Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!!! We had a wonderful 1st day of the Christmas season with family, fun gifts, and yummy food.

Here is the tree on Christmas morning...

I'm quite sure that I had the ONLY children in the world who had to be awaken on Christmas morning!!! I think Matteo woke up on his own by 7:30, but we had to wake the others around 7:45!

Ready for the madness to begin!

Elena figured out present-opening pretty quickly :)

Maria got everyone in our family a statue. Here is Cati with the "Our Lady of Fatima" statue that she received from Maria.

Maria got some new shoes...

Elena got a new baby doll. She absolutely LOVES babies and notices them anywhere she sees them. We just hopes she loves them as much in 6-months when her baby brother/sister arrives!

Some new books...

I love this...showing off one present (a new game) while simultaneously starting on the next present!
This is Christmas morning multi-tasking :)

Pooh characters for Chiara...

New books for Maria...

A new book for Elena with felt pieces - great book to bring to Mass!

Some titanium earrings for Cati...The only thing Cati actually asked for for Christmas was to have her ears re-pierced. If you remember, we had to let her 1st piercings almost a year ago close up due to metal allergies. More on this story later :)

A new purse for Cati - Maria also got one.

Keva planks for Matteo...The kids have really been enjoying these since we returned home to PA!

A sewing book...

Elena enjoying a present with Aunt Jess...

The girls with their new American girl doll horses.

Babies will always enjoy the boxes on Christmas morning the best!

Believe it or not, we had a white Christmas in GEORGIA!!

Soon after we got up that morning it started to snow...

Within a few hours it looked like this!!

It was exciting to have a white Christmas in GA, but the excitement wore off quickly the next morning for Dany as he had to clear the snow off the van just as he would if he was in PA. We don't really travel 600+ miles SOUTH for this kind of weather :)

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we got to spend a lot of time with family...


Aunt Jess...




Aunt Ginny...


Uncle Rob... (Lots of book reading!!)

Who's the cutest little Santa? :)

Dressed up for Christmas Eve Mass...

We forgot to bring the camera to church, but my brother did take a picture of the kids with his phone. I just don't have a copy of these pictures yet :) Hopefully, I'll remember to get them from Dany soon (I'm pretty sure he has a copy).

After Mass, we had our usual Christmas Eve dinner at my grandmother's house.

You can see that Matteo got a black eye to match Ma's :) He had an accidental run-in with his younger sister's head.

More time with Aunt Jess - if you can find her under all those kids!

Christmas Eve hugs with Ma :)

Now onto Christmas morning!

Christmas Cookies with Aunt Pamela

Like everyone else, the Christmas season has been busy around here. I'm way behind on blog posts. I have many, many pictures to post, and hopefully, I'll catch up over the next week.

First of all, I have pictures of Christmas cookie-making with Aunt Pamela on the Tuesday before Christmas.

Firs the kids opened their Christmas gifts from Aunt Pamela - aprons! Very appropriate :)



On to the cookie-making!

We made a wonderful mess and had lots of fun!! Thanks, Aunt Pamela for a wonderful day!

Time with Ma

During our first week in GA, we got to see my grandmother almost everyday. My mother often goes to her house after work to bring her here for supper. Seeing the happiness that the kids bring her reminds us why we make the long trip from PA.

*My grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, recently had a fall, and a medication that she takes makes her bruise very easily, which is why her face is so bruised. She has improved much over the last week, and seeing the kids has helped her along!

Gingerbread House

This weekend the kids and Grandma made a Gingerbread house.

Here is the final creation!

Our Jesse Tree

During Advent we have been making ornaments for a Jesse tree. A Jesse tree and it's ornaments are a way to follow the story of salvation history from the creation of the world through the birth of Christ. Everyday we have learned another part of the story (through Holy Hero's Advent Adventure) and have made an ornament for our tree. The ornaments have a symbol representing a person or event.

Last Advent we made paper ornaments and taped them on a paper tree we made. This year our good friends, the Rosamonds, sent us some nice wood pieces that they cut from a birch log, and we have painted some nice ornaments that we can use year after year. We got a 3 foot tree to hang them on.

Here are some of the ornaments we made. We've added to them as the weeks have passed. We weren't able to bring the tree to GA, but we did bring the ornaments and added them to Grandma's tree so that we can continue the story through the last week of Advent.

We hope you have all had a blessed Advent preparing for the joys of the Christmas season!!