Incoming...Vegas get-away

We got in late Tues. So, we just went to our hotel to get situated this night. Ready for what would be a FULL week!

Here's Roc probably going off on someone. Let's just say it was bedtime!

This pics are a little out of order. But, here is Lizzy, Roc, and Lil' Frank messin' around at our sleeping quarters.

Here we are pictured with Marina...

I don't know why, but now it's fun to jump on our "little" nephews. We want to make sure they know how excited we are to see them!

Yay! We made it. I just want to say Thank You to Lizzy for coming with us. She kept me company...we all know my hubby was glued to whatever the whole time we were traveling. Stay tuned for day #2!

Precious Moments

My Nana was recently put in a home. She has demintia and shouldn't be living by herself anymore. We went to welcome her in a couple of weeks ago. She read to Amber and Gigi. They had a great time! The girls sang for her. Just simply listening to the banter was happiness. I just couldn't help but think that these are some of those last precious moments that the children will look back on and remember.

A Thing of Beauty!

For those who know me well. Know that this is like Christmas morn to me. : ) I am completely in love with organization. If I could do it for a living, I would be in heaven! This Sat. Rocco with help from his brothers completed the kids closets. They surprised me by doing all 3! You can see we already purged "stuff". I wanted to keep it simple. That way the kids don't get confused. But, now I can have them clean and things actually have a place to go. Thanks so much fellas for hookin' a sista up!

Happy Bday Tiffie!

I'm sure this looks out of post. But, we traveled to Aiken on Sun. for Tiff's bday. Here's Gi posing with Papi.



Tiff and I went to Crack Barrell for her bday. We both looked at the menu and decided that we both wanted Chick n dumplings. But we didn't want a boat load of veggies. The waiter said that we could have the kids meal which comes with none. We both got a good laugh at how pathetic we are. Here's a pic of our tan meal!!

The Birthday Girl getting her raspberry lemonade on.

Jonah's 7th Birthday Part 1

These come in no particular order. Jonah wanted to have a campout. We did it in the house, due to cold weather. But, we did have a fire outside to make it authentic. We ended up with 8 boys coming. It sure was fun watching 10 little boys running around the house crazy. It was the most successful and not stressful birthday party yet...which is sad! I guess what made it so great was being able to see that every child was having a blast!

Super Mario Bros. on the Wii was a hit.

Glow sticks from the goodie bags were a hit. These guys were actually in the pitch dark doing this.

Blowing out the candles. What you can't tell is that we actually didn't do cake/ice cream until 10:00 at night. They were just steady eating sugar up until then. I thought we were going to be eating it for breakfast!

Everyone lined up in the boys room. I could get them all in the same pic, so the next one is the other side.

Santa pays a visit

Trying to convince Giana that Santa's alright. Check out his jingle bells!

Here's how it all went down. But, it made for cute pictures!

All business as usual, Ethan was giving Santa an example of what Legos look like. Santa told him to work hard in school and brush his teeth. I swear he came up with that on his own!

A shout out to Naomi for taking these pics. Such a cute pic of Jonah!

Christmas Morn 2009

Can I just say that this was the 2nd year in a row that the kids slept in?! Christmas morning they've been sleeping in later than any other day. Love it. We had a wonderful Christmas full of the true meaning. We were blessed to be in a position to extend our Savior's love to those around us. This is something that is very important, and we want our kids to learn. I hate that we didn't get any pictures (note to self...next big purchase-camera) of our new tradition. But, I did want to mention it so that the kids know when we started it. We were inspired this year to give the children each a gift to help them through the year with their spiritual growth. We will do this on Christmas Eve mornings. It was a great chance for us to get to talk about what is important in this season, and to arm our children with REAL gifts. That being said, here's the kids opening their toys!!

Here is Ethan on Christmas morn.


Ambie was pretty thrilled to get this!

Jonah's face makes me laugh. Such a rough and tumble boy!

Giana is getting so big! She enjoyed opening little presents.

Giana and Jonah in their Christmas p.j.s

Ethan and Amber in their new p.j.s as well.