New Year's Eve

Our New Year's Eve was SO much fun! Dawn came up with the kids and stayed with us for a few days. We told the kids that there were only two rules...they were not allowed to go to bed that night and they were not allowed to eat dinner, snacks only! They were so excited! We had different rounds of hors devourers staring with chicken quesadillas, mozzarella sticks, then pigs in a blanket, potatoes skins...oh my gosh we had so much food and then came the cookies! We were all so surprised that the kids actually made it! Shortly after midnight they all went to bed, but we had such a great night full of food and fun games. Dawn and I promised each other that we would go to bed early since she had to leave at 9 to be home for work by 5...then came Sing Star. Um yeah, can't really remember when we went to bed; sometime around 3? Kristian was even in bed before us. Well, that's New Year's Eve for ya! Anyway, here are some pics...I wish I had more of the kids. We were too busy having fun!

Me and My Dawny Marie

Me and My Little Baby

Let the Poor Man Retire Already!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas Week

We had a very busy Christmas week. Kristian was able to take off, so we spent the whole week down in NY. Since Danielle, Billy, and Alex were going to spend their Christmas in FL this year, we hung out with them and celebrated on Monday night.

Here are some pics from that night:

Me, My Mom, and Sis

The Boys

The Other Boys

Tuesday night Kristian and I took the kids to see my father and Pat.

Yummy Taco Dip!

So Many Great Presents!

Kristian and Dad

Grandma Pat Always Gets the Best Cupcakes!

On Wednesday, we went to the Atlantis Aquarium in Riverhead. The place was really cool and the kids LOVED it! Thanks Nana and Pa! After the aquarium, we went out to eat at TGIF. It was really nice to have a relaxing Christmas Eve. The kids really needed the break since their schedules had been off all week!

On Christmas day, we woke up at Nana and Pa's house. After we opened presents, Merideth and Chris, Grandma and Jim, and Aunt Cathy, Derek and Shayla came over. It was nice to spend time with them. Around 4ish, we went to my mother's house in Blue Point. It was a really nice night! I actually met my brother's girlfriend, Molly, for the first time. She was really nice and if she can put up with my brother...just kidding. He's awesome and I am glad he found someone so nice.

Here are some pics:

T'was the Night Before Christmas

Christmas Morning

Handsome Boys

Gamma's House

Christmas at Home

(A shot of the tree the night before-not sure why the time stamp says 18th)

The Saturday before Christmas, we celebrated at home. Ryan was so excited when he saw all the presents under the tree. This is the first year that he really understood what presents are. As he opened his presents he said, "oh wow! this is great!" Even when Ryan opened a present that wasn't as exciting as the others, like the Curious George book, Ry said, "oooh, Curious George! Let's open another one...". Too funny! We decided to take our time, let them open each present and play with it. Then move on to the next. Ryan's favorite had to be the Geo-Trax train set. He's played it at Kyla's house and has always loved it. He also really liked the Shake and Go Speedway Crash-up thingy we got them; except it didn't go together as it was supposed to. We'll need to return it, but it will definitely be another one of his favorites. Devin's favorite I would say, was the basketball hoop. He loves balls! Easy now, we're talking about a cute little almost two year old, get your mind out of the gutter! Anyway, he had so much fun throwing the basketball in the hoop. And as he is with the football and any other variety of ball, he was really good and accurate!

Here are some pics from our morning:

(First, I just want to say "thank you!" to Jamie for lending us her camera, so we can capture the cute moments of this day...love ya girl!)

waking up

coming down the stairs

oooh! presents!

what'd you get ry?


trains, of course

love to draw!

Santa didn't forget Fred! Who could?

More Cute Sayings

"Too spicy!" -One day, we let Ryan have sip of soda and that was his response, he didn't like it because it was "too spicy!"

"That tastes better."-Ryan always says this when he first tries something. It's cute because he's not really comparing what he just ate to something else.

"I want to pee on the street" -Ryan will just come up with these random requests. We don't let him, of course!

"I want to sleep in Pa's car."-Another random request, sometimes it's Pa's car, Nana's car, or even ours sometimes, but he's usually obsessed with Nana or Pa's car...he has a car/truck fetish if you couldn't already tell.

"Bunny milk!"- Actually this is something that both the boys say, I believe Devin started it, but we give them chocolate milk sometimes and use Nesquik, yep, the one with the bunny. They realized this and started to call chocolate milk, bunny milk.

"I want some drank."-I don't know where Ryan gets his accent.

"I want milk"-Devin thinks every type of drink is milk. He sometimes gets things confused, like "no" for "yes". Heck, he even calls Ryan, Devin sometimes. LOL!

"A-bool"-That's the way Devin says marble, which he'll say a million times a day since he's addicted to marbles (the marble race game is his favorite). He is a funny little boy and he knows it...sometimes he'll laugh at something in his adorable laugh and then say, "funny."

"Are you excited!?!" or "You ready to have some fun!?!"-I love when Ry says things like this. He'll ask me, Kristian, or Dev, if we're ready for some fun. It just sounds so funny coming from a 2 year old!

Ice Storm

A huge ice storm hit us on Friday night. As Kristian and I were laying in bed, we heard trees cracking and limbs falling. We saw a few flashes of light followed by something that sounded like an explosion...then the power went out. After that at least four other transformers blew out and we were just left there thinking, ok, when is one of the huge trees in our backyard, going to come down on the house. Luckily, nothing too serious happened. The power was out for most of the weekend and thank goodness, Jamie had a generator. Although her power was out too, the generator kept some lights on and her house warm. The great friend that she is, invited the whole family to stay with them. Thank you Wilson family! I always love adventures like this and although it caused us some inconveniences, it was fun! There were five children, four adults, three dogs, two cats, and a partridge in a pear tree. The kids were so excited! Here's a picture of all the kids at their first sleep over:



We stayed with them until Saturday after dinner, when our power was finally turned back on. We did not have cable or internet until late Sunday night. It's so weird how dependent you get on technology. All in all, we were extremely lucky that nothing happened to our house and compared to some of our other friends, we got our back on relatively quickly.

Nicknames

I'd like to always remember the cute little nicknames that we have for the kids. Someday, they'll just want to be called by their names, so I am making note of all of them...even Fred's too!

Ryan

Ry
Ry Bread
Ryboflavin
Ryola
Ry Guy
French fRy


Devin

Dev
Roo
Roon
Devinroon
Devaroon
Schroon
Schroo
Schruben
Schrubie
Ruben
Ruby
Devinstein


Fred

Fredrick
Froo
Rick
Frooschnickins
Freddie
Scraps
Froop
Noodle
Froodle

I'm sure there are more...and as always, will add them if I think of any.