Ready for 2012!!

I got to thinking about my Christmas post below. I am hoping that what I wrote did not come off as complaining or negative in any way. If it did, please don't take it that way...We did have a wonderful Christmas with our awesome family. I am so very, very thankful for all of the thought and preparation that went into Christmas...not only the presents we received but the hosting that was done by my Mom and Dad. We did receive so many wonderful things - we still have them stacked up and are playing because I can't bear to put them all away right now!

My love goes out to everyone for a Happy, Healthy and Blessed New Year... I already feel that my cup runneth over and as long as I have my friends and family, we will be fine! I am ready for 2012!

Christmas 2011 and beyond...

I must start off by saying, it was a "different" Christmas. It wasn't that our spirits were broken completely, because they weren't and we wouldn't have let that happen. We believe in celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ and nothing changes that. But of course it was hard for us and tears were shed because we were missing someone very important to our family.

The first thing I thought when I saw Papa Joe out the door of my Moms was, "Where is the ramp?" and then it hit me there wouldn't be a ramp that day or any day in the future. My parents made Joe and Alice a really special cross that lights up and has a plaque with a special message about forever lighting our hearts- so that brought us tears. However the one it hit the most was our little Isabella. During Christmas Eve right after prayer (which brother David said and brought more tears), she began acting a little strange. She didn't want to eat and was acting withdrawn. We all took turns trying to get her to come out and be with the family. Finally she broke down and told me that she just really missed Uncle Nick. And it was true...when we all stand around my Mom and Dad's kitchen island to join hands every Holiday for prayer, this time two were missing and I think it finally hit Isabella. So I called in Daddy and we all had a good cry. Isabella's cousins came to the rescue and Sammy was a wonderful help reading The Christmas Story and helping to lift her spirits by opening presents with her. My favorite picture of the whole night is the picture of the 4 girls because I know how my little girl was feeling before that picture was taken.

But as awesome families do, we rallied around each other and ended up having a great Christmas Eve. We enjoyed our Italian food, had a Jack+D.Coke toast for Nick, drank Pomegranate Martinis (Me, Amy and Alice), sang Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus, and just celebrated each other.

On Christmas morning, one child was so excited and one child was super sleepy! But once Vincent "woke up" the energy was so much fun. They had a great time opening all of their presents!!

Our family came over around 2. The kids got to open some more wonderful gifts. Isabella got a beautiful pair of earrings to treasure always from her Uncle Nick. We had a yummy Christmas dinner (Whiskey Chicken by request of my Husband, Sweet Potato Casserole, Roasted Veggies and Biscuits) and again, just enjoyed each other.
And do you know what happened after all of the excitement of Vegas, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? We got hit by the flu bug. Jenny and Rylie were sick on Christmas Eve. All  Sunday Night, Isabella was throwing up and into Monday. That day Camryn and Frank were also sick. I still had my cold and cough and thought for sure a flu bug wouldn't go on top of that. Well, all Monday night I was throwing up and into yesterday. Amy was sick at the same time. And now all today Vincent has been throwing up. I just got an email that my Husband wasn't feeling well and would be heading home soon. Lord help us!! I will say, on the bright side of things, at least it didn't hit until AFTER Christmas and it seems to only be a 24 hour thing. My cough remains, so I will be headed to the Dr. sometime for that. Over 3 weeks is NOT cool!

Love to all and we hope you had a very Merry Christmas!!!

Birthday Cake for Baby Jesus!

Isabella and I love making the birthday cake for Baby Jesus. We did a Candy Cane cake  two years ago and a Snowman Cake last year. This year I found a really neat poem about a Christmas Tree...and so we got started. I forgot to take a final picture, but it turned out really cute!

And here is the Poem:

The Christmas Tree Means This To Me by Janette Lueveen © 2007 In the city's center square, A tree is placed with measured care With Hearts of stone, to blind to see, The foolish argue 'what the name should be' Holiday? Fellowship? or Atheist tree? Secular men make their worldly plea But my heart sees a 'CHRISTMAS TREE' So I gladly share, what it means to me A Flawless tree, brought down in it's prime Like the Christ's allotted earthly time Topped by a star, supernaturally bright Like the wise men followed, that faithful night Holly berries sprinkled all around Like drops of blood, from His thorny crown Strings of Golden tinsel adorn each branch Yet Christ's robes of glory, men can not match For each sin forgiven, there's a tiny white light This display of His grace, makes an incredible sight Prickly Evergreen branches, oh how they scratch But pains of spiritual growth, bring rewards to match And after the tree is stripped and left to die I consider the loss, and then I cry Yet in the woods, where the tree was downed Proof of eternal life, most surely, can be found For from the root, left withering in the ground Sprigs of new life abound--springing up all around So in MY home you will find a CHRISTMAS TREE It centers the window -- Oh that others might also see!

Vegas, Vegas!

Last week on Wednesday Chris said, "Want to bail town for a couple of days?" Despite cleaning, wrapping and grocery shopping I needed to do for Christmas Day, of course I said yes! I think after everything that happened, he just really wanted to get away with the 4 of us. Off to Vegas we went and had a great time! The first night we ate at Serendipity which we have never been to...and decided to get a yummy very large ice cream sundae that thrilled the kids! We had a great breakfast at Hash House (one of our favorites) the next morning and I took the kids to the mall for a while. We went to Build A Bear where we acquired "Perfect" and "Fireman Blue". We also got to see a Christmas show the mall put on. Then we all went to Circus Circus and had a great time! Dinner at another favorite restaurant (Grand Luxe Cafe). I actually cried at Grand Luxe because I thought of the fun times we had with Uncle Nick there! And finally Friday morning we took the kids to Excalibur to play some games and it was already time to come home :( Hoping we get to go again soon!

Past Few Days :)

Friday after school we headed out to stay at the Calagna house for the weekend. Friday night after baths and a yummy dinner of Spaghetti and Champagne in honor of Uncle Nick, we loaded in the car and went looking at Christmas lights. The kids were out within two seconds of coming home and laying with Papa Joe.


Saturday morning we got up early to get ready for Uncle Nick's Celebration of Life. It was amazing how many people showed up and I loved to hear Chris speak along with Nick's two best friends, Mario and Kasey that I have known as long as I have been around. It turned out to be a wonderful day and all those that came to support our family are greatly loved and appreciated...We needed it and still do, so keep those prayers for peace of mind coming!
Those were the only three pictures I took, so I am looking forward to seeing the ones from Alice's sister, Aunt Margie. We had a Jack and Coke station and a big jar of Starburst (these were the two signs I had made - don't you love the picture of the bottle of Jack coming out of his backpack!). We also had food from Claros, which was one of Nick's favorites...

We spent the night on Saturday and Sunday was spent shopping and watching football! Yesterday Isabella said she had the "best day". Daddy went to work, so we spent the morning watching Christmas movies. We took a trip to see Santa and then decorated a Gingerbread House. We watched some more Christmas movies and she also got a Christmas word search book. So that was her perfect day. I love that the little things make her happy!
And this morning we had a wonderful visit with Bianca! Thank you my friend for coming over to visit and bringing the kids their fun presents!!

A Visit With Santa!

School Party

Isabella had her classroom party this afternoon. I wish I could have done more for the kids, but with everything that happened, it was hard to get it together. They did wear their pajamas, decorate sugar cookies, drink milk, color a wood ornament and get a fun goody stocking with treats to take home. We are looking forward to Christmas break!!

O Christmas Tree!

Tuesday we spent the day with Papa Joe and Grammy Alice. We went down to Roger's Gardens to walk around and had lunch. Papa Joe helped Daddy put up the Christmas lights and I ran a couple of errands with Grammy Alice. After school that day we picked out our Christmas Tree. I was in the mood for a kinda small one, but Daddy found this Monster that he thought was PERFECT! He was so excited about it that I had to say yes! We decorated it last night and it turned out rather pretty ;)

Chino Youth Parade

"But you promised me, Mom"....and so I followed through amongst the hardships going on and Isabella got to be in her very first Christmas parade. She was so excited about it...I dropped her off at 7am, but didn't know the parade started at 9. So from 7:30-9, Vincent and I sat on Central Avenue. He was such a good boy: colored, ate a donut, etc. The parade was a ton of fun....they had the schools and bands from Chino/Chino Hills, the mayors, lots of horses, girl scout troops and so on. Isabella's Daisy Troop rode on the back of a truck they turned into the North Pole. Unfortunately, it happened so fast and I was trying to get her attention, that I didn't get a picture of her on the float. Hopefully one of the leaders did. She is excited about next year.

Forever In Our Hearts...

We love you Nick and know you are our Angel in Heaven now. You will look out for us and guide us well...you are running like the wind, dancing in the rain and breathing freely. Thank you for your courage, humility, love and friendship...until we meet again!

Fireman Vincent

On Saturday morning our garage turned into the "Calagna Firehouse" and we held a "Fireman Pancake Breakfast". It was just awesome and by Vincent's face in these pictures you can tell he had the time of his life. What a way to celebrate turning THREE!

The Calagna Firehouse housed hanging hats for the Firemen and Fire-girls. The Papa's flipped Pancakes along with eggs, sausage, donuts, coffee, you name it....!,

Then Fireman Carlos came!! The kids got to play with the siren and use the speaker.

They got a lesson in "Stop, Drop, Cover Your Face and Roll"...

They got to try on the Fire Suits and even Daddy got in on the action! (If you hadn't noticed - Bella asked me if she could dress like a Dalmatian, so we made an outfit!)

Then we played a friendly game of Tug! Thank goodness Bianca and Aunt Amy came to my rescue!

Then they played a Fire Hose game!

And finally we took a couple of rides around the neighborhood!

It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Sweethearts

They sure are sweet after a bath all clean and cuddly in PJs and robes - even sharing! Wish it could be this way ALL the time :)

When It's Your Birthday...

Mommy let's you lick icing from the can.

We had a fun Friday with Vincent. He got to do what any boy wants to do on his birthday....lay around all day and watch cartoons and play. Lol! That night our family joined us for a yummy Carne Asada Dinner and to open some presents. Aunt Diane was also here to celebrate and that made it so much more special. Poor Vincent had to eat the horrible looking cake I made (but it did taste good)!

Too Cute!

My beautiful girl on her way to her Girl Scouts non-sleepover last Friday night!

Rewind!

These are Thanksgiving pictures! We had a wonderful day full of family and fellowship. We celebrated Uncle David's birthday :) This year we "Adopted-a-family" for Christmas, so everyone brought some things for this family and we wrapped them all that evening. It was a blessed day!

Christmas Activities!

I have a couple of friends that have been posting on Facebook about all of these cute Advent Calendar/Christmas Activity ideas. Last year Grammy got us this string of slippers and I put Candy Canes in them, but this year I decided to use it for the  'activities". It takes lots of planning (need to make sure you put the big activities like visit Santa on day you can actually do them!) and I haven't had much time, so I only printed out 4 days so far. I hope the kids have a great time with this!

Happy 3rd Birthday!!!!

Where in the world did the last three years go? Happy Birthday to my amazing Angel, Vincent Guy. For lack of better words...he is just "AWESOME" and that is enough said!

Birthday Toast this morning was hilarious. Vicent really didn't want any part of it and was grumpy that all three of us were in his room. But we sang to him anyway and he blew out his candle. Then he wanted us to do it again once we got downstairs. Happy Birthday Bubby! You complete us and we love you!!!

Christmas Pictures!

We snuck in Christmas photos this afternoon amongst all I am doing to prepare for a 3rd birthday/party, decorating the house for Christmas, etc, etc, etc! The pictures of Isabella just baffle me. I don't know when she grew into such a pretty young little lady. Of course, no outfit would be complete without Fire Boots! I didn't fight it because it is "So Vincent"!

Mackenzie's 1st Birthday!

This afternoon we went to Mackenzie's 1st birthday party! It was a carnival and just adorable!! Everything Leslie did was awesome and the kids had the BEST time. They got to play games, get their face painted, watch a magic show, get animal balloons, eat ice cream AND cupcakes...we LOVED it!

Toodles The Elf Returns!

Yesterday morning, Toodles (our Elf on the Shelf) returned from the North Pole. He couldn't come fast enough with the way some little girl and boy have been fighting. However, he didn't quite help yesterday. But after a long day, Isabella cleaned up all of Vincent's room along with her own (making the beds and everything) so, I pulled out the kids' Christmas tree and they were able to decorate it. They had such a blast doing so. Vincent was very into the tree this year and loved hanging all of his ornaments up. Isabella did a great job and is coming into her own decorating ability (Lol!). Toodles was in a new spot this morning and the kids ate pancakes, drank hot chocolate and watched the Elf on the Shelf movie. It was super cute! Looking forward to a lot of good behavior from now on :)

Love in Las Vegas!

Chris and I had the best time in LV! I know, I always say that! We left Sunday morning and ended up stopping at State Line because Chris didn't want to miss much of the Rams game. That was fine with me because I hit up some good sales at the Outlets. After the game we went into LV and checked in. We started our eating fest with Sushi and Sake (our fav!). We just had a lot of laughs, lots of shopping, lots of eating, drinking, gambling (I even played Black Jack folks!) and just plain fun. I hit up every place to shop I could think of and was seriously tuckered out! Thank you to Papa Joe and Grammy Alice for watching the kids!!! We so appreciate the much needed Mom and Dad break! Until next time Vegas...

Thankful Hearts

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day with their family!! Of course I am Thankful for my Husband and these two silly smiles. My heart is truly brimming with thanksgivings and it will never falter....God is good!!

World of Undies

I do have another child (as I realize the last 3 posts have been Isabella based). He is awesome, amazingly loving, yet stubborn all at the same time. What would I do without my boy?! I love him so much and he makes me laugh a zillion times a day. This week we have been potty training. No more diapers! I meant to take pictures of him all week doin' his thing, but time got away from me. He has been wonderful, besides a few pee pee accidents in the beginning. He fully goes pee on the potty now but we have had some trouble with the poop (but it looks promising since he has gone a couple of times and is not afraid of it)...I am proud of my Vincent!