Buon Natale!

Which means Merry Christmas in Italian!  This year, on my side, the country we celebrated was Italy, so once again the food, gifts, and traditions were Italian.  It was a lot of fun and great seeing everyone again.

Here's two sweet cousins Neve and Cora.

And then Alaina joined them..

And then Courtney, Cassidy, and Liam joined them (:

My two sisters Danielle and Sharyn.  We also had Italian wine, but I can't remember what it was called.

Me with my sweet girls.

Before we ate, mom lit the advent candles and said a nice prayer...

Then we ate...salad with Italian dressing, Penne with sun-dried tomato pesto, Italian chicken and noodle bake, Italian sausage noodle dish, and Italian bread.  It was delicious!

Next, we opened gifts... Some of the gifts I remember were necklaces with Italian words on them,  Ghiradella chocolates and hot chocolate, fondue set, Ferari model car, Italian charm bracelet, Italian cookbooks, and I am sure a lot more that I can't seem to remember right now.

My dad has been making us all our own model ships.  He has been making ships for as long as I can remember and now he is making us each our own.  They are beautiful and here is Sharyn posing in front of her ship my dad just finished.  Looks great, dad!

My sweet boy

This year my sister decided to bring a project for us to work on and have something to take home to remember the day by. Here she is explaining how to do it...

Half way done and they are drying now until the next step.

Finished projects!  They turned out awesome!

Alaina's is the owl one and Sawyer and I did the one with the muscle car.  I love them both and plan to hang Sawyer's in his room.

On to dessert!  Sharyn brought cupcakes and cookies, and Danielle brought gellato (an italian ice cream like dessert).  It was delicious and that was the first time I had tried it.

The day after Christmas we all went out to visit Jon's Grandma's since we didn't get the chance to visit her on Christmas day.  We brought over a vanilla pound cake and we had tea and other goodies she had out.  My kids love going out to great grandma's and love to explore inside and out (:  We had a nice visit and hope to get over there more often!

So once again we had a great Christmas and I hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well!

Christmas morning

 Merry Christmas!

The kids woke us up around 8:30, so not too early but I still felt like it was about 5 in the morning.  I was sooo tired as Cora still keeps me up a lot but that is a whole other post!

Here they are coming down to see the gifts for the first time..

Alaina is VERY excited!  (:

First to open a gift was Dex.  He helped out a little and remained on his bed the rest of the morning enjoying his bone. 

The little lady just hanging out and watching her siblings. 

Alaina's gift from Sawyer (: 

They all had a great time opening all their gifts! 

And checking out their stockings. 

They were happy. 

Cora got a sleep sheep which is supposed to help them sleep better.  I am trying it out tonight so I will let you all know if it worked.  I have it on the rain setting. I am crossing my fingers it will help her sleep longer at night!!

Jon bought me a donut maker and I was so excited that I made a batch of donuts for everyone and they turned out great! I can't wait to try some of the other recipes!

After playing with their new stuff for awhile, we all got ready to head to my mom's for the rest of the day.  It was a great morning and Santa gave the kids a lot of great things.

Christmas Eve

We survived another Christmas!  We once again had a wonderful couple of busy days.  Christmas Eve started out by Jon and I running into town to do some last minute shopping once again.  I always say I will have everything done by the middle of December, but this year I kept forgetting at least one thing every time I went shopping.  All turned out fine, like it always does, so I try not to get too stressed over it all. When we got home our friends Lee and Heather (and Cora's God parents) came over to give Cora her present they bought.

They bought her a pink Radio Flyer trike that she will love in a couple years.  I guess that is tradition of theirs to give all their god children their first trikes (:  They also surprised us and bought us a Wii for our family which was beyond nice!!

After they left, we went to church at Old Mamre and it was great for half of it until Cora got hot and frustrated, so I left and walked around outside for awhile and cooled her off.  Then her and I stood in the back and sang the Christmas songs there.  I still enjoyed it.

Then we headed over to my in-laws and enjoyed spending the evening with everyone. We enjoyed Swedish meatballs once again and all the dishes that everyone made.

Here are my girls waiting to open presents... 

Here's Cora who just turned 5 months and Ella who is almost 8 months.

 

Gift opening, which gets a little crazy and overwhleming, esp. when you have four kids and you are trying to see what each of them get.  I still need to go through Jonnie's stuff to see what he got! The Swanson's are very generous and we appreciate it all! 

Cora's first talking dolly.  She really liked it! 

Sitting her in the middle of all the paper.  She's not sure what to think. 

She'd rather eat it. 

Sawyer opening a gift... 

Jonnie got two turtles which he was so excited about.  He named them Mitch and Marty.  They are a good pet for Jonnie!

My beautiful niece Kate! 

This is about how I felt, too.  Sweet Ella had enough. 

Sawyer and the other boys put together some of their trucks and tractors and had fun in the kitchen playing with them.

Cora hanging out with her Uncle Tim.  They matched so they looked pretty good together (:

Arriving home the kids got Santa's snack and letter ready and we read our books.  This is the first year Jonnie didn't want to sleep in Alaina's room with her and Sawyer.  He said he was just tired and wanted to sleep in his own bed. That made me a little sad as it just means he is getting older and the excitement is lessening a little for him.  Sawyer slept in her room, though and I think they were sleeping a half hour after I said goodnight.  I had some tired kids!

(We didn't have any cookies) 

At least someone or some dog enjoyed the crackers.  He probably thought I left them out for him!  When I caught him he had his big nose in the cup drinking milk-it was hilarious!!  

 Santa's response...At least this year he didn't say P.S. Rudolph says Hi! (;

Santa arrived and it looks like the he thought the kids were pretty good!  

Their stocking were stuffed, too!  And I can't wait for morning for them to see and open everything!