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!