Happy New Year...and Merry Christmas??

Let's start with New Year's Eve. I had to work that day and when I got home we did a few things to get ready for some company. Our neighbors, Dan and Kate, came over to ring in the new year. They were nice enough to bring over dinner-homemade mac-n-cheese (YUM!) and sausage bread. We made a salad, some appetizers and had stuff here for dessert. It was pretty low-key...we ate dinner, then played a fun game called Apples to Apples then watched the ball drop while drinking some Dom P! I actually made it until midnight which was a miracle in itself! It was a very nice evening!!

Speaking of the new year, I can't believe we're starting a new decade-2010! I remember back when it was 1999 and the whole Y2K thing was going on-it's hard to believe that was 10 years ago already. Let's see-I was 20 years old, living at home with my parents, attending Buffalo State College, working at Rizzo's waitressing. Gabe was nowhere on my radar at that point. To think how life changes over that time-wow!

We had a wonderful 2009 and probably our biggest life change took place-welcoming Avery. I wouldn't change it for the world! I'm excited to see what 2010 brings!!

Yesterday our holiday celebrations continued. We never celebrated Christmas with Gabe's family because his sister had to work Christmas day and that whole weekend. We decided to postpone Christmas until New Years so we could all be together and enjoy the day. We had a very nice dinner of steak, shrimp scampi and antipasto and the kids got to go crazy with their gifts.

Gabe liked Bianca's new doll!

Bianca was hysterical with her gifts. She wanted to just keep opening gifts one after the other-she would barely see what she got and would go running to look for the next one. It was pretty funny. I did get to catch her opening one of them:

Gabe's parents got Avery this cute chair (Owen and Bianca have them also):

So we had to put her in it to test it out:

Avery loved the teething toy Pa and Grandma got her:

And Owen and Bianca loved playing in the garbage:


We had a very nice day and got some nice presents-clothes, jewelry, a pizelle maker, one of those new flip video cameras, and a GC for a pedicure! Avery got some books, ornaments, clothes and toys-we all made out pretty well!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2010 brings you lots of love and happiness!