Gavin

My mom and I went over to see Gavin open up presents from our family. He will be 3 in March.

Christmas at Tim & Mindy's

We went to Tim (my cousin) & Mindy's house Christmas afternoon to see everyone and had a great time.

We put a Chrismas dress on Bella

Dad holding Bella

Anne giving a present to Emma & Alli (my cousin Tim's kids)

Santa brought them a doll house and puppet show

Rosie, Dan, and Dominic

Uncle John, Dad, Aunt Cindy, Uncle Hank, & Paul

Anne and Mindy eating dinner

(Mindy did a great job hosting Christmas! She is a great cook and gave me some recipes. THANKS MINDY!)

Craig played darts with my brother and cousins

My brothers Sef and Bryan

Bryan and Neill (cousin)

Cousins Tim, Nick, and Uncle Hank (we are missing Tony & Pat!)

Bella is ready to crash

Christmas at Mom & Dad's

Craig and I drove to Charleston on Christmas Day to spend the holiday with my family. We went to my parents house to open presents. It was nice to see my family (Dad, Mom, Bryan, and Sef), but we missed having my brother John and sister-in-law Sue.

Christmas

We celebrated Christmas a day early because the kids are leaving for Florida to board a cruise ship for a 7 day cruise. They are going with their mom and step-dad and her family. They are very excited!

The kids got a lot of presents this year. Julia's favorite present was a guitar and Ethan's was a Razor Scooter.

This picture was taken on Christmas Eve Eve (since we celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve they got to open one present the night before). Julia got new pajamas and Ethan got a t-shirt from Express.

Baking Christmas Cookies - Video

We got a new video camera for Christmas and I just figured out how to use it so here are two clips from baking cookies.

Baking Christmas Cookies

We made Christmas cookies with the kids and then decorated them with frosting and sprinkles.

Ethan did a great job kneading the dough

Julia came up with a great idea for frosting the cookies - use plastic bags and cut one of the corners off so it is easier to frost the cookies

Craig frosted Ethan

Julia did a great job decorating her cookies and we all ended up copying off her ideas.

Julia won the contest for best cookies

Maria's cookies

Craig's cookies

Ethan's cookies

Julia's Birthday dinner at Sushi Samba

Julia wanted sushi for her birthday so we went to Sushi Samba. We all like the "cooked sushi" like crunchy shrimp rolls and california rolls, but Ethan shocked all of us and ordered the salmon rolls that are not cooked and he really liked them. The kids ordered berry blast drinks, which were blackberries, rasberries, and blueberries smashed up with sparkling water. They loved them!

We ordered shrimp tempura rolls, lobster tempura, and california rolls.

The decor of the restaurant is really cool.

Julia making her scrapbook

The boys playing a game on Craig's phone.

Bella thought we might be leaving her again (we left her at home when we went to Sushi Samba) so she ran into her bag. We normally take her everywhere with us (even restaurants) because she just sleeps in her bag and most people think it's a big purse.