Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!

It was the first time in many years that we didn't stay overnight in Buffalo on Christmas Eve. We decided that now that we have Avery and she sort of knows what's going on, we'd like to wake up at our own house on Christmas morning.

And I have to say it was nice staying in our jammies until after noon!

Avery slept in until about 9am which was a treat for us! We got up and came down to see what Santa brought! But before we opened gifts, we had a quick breakfast-Mommy made some (store bought) cinnamon rolls. Then it was time to do gifts!

Avery was pretty interested in the first few gifts she opened from Santa...
Some play food:

Mommy and Avery:

Then her big Santa gift....

Which was a shopping cart!! After that, we checked out her stocking which had an ornament and crayons inside...well, once she saw the crayons, she didn't want to open anymore gifts! She wanted to color! We got her to open 2 more (drawing paper and markers) then we let her go ahead and color away! When she carried the box of crayons around, she kept putting her shoulders up like you can sort of see in this pic...it was so funny!

Playing with her shopping cart:

Pushing the babies:

She left 3 presents behind that she didn't want to open so we'll let her open them when she feels like it. Gabe and I did our gifts while she played. After lounging around and playing with her toys, we fed her lunch, and then she napped. When she woke up, we went to Gabe's parents' house for dinner and gifts.

Here's Owen opening a gift:

And Bianca (sorry it turned):

We got Bianca this Dora tent, and they set it up. Well, Avery must have spent an hour inside of it all by herself...it was funny! She pulled her new doll in there and just played with it all alone and was loving it!

And here she is with her doll's pacifier in her mouth:

And playing with her new baby doll:

I love this picture. I took this just as Owen was about to leave and we told Avery to give him a hug and they posed like this-I just adore it!

We had a wonderful dinner and received many great gifts. It truly was an amazing Christmas! I hope yours was too!

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve Whirlwind

Christmas Eve tends to be a hectic day for us, and this year was no exception!

We left our house around 9:30am and headed to my Dad's house in Hamburg. We got there around 11am. Avery did some exploring and found a fish tank (here she is peeking through it): Here's one attempt of her pretty Xmas outfit:

and many failed attempts at a nice shot in front of my Dad's tree:

My Dad and Colleen made us a nice breakfast and we just relaxed and hung out. We did gifts last weekend when they came to visit us, so it was nice just sitting and visiting for awhile. Avery loved seeing the dog, Tasha:

and we got a decent shot of us by the tree-Dad, Avery and I:

After my Dad's, we went to my Mom's house. We put Avery down for a nap right when we got there and of course it took her forever to fall asleep. She did nap a little over an hour though, which is better than nothing. When she got up, we did gifts with my Mom (I didn't take any pics).

Then we went to my cousin's in-laws house for dinner. It was mass chaos-my cousin has two kids and her sister-in-law has three kids, plus Avery. So it was pretty chaotic with all of them there. Avery did share the shopping cart with one of the boys:

and she had a blast with this train that was set up!

We had a nice dinner, did some gifts there, took a quick family photo:

and a close up of my munchkin:

then headed out around 7:45. Gabe's friend was in Buffalo visiting his parents so we decided to stop by there real quick to say hello. It's been two years since we've seen his friend, so we had to take the chance while we could. We got there around 8 and stayed for about an hour. Then it was time to head home. Avery passed out in the car about 20min into our ride and slept the entire way home. We got home around 10:30, got her in her PJ's and she went right to sleep! Gabe and I followed shortly after, gearing up for Christmas Day!

First Movie

Gabe and I both had off today (yay!) so we spent this morning lounging around.

We decided to put on The Polar Express to see if Avery would be interested in it. She's big into watching trains, so we thought she might like it.

She actually watched half of it I'm guessing. She started out on my lap, then went to Gabe's lap, then Gabe pulled her chair over and she watched from there for a bit. The rest of the time she played while it was on in the background.

It was super cute seeing how into it she was though! watching with Dora and her baby:

A Friend-ly Day

Today Avery and I made a trip to Buffalo to see some friends for the holidays.

My friend Katie was in from Baltimore and she only makes it in once or twice a year, so I had to try to see her while she was in town! Since we were coming in for that, I decided to see what my other friends were up to since Xmas eve will be chaotic enough with just family events.

And the result?! We had a houseful and it was a blast!

First, Jessica and her son Connor came over.

Here they are "sharing":

I asked Connor to smile for the camera:

Hug #1...Connor wasn't very interested!

Avery playing with a toy truck my Mom had:

Connor's turn with the truck:

Trying to get a good one of them sitting together...

Hug #2-cute!

About 10mins after Jess left, Katie showed up with her son Roman! He wasn't too thrilled with the idea of sitting with Avery! Finally we got them within a few feet of each other:

Shortly after they came, Megan and her son Noah came and my friend Renee came as well. Like I said, a houseful! Here are the kids:

Noah:

Everyone stayed for a few hours and it was great seeing all of them in the same day! It's always hard this time of year to see everyone and this year the stars aligned and we were all together! All I needed was my sister-in-law and we would have had my wedding party there which was pretty cool....that was probably the last time we were all in the same room together---2.5years ago! Wow!!

Thanks everyone for coming by-it was a lot of fun!

An Early Christmas

Yesterday, my Dad and Colleen came out for a visit.

They got here around 12:30 and brought lunch for us. Avery saw them for a few mintues before she went down for her nap. When she woke up, we decided to exchange our Christmas presents. We'll see my Dad on Christmas Eve, but we have several stops to make that day, so I'm not sure how much time we'll have with them. Instead of rushing through gifts, we decided to do them yesterday.

Papa opening a gift from us:

And Avery opening her present:

I was anxious to see what Avery thought of the presents...and honestly, she didn't care. She helped open 2 of hers, then she didn't want anything to do with them. I guess next year will be her year to get into the holiday. Which explains why our gifts under the tree haven't been touched-she couldn't care less!

Gabe's parents also came by for dinner (which Gabe and I made) which was nice. They haven't seen my Dad since Avery's birthday back in June.

We had a very nice visit and early Christmas celebration!

It's Crunch Time!

Christmas day is officially 9 days away!

Crazy, isn't it?!

I'm totally feeling the crunch this week. Our Xmas cards arrived way later than I thought, so last night Gabe and I addressed them all and got them ready to put in the mail today.

I started wrapping things, but still have a bit to go with that-and it's so time consuming! And that's just to get paper on them, not even to make them look pretty with ribbons, etc.

I'm happy to say my shopping is done though and has been for about a week or so, so at least I don't have that hanging over my head. And I baked cookies for my ornament party in the beginning of the month, so those are done too.

So honestly, I don't know why I feel the stress of the holidays, but I do! I think I'll feel better when everything is wrapped and under the tree, ready to go.

Time is a tickin'!

Start Spreading the News....

I'm leaving today!

Well, yesterday actually!

There was a little snafu with us getting home from NYC. Our flight was supposed to be at 1pm yesterday and we found out around 9pm Saturday night that our flight was cancelled! Luckily Gabe has an Iphone so he gets his emails right away (otherwise we would have been screwed) so he called as soon as we got the email. We found out there were 2 other flights they could put us on...one at 9am and one at 8pm. We opted for the later one so that we didn't have to wake up and get Avery up at the crack of dawn to make it to the airport on time. So, we had another day to spend in the city, which was a nice surprise....

except....

we woke up to it pouring rain outside!

We ended up lounging around in the room until about noon trying to figure out what to do-it's hard getting anywhere without being outside.

While deciding, I realized I never took any pics of our room.

Here's the living area (AKA Avery's room):

And our room: (we luckily were able to get a suite so we didn't have to be in one room, which would have made it hard for her to go to bed)


Around noon we decided to head somewhere to eat. A coworker of mine suggested a place called Jackson Hole, so we thought we'd try it out. Avery and Gabe ready to eat!

Let's just say we were not disappointed! My coworker said they have "burgers the size of your head"....well, whaddya think??

That was Gabe's burger-mine was just as big-I swear it was one of the best I've ever had! So yummy!

After lunch we stopped back at the hotel to get the stroller then did some walking up Broadway. Avery fell asleep along our walk again and we actually had to wake her up to get on the subway to go to the airport!

Our flight was at 8pm, but we got delayed so we didn't take off until around 8:45 or so. By the time we got our luggage and got home, it was close to 10:30...and Avery didn't fall asleep the entire way home! So it was a late night for all of us and we were up bright and early today for work.

But it was worth it! My first trip there was a lot of fun and I'd love to go back. I feel like we didn't see everything...we never saw Central Park or the statue of liberty...so even for those I'd like to go back someday.

I will say I never expected the city to be so big...it's HUGE! To think you can take a 45min subway ride and still be within the city is just crazy to me! The subway system is incredible-whomever designed the city and railways is a genius! The one subway stop we were at was like 3 or 4 levels/floors of tracks-just insane! And I couldn't get over the amount of people there. Every street corner had hundreds of people waiting to cross with you. And the stores were a mob scene. I have no idea how people accomplish any shopping with that many people in your way.

The one thing that disappointed me was that it is very handicap/stroller unfriendly. The subway was very difficult with the stroller-going up/down 4 flights of stairs is a real hassle. Some stores had no elevators but were multiple levels...so Avery was stuck on the main floor. Some restaurants/cafes didn't allow strollers so we couldn't go in them. I wish that were a little different....it made parts of the trip a pain in the rear.

Overall I think we all had a great time!