Happy New Year

With the new year I have decided to start blogging my family updates/photos. This way, you can keep up with us and see all of our pictures without the constant emails from me :) Come by often to see what we're up to out in Round Rock, Texas.

I cannot believe that 2008 is already here. We have now been in Texas for 18 months. We just celebrated our second Christmas here. We had an awesome holiday.

I gave Vinny his "big gift" early and let him have some cereal for the first time. I thought he was ready, as he has been screaming to join us at the dinner table and interrupting his breastfeedings to see what I am eating/drinking. But he was not impressed.
We are going to give it a little more time. He's now 6 months old. 28" (95%) and 18 pounds (50%). Long and Lean :) Still working on his first tooth.


We went out for dinner on Christmas Eve with our best friends and next-door neighbors, Chad and Amanda Lewton and their son, Cayden. When we got home, the kids sprinkled the lawn with the reindeer food that Ava and Cayden made in preschool.

Christmas morning was so much fun. We woke up when Emma came dashing into our room and yelled "Mom! It's 6:04! Santa probably came already!" I think Santa probably finished his delivery at 3:00 am but we went downstairs anyway and started the day. The coffee (and mimosas) helped. We spent the day playing with new toys and had an awesome dinner at the Lewton's house.

Emma's favorite gift was her iPod shuffle. I "blinged" it out for her and pre-loaded it with a bunch of her favorite songs from Hannah Montana, Jonas Bros, High School Musical, etc. She has only rarely taken it off since.
Ava's favorite gift was Dora's Dance-along adventure. It came with a Dora costume which she immediately donned. It had to be confiscated 2 days later for washing!
Vinny was just excited to watch everything happen. He got his first set of wheels.
For New Year's Eve, we hung out at home with The Lewtons and Emma had a friend over. It was too cold to go out with the kids (it got down to 26F) Because fireworks are legal here, we got to see a ton right in our neighborhood. Emma showed us how to do the Soulja Boy Superman dance. LOL! I am only in for YEARS more of this! I remember the endless nights practicing the Roger Rabbit, Running Man and Cabbage Patch.
We made some yummy cupcakes. When combined with Diet Mt. Dew, they guaranteed that all of the kids would stay up to ring in the New Year. Like most kids on NYE, they were disappointed. "We stayed up for that??" I think Ava finally fell asleep at 2:30!

Today we spent some time out in the blustery wind. Emma practiced her roller skating, Vinny got some fresh air we took down the Christmas lights.
I wish the holidays lasted longer but we had a great time. I hope you all have a healthy, happy new year.