We're back

...for a temporary "lay over" before heading out again to Florida, where Jeff is in a wedding.

We have had a very busy but fun week spending time with family and celebrating Christmas in New York! At my parents' house there was the typical 14-people-under-one-roof chaos which also included lots of fun game-playing and too many cookies.

Here are Steph, Joe & Mike opening presents. They are the oldest three of my parents' six grandkids:



And me and Mickae (my sis-in-law) having fun:



At Jeff's parents we played more games, ate more goodies, and laughed through several episodes of "The Office". We also got to meet the newest member of the family, Claudio. Claudio is Jeff's new cousin. He is SO precious and I am sure he's one of the cutest babies you'll ever see.

Here is Claudio:




And the Rivera/Brackman men:

Christmas!

Because of some extensive travel plans we're celebrating our family Christmas here with the boys tomorrow. It's nearly midnight and I just finished getting everything ready. Funny thing is, up until about a week ago I thought I was doing great getting everything ready ahead of time - cookies, gifts, wrapping the gifts, cookies, Christmas cards, more cookies... but now that we're down to the wire I'm exhausted and still swamped with an ever-growing to-do list! You know, kids (and husbands) don't have any idea what goes into planning and preparing for big events and travels for a whole family!

Anyway, back to tomorrow's Christmas celebration... I'm SO excited about it! I'm giddy. (Despite the backache and to-do list.) I can't wait to see the boys' eyes get huge when they see their stockings are full and their excitement at seeing their names on presents. It's going to be SO fun! I'm sure I'll be taking tons of pictures and you can be sure I'll post some, so check back soon!

Merry Christmas!

Funny face

Trey and Roman will do just about anything to make me and Jeff laugh, so tonight at the table they put on a show of their "funny faces". Here's Roman's funniest one. In the middle, if you can't understand him, he's saying "See my funny face?".

Mohawk!

I love pictures, especially if my kids are in them. :)

This was from the other night in the tub, we were cracking up with bubbles and shampoo and mohawks!

Birthday Boy!

Happy birthday to Trey! I can't believe he is four years old already. It really does go so fast.

Trey spent most of Thursday telling everyone "this is my last day being three years old". It was too cute.

He knew it was his birthday the moment he woke up. He was grinning and so excited. He told us to "see how big I am!". He also knew what special treat he would get to have for breakfast... ice cream!

Later in the evening we had a few people over for pizza and cake and more ice cream. It was a blast!

Here are a few pics -
1. birthday ice cream for breakfast
2. he couldn't have a birthday without Davis!
3. with his friends after opening gifts

Big Snow!

We woke up to our first snow-on-the-ground two days before Trey's birthday. The boys (and dogs) were SO excited! We weren't fully prepared though, we had to go out for a new pair of boots before we could go play in it.

I was surprised how much Marley liked it reconsidering he does not like cold.

We had a blast!

Catchin' up

I haven't been on in a while, guess I got caught up in life. I can't believe it's December 1st already. And this coming week Trey turns four. It's going so fast. This morning he was excited to be going somewhere with Daddy and kept asking when it would be time to leave. Jeff finally told him to stop asking, so Trey came and asked me (I hadn't heard Jeff tell him to stop). I told him it would be soon and he said "okay, but don't tell Daddy cause he said if I kept asking I would have to go by myself and I don't know how to get there"! Too cute!

Check out our Christmas elves if you haven't already seen them:http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1116316124