Moving On

So I posted about Christmas Eve, now I will finally post about Christmas day...

Seth's #1 Santa request

Roland's BIG surprise... Rock Band

My Gram and Gramp bought Seth the Handy Manny tool truck, he was so excited!

Seth even got some Diego puzzles from my AuntA special gift for our little girl

My Gram opening Seth's newest portrait

The traditional cousins + Seth yearly pic

It was a busy day filled with family and wonderful memories. Seth really got into the whole idea of Christmas and it was fun to watch him open gifts and get so excited. I was excited to get the house back in order and get the tree down. I have never taken the tree down the day after Christmas before, but this year it was down by 9am on Friday morning and the house was dusted, vacuumed and organized by nap time!

Christmas Eve Part 2

After mass and Aunt Virginia's we came home and watched Christmas movies and got ready for Santa. We watched Frosty first and then a tiny bit of The Grinch. WRONG MOVE! Seth now thinks that The Grinch is Santa and was scared out of his wits to go to bed that evening. It was a whole ordeal that I think we are over, but it was interesting to say the least.

Getting the cookies and carrots ready for Santa and the reindeer

The whole spread including cookies, carrots, milk, water and Santa's note

The proud provider of the FEAST!

By the time morning came, Seth was too excited by all of his gifts to remember what he had been scared of so hopefully we dodged a bullet, but we will NEVER let him watch The Grinch again. See...you learn something new everyday!

Back it up...

All of the Christmas festivities are over, but I still have tons and tons of good pictures and memories to share with you all so I will try and back up a few days each day and post about our adventures. Today's pictures are of Christmas Eve. We thought we would try the 4pm mass so that we wouldn't have to rush the rest of the evening. Well, we were in for quite a surprise. We were told that 4pm mass was very popular and to get there early so we were literally on the church grounds at 3:33pm and there wasn't a parking space to be had ANYWHERE and by the looks of all of the cars you would have thought a major rock band was performing. It gets worse... we walk into church to see that every single seat is taken, extra chairs are taken and there is barely any room to even stand, BUT stand is what we did. I brought along reinforcements for Seth and he sat on the floor and read books and never made a peep. By the end of the hour standing in heels, I was dying! Right after communion we decided to head right out and it is a good thing we did. Our car was parked so far away we just made it in time for a serious downpour. We only suffered minimum wetness, but my Mom, who waited the extra five or so minutes to leave church, got totally drenched.

Our handsome little guy right before we went to church

My boys totally color coordinated and it wasn't even planned

Seth and Jacob at church right before mass started

Family Christmas picture at Aunt Virginia's

All smiles with Grandma and Poppy

Cookie Day

Yesterday morning we had our traditional cookie day and we baked up a storm. Seth was much more into it this year and he really helped out a lot!

Mixing

Picking the perfect cookie cutter

Frosting and decorating the sugar cookies

Making pretzel candies

I was soooooooooooo beat after three and a half hours of cookie fun. I took the most sound nap of my life!

1st Christmas Celebration

On Sunday we started the holiday week off with a bang by having The Charlton's Christmas. Seth was super excited to open presents and could hardly contain himself. He was especially excited to get a keyboard (which he asked Santa for) and some new Diego movies among many other items. We had a great dinner, opened presents and then just hung out. It was a great evening!

Seth LOVES to say grace at dinner time and all ears were on him on Sunday

New books

He was attached to Aunt Sheryl for the entire weekend

His favorite gift so far!

Checking out his new keyboard from Aunt Sheryl & Uncle Eric

He even had a special Seth cookie

It was so great to celebrate with Ro's family early. Seth had been having a blast playing with his new toys before more come in this week. Thank you Bonnie & Ro, Sheryl & Eric for a great day!

What the Holidays Are All About

Food, family and friends are what the holidays are made of and we have kicked off our holiday week the right way! Friday night we had our close friends The Castana's for dinner. They will be travelling home to PA for the holidays and then to FL for a special vacation. Lee just got home last month after being deployed for 15 months so they are in celebratory mode all around as they should be. So since they will be gone for 3 weeks we wanted to make sure we spent some time with them. You would have thought that Seth and Jacob were on crack they had so much fun and were so hyper with each other.

Anxiously waiting for their turn to play Wii

Chilling out towards the end of the night

Saturday night we kept the festivities going and had more food and fun with Sheryl and Eric who we haven't seen since August. Seth was so excited ALL day long. All he kept asking was when Aunt Sheryl was coming over. He was on his BEST BEST behavior and then slept until 7:45am this morning! YIPPEEE!

Guitar Hero with Aunt Sheryl, Seth was the backup singer!Enjoying the new roomWatching Home Alone with the familySnuggling with Uncle Eric

We had a great night with the family and we even put Seth's big Christmas present together once Seth went to bed. Another item checked off my master list of things to do. Thanks Sheryl for doing most of the work! Today we are headed to The Charlton's for our Christmas with all of them! More pics to come!

IT IS DONE!

Our home improvement project is done done done! All we have left to do is hang the mailbox, the house numbers, the flag holder and the hose holder and it will be completely and utterly DONE! We couldn't be more pleased and our dream has now been full filled. I still sit in the new room in amazement that we actually made it a reality. We now have the home of our dreams!

Front view with new front windows

Driveway side

Neighbors side with new side window

Back with our new mini deck

I didn't tromp through the snow to get the other side of the backyard yet, but I will during vacation.

In other news, my friend Sarah is at the hospital at I type getting ready to have her baby today, hopefully. I'm getting hourly updates and we hope to be able to visit baby Brady later tonight or tomorrow.

Memories

This is Seth on the phone with Santa (aka Papa Charlton undercover!) Notice the intense smile and joy on his face as he tells Santa once again that he would like... drums, a guitar, a trumphet and a piano for Christmas. Santa calls about once a week to check in and make sure that Seth is being a good boy. What the heck are we going to do after Christmas is over and we have nothing to hold over his head?

Count Your Blessings

We have had a couple of tragedies with friends and co-workers over the past 6 days and it has led me to really count my blessings. When I'm sore due to pregnancy or Seth is having an off day it is not the end of the world and we can get through anything as a family. I really think twice before I go and complain about anything because I am a very lucky woman with a great life! Tis' the season to be jolly and I'm sticking to it!

I bet we made you smile!

Santa all Around

Seth LOVES Santa so anytime we see him anywhere he LOVES getting his picture taken with him. There is no fear in him at all!

At Walmart

At the Rotary Children's Party

Our thoughts go out to some special friends today, you know who you are and you know that we are here whenever you need us!

Looking Back...

I got to looking at some old picture files in my classroom today and stumbled across Seth's 1st two holiday commercials and they brought a little tear to my eye. I can't believe that he is almost 3 years old and that this is the 3rd time he has done this. I told Tom that he isn't allowed to retire because we will miss this tradition so much when he does.

Seth at the age 11 months!
Seth at the age 23 months!

The post below this will show this years commercial still!

Next year his little sister will join him for her 1st debut!

Our TV Star

Just a still of Seth's 2008 Commercial Debut!

You Buy, I'll Make..

Last week I had a cookbook on my desk opened to a page of cookies. I was going to photocopy it to make at home during the holidays. My last class of the day has some wonderful 5th graders in it and since they are also nosey they saw the cookbook and asked me if I was making the cookies for them. I said, well, if you bring in the ingredients I will make you the cookies and bring them to school for you to eat. I didn't really take them seriously, but low and behold, they all brought in the ingredients and I was baking my brains out on Thursday night. They were more than thrilled. Here are some of the pics.

Rotary Children's Party

On Saturday Roland worked the Rotary Children's Christmas Party and he asked Seth and I to join him. They had the steel drums play, a magician, kid food and presents. Seth LOVED watching the steel drums since music is his passion right now. Seth was the most excited to see Santa. He has no fear of the man this year and he LOVES any moment with any Santa.Seth was so tired from all of the holiday festivities that he took a super nap after all of this fun.