right after Thanksgiving. Since we had the house this year, I decided to go all out. I even did two Christmas trees.The first tree is real and is decorated in traditional red and gold, with all our family ornaments on it. The train went under this one as well. For the record...I did not knock it over once this year ha ha.

The second tree (which is artificial) is my long-awaited Martha Stewart tree. I love the family tree, with its mishmosh of ornaments but I have always wanted one of those theme trees. I did it in all silvers, blues, and a small splash of green with lots of ribbon and white lights.
The blue and silver theme continued in the backside of the house
And the stockings were hung in the front of the house. Even Molly got a stocking this year.

We finished the celebration at home and then made the trek to Horseheads for Christmas.
There we saw our families and had many holiday celebrations.
The kids said their prayers on Christmas Eve
And of course there was lots of silliness
This is what happens when you get family together with way too much sugar.
Christmas morning came and we all opened presents.
Gracie got a new babydoll
Natalie fainted from all the excitement.
And there was lots of eating. Here Nolan demonstrates that proper way to eat a bowl of vanilla ice cream.
Yummy!
Merry Christmas to all!

Here's a cute video of the kids making Christmas cookies. As a disclaimer....Kendall is not drinking beer in the video. We couldn't find a rolling pin and a Coors Light can was the next best thing I could find. Enjoy!

The Man Room

I know these pictures are past due, but I am just about done with my Man Room. I have finished the majority of the work such as painting, decorating and emptying boxes. I still have more I need to do to the Man Room, but that will come down the road.

And I did not want to bore everyone with all the little details of the room. Any Yankees fan would appreciate the smaller things, but I will leave that for you see when you come to visit and show it to you in person.

So with out further ado, may I present to you the.....The Man Room!

This photo is looking up the stairs to the Man Room from the upstairs hallway. Notice how the stairs are Yankee Blue. The walls are Yankee Gray. (Teresa did a great job picking out the colors.)

This photo is from the landing looking in to the Man Room.

This photo is looking back down the stairs to give you a better sense of the color scheme.

This photo shows the back end of the Man Room. You can see that there is a door that leads to a crawl space that is ideal for storage. This pile of boxes still needs to be sorted through and then they, along with the stuffed pigs, will be put in the storage area in order to make room for all my Air Jordan's (Teresa can't wait for them to be moved out of the 3rd bedroom, she thinks they are an eye sore). To the right you can see the little make shift closet I made in the nook. This contains all my sports jersey's along with many baseball hats.

This photo is the front of the Man Room, complete with windows that over look the front of the house.

Another angle of the front of the Man Room. Behind the couch, which is difficult to see, there is another small door that allows for more storage.

Busy Busy!

Hello all! We have been very busy lately and that's why the posts have been a little less frequent. Dennis has been working about 60 hours a week and I've been putting in the extra hours at work trying to iron out my new managerial role. But don't worry, we've managed to have some fun as well. Here's the update...

We had visitors! My sister Dani came to visit for a great weekend. We went shopping, out to eat, and did lots of chatting. Here she models her new crocheted ballet slippers.

Tahera and Riz also came up the next weekend. Again, lots of eating and catching up. They moved down to Pittsburgh in June, and we have really missed having our friends around. You will also notice Miss T's cute lil baby bump that is forming! Congrats to you both on the baby boy!

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. Dennis and I did the quiet Turkey Day for two again.
Molly approved of the turkey too!

We went home the weekend after Thanksgiving to visit family (and give them bunny ears in pictures.)

We got some more good news that weekend, as Gracie was wearing a shirt that read, "I'm a big sister!" We are very excited to now be an aunt and uncle times 5 (or 6 if you count honorary aunt and uncle to Riz and Tahera!) Pretty crazy! Gracie was so excited that she had to take a nap.

It's officially winter now! We got a little snow. Just a few inches, but enough that we had to shovel. (And by we, I mean Dennis) I'm taking this picture from the door in my PJ's. Molly approved of the snow too!

Get Well Soon!....everyone

As we have been busy in Buffalo, our families have been busy as well, but with health related issues.

So we would like to send out the following "Get Well Soon" wishes to"

• Dennis's dad, who had surgery on his toe to help prevent a diabetic blister from coming back.
• Teresa's mom, who had surgery on her toe due to being dislocated from a prior surgery.
• Dennis's niece, Gracie, that has the staph infection MRSA.
• And last but by all means not least, Dennis's grandma who is recovering from triple-bypass surgery in Lancaster, PA, where she was on vacation. Come home to the 'Heads soon Gram!

Get well soon everyone!

Dennis and Teresa's 5th Annual Halloween Party

This year we hosted our 5th Annual Halloween Party. It is hard to believe we have been doing this for five years. Now that we have a house, I found that I was buying decorations on a daily basis.

We had a great time at our party. The costumes are getting better every year. Teresa was "Hulk Hogan" and I simply dressed in a black robe and wore a skeleton mask that had red illuminating eyes.

This year's "Best Costume" was very close, but Emily "pushed out" the win as a "Whoopie Cushion."Here are some pictures from the party.

Teresa's work crew:

Flavor Flav and escort:

Tag Team Wrestlers, but were no match for Hulkamania:

And yes, even Molly had a costume on, but was scared to death of all the decorations in the house, especially those that move and made noises:

This year, I was able to be home and hand out candy on Halloween night, while Teresa was working. Since we have now live in a neighborhood, I expected a lot trick-or-treaters. I decided to have fun with all them......

I dressed up in my costume from the Halloween party and sat in a chair on the front porch. I set the bowl of candy on my lap and was motionless until some went to help themselves to treats, little did they know they were in for a trick. You would be surprised at how many thought I was a fake person. It was very amusing to listen as trick-or-treaters debated whether or not I was real.

This was the reaction I mainly got once I revealed that I was indeed a 'real person.' One group, that were high school aged kids, ran off the porch and down the street screaming.

Boy, do I love Halloween!

We have been busy!

I know it has been a while since we have updated our blog, so be prepared for some catching up.

With winter approaching we have been "winterizing" the house. We have closed the pool, packed up the deck furniture, have new basement windows coming from the Buffalo Glass Block Company this week and getting our fireplaces inspected in a few weeks. Winter is knocking on the door. Maybe it will not be that bad of winter.....?

Another project that we did, well I did, but let Teresa take a hit at, was removing the sidewalk that lead to our front porch from the street.
I have been wanting to do this since we moved in, but just never got to it. Well one day after getting home from work I had plenty of drive to get rid of the sidewalk. Now if only the grass would grow a little quicker.

By popular demand...puppy pictures!

Hope you're up to date on your dental cleaning...because you're about to get a sweet ooey-gooey batch of adorable puppy pictures. Since we have no kids, poor Miss Molly has had to deal with our constant picture snapping. She is now 6 months old and has grown quite a bit. She's still petite, weighing in around 25 lbs or so, but she has lot of energy. This is my personal favorite picture. I took it right at sunrise, as she loves to sit in whatever sunspot she can find in the room.

Molly's happy face

Her sad face...it's a killer isn't it?

Playing peek-a boo behind the curtain.
Meeting new friends
Trying on her costume for Halloween. he he he

Being a first-time dog owner has been an experience. There's been a little frustration from time to time, but I must say that it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Molly is a very good girl. She only goes potty outside, rarely ever barks, and besides the razor incident, doesn't get into things that aren't hers. She is alot of fun and she's definitely part of our family.

Happy Anniversary!

Well, we officially made it through our first year of marriage. Many of you have been reading the blog through the first year and know that it's been a busy one. To celebrate our anniversary we took a weekend trip to Niagara on the Lake in Ontario. It is actually very close to us here in Buffalo, but it seems like a world away.

We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast, which was a new experience for the both of us. This town has tons of them. You'd be hard pressed to find a Holiday Inn anywhere here. It was very fun, and the food was fantastic. We're already talking about going back. Niagara is well known for its many wineries. We went to a few of them and perfected our wine tasting skills. This was Dennis's first time at a winery and he had a great time.The air in the whole town smelled wonderful and sweet like grapes. We ate lots of food of course. We frequented a place called the Irish Harp, which had yummy lobster bisque soup. We also went to a great Italian place for dinner one night.We went shopping

Walked around town...and even had side-by side massages! That was wonderful.We had our official anniversary celebration back at the room. We had champagne, exchanged gifts, and had our frozen cake top. We were both wondering how a year old cake would taste. It wasn't too bad actually, although neither of us tried it on our actual wedding day (makes it a little hard for comparison!)

Our anniversary was a great time, as was our first year of marriage. We are no longer newlyweds now, and can settle into being the old married couple that we are starting to be.