Q: What's Better Than a New Coffee Table?

A: The box it came in!

Thank you, Overstock.com, for days of entertainment in the dead of winter!

Ringing in 2014

Who's ready for 2014?!

This guy!

Since New Year's Eve was the last night of our Illinois family's visit, we decided to throw a little party to ring in the new year with our family and friends.  We were especially excited to have the NJ crew come hang out with us for dinner and some fun before they continued on to York for the rest of the weekend.  It was little G's first New Year's!

Uncle Tim, Genevieve, and Anthony

It took Colin and Joergen approximately 7 seconds to sneak away from the party and have one of their own upstairs:

Downstairs, we were just glad to have figured out how to heat the sun porch to have some extra space!  The "big kids" were so cute with their excitement about (and carefully planned outfits for) the night.  A few days earlier, Aidan was my #1 shopping buddy, helping me buy all kinds of fun stuff for the party - including a stylin' fedora and his own personal (plastic) champagne flute.  Everyone pitched in to help clean, pick up food, entertain the boys, and so on.  I wish I had a team like this before every party!

Such a festive crew <3 p="">

Oh, the noise makers... and these two wasted no opportunity to sound them loudly!

The problem with having a noise maker in each hand is only having one mouth!

As the night went on, our guests trickled out and Joergen fell asleep, leaving just 9 of us for the arrival of 2014.

I couldn't believe Liam made it to the new year!  He was so determined to stay up with the "big kids", and that was one resolution he certainly kept.

Aidan and Liam in the final minutes of 2013

 Let the countdown begin!

Happy New Year!!  After a toast and a kiss, Liam took this picture of us (not bad, buddy!):

And when we finally, finally got the kids off to bed, the four of us had one last celebratory toast to welcome the new year.  A few short hours later, our Illinois family piled back in their van and started the long drive home.  We were so sad to say goodbye but so grateful we had that time together!

Wishing all of our family and friends happiness and many blessings in 2014!

Christmas with our IL Family

A couple of days after Christmas, we got some visitors!

We loved having a house full of family, laughter, and fun at the holidays. Liam and Joergen absolutely adore their cousins (as do we!), and we couldn't have asked for better week with everyone together.

We had to get a little creative with sleeping arrangements and decided to put the girls (plus Joergen) in Liam and Joergen's room, while Liam and Aidan slept on the futon in the office.  It didn't take long for this sign to show up on the office door:

The morning after they arrived, we had a mini-repeat of Christmas morning to exchange gifts with everyone.  Thank goodness for Papa and his trusty pocketknife to open the tricky packaging on the boys' new toys!

Some of their favorites were Joergen's new Hess truck (they just keep getting cooler and cooler!)...

their awesome new ND blanket from Grandma (which is now always in one of their beds at night)...

and the gift-- Daddy's new train set.  I don't know that I've seen him this excited about a Christmas present in, well, ever!

We can't thank Grandma and Papa enough for such a generous Christmas!

As for the rest of the week, we found plenty to do to occupy our time - and in fact, the week went by all too quickly!  Grandma and Papa treated everyone to a fun afternoon at Dave and Buster's for lunch and games:

Speaking of games, we played many at home, too.  Liam and Joergen loved having opponents for every game their little hearts desired.  (Uncle Tim and Aunt Jackie, this one was a hit!  Thanks for the very fun gift!)

We also had a few enthusiastic games of Disney's Scene It- and with this crowd, I'm pretty sure there was not a single Disney movie that had gone unseen!

We can't talk about all the games played that week without mentioning the other kinds of games that also got some play...

I love Liam's face in that picture, as he tried desperately to learn one of Abby's Pokemon games for the DS.  There is nothing he loves more than being one of the "big kids" - and Abby was one heck of a teacher!  Even Joergen got in on the video game action with some fun preschool games on Grandma's iPhone:

When not playing games, we had a lot of fun just hanging out together.

Can you tell these two are related?!

Monkey pile of cousins!

Early morning PJ time with Papa

Kisses for Grandma!

Enjoying the mild weather with a game of basketball

Their last night staying with us was New Year's Eve- but that warrants a post of its very own :)  Thank you a hundred times over to Grandma, Papa, Toni, Aidan, Abby, and Kate for a fantastic visit!  We love you and can't wait to see you again this summer.

Our 10th Anniversary

December 27, 2003

10 years...

9 trips to see the Irish...

8 Pocono vacations...

7 nieces and nephews (in these 10 years, anyway)...

6 Disney adventures (ok, so one was before we were married)...

5 job changes...

4 addresses...

3 cars...

2 amazing sons...

1 lucky wife.

November 19, 2013

Here's to the next 10!  XOXO

Home for Christmas

We did something for Christmas this year that we had never really done before... we stayed home!  With it being our first year in the new house, and with family plans lining up just so, we stayed put, played host, and enjoyed it!

Christmas Eve was just the four of us, so decided to brave the 8 pm Christmas Vigil at MDP with the boys.  I was singing that mass, and we thought it might be special to start the tradition of going to mass at bedtime on Christmas Eve.  All in all, they did okay.  I had a birds-eye view of the boys from the choir loft, and let's just say that by the homily, I knew it was time to divide and conquer: Liam spent the rest of mass "singing" with me upstairs while Joergen hung with Dad and the rest of the congregation below.

After mass, we quickly changed into pjs and went right to bed in the hopes that Santa would come...

I snuck downstairs in the middle of the night to take a peek, and sure enough- he did!

On Christmas morning, Dad and I heard the pitter-patter of little feet down the hall and into our bedroom, and then the awe-struck voice of little Liam: "He CAME!!  Santa was HERE!!

We then heard him run back down the hall to wake up Joergen.

L: "Joergen, Santa came.  You have to wake up!!"

J: "No.  I'm sleeping, Wee-am."

L: "But Joergen!  You have to wake up- you just have to!  SANTA was HERE- and he LEFT PRESENTS!"

And that pretty much did the trick.

Fast forward about 10 minutes...

Stocking loot!

After stockings, it was time to open presents.

For ME?!?!

Connect Four!  Thanks French family!

One of the best parts of this Christmas was that it was the boys' first time joining in the spirit of giving.  Nothing could top seeing their happiness and pride when they got to pick up a gift from under the tree and give it to someone else.  It was awesome.  

Liam was beaming about giving Dad a new Christmas sweater... for beer.

And this- my favorite gift of Christmas- was a pillow made from Liam's hands and footprint that he sewed himself at school (and that made me have "happy tears", the news of which Liam promptly shared with his entire class when he returned to school in January...):

His teacher sent us this pic the next day of his class holding their creations.  So. Much. Cute.

Joergen had also amazed me a few days before Christmas when he saw a Playmobil Christmas playset at Wegman's and said, "I want to buy this for Wee-am for Christmas!" (and proceeded to heave it into the shopping cart himself.)  How could I say no to that?

While waiting for Nana, Grandpa, and GG to arrive later that morning, who did we see out our kitchen window, scampering in their pajamas to Aunt Maryanne's house next door? 

It's Treesa! And Danielle! And Kwissy!  And Miss Doreen!  It was like a little family reunion with this crowd.  And as you can see, Joergen was still enthralled with the claw toy that Liam had gifted him earlier that morning.

Not long after, our York family arrived and it was time to get the party started!

GG and Nana

Grandpa and Dad

While the men drank their eggnog and the women chatted and made lunch, the boys got down to business with their special gift from Santa: walkie talkies!

During lunch, Nana unveiled my second-favorite gift of Christmas: haggis!  (Don't judge it 'til you've tried it!)  Liam and Joergen had never had it before, so Nana told them all about the tale of the haggis from GG and Great-Grandpa's trip to Scotland years ago.  I loved the look on Liam's face as he listened intently to the story.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding- and I know at least one little boy who seriously takes after his great-grandfather in his instant love for haggis.  Joergen not only polished off his own plate, but then proceeded to bounce from lap to lap around the table pilfering everyone else's, too!

Nom nom nom

After lunch, we exchanged gifts with Nana, Grandpa, and GG.

A Tonka truck book!

A dinosaur!

A backhoe!

A phone call from Erin!

One of the gifts we were most excited to give this year was actually from all of us- me, my siblings, my cousins, and all of our families went in together on hard-cover photo books for GG and our parents of our Brigantine vacation last summer.  Cousin Brian coordinated the book and did an absolutely incredible job!  It was so much fun watching Nana, Grandpa, and GG's faces as they went through their books on Christmas.

And then, young and old sat down to feast... on rare (Who) roast beast!

That was the first of many awesome celebrations over the holidays, and I couldn't imagine a better way to have spent it.  Merry Christmas, everyone!