Memorial Day Weekend

We have been so fortunate to live in the United States and reap the benefits that our military has fought so hard for.  We spent Memorial Day Sunday at church and then with Grandma Becky, Grandpa Vinny, Aunt Abby, Uncle Jared, Aunt Andrea, Madalyn, and Colt. 

On Memorial Day Anthony found awesome tickets to the Rockies Game - in the shade (mostly).  We really enjoyed our time together as a family, and the weather was stunning!

Memorial Day Sunday

Celebrating with Cousins

Daddy's Girls

Game On!

The View from our Seats

A true Daddy's girl

And a Mama's girl

Waiting for the game to start

Not a fan of the fireworks...She spent most of the game this way

The game interfered with nap time...She spent the game snuggled on my lap

But getting out of the sun for a snack helped everyone feel better - thanks Gramma Nellie!

The perfect way to spend Memorial Day!

Father's Day

Fifth Father's Day - 2012

We celebrated Anthony's 5th Father's Day yesterday!  I have been blessed with a wonderful husband, but our girls have been abundantly blessed with an amazing father!  Thank you, Anthony, for being such an incredible man and leader of our family.  We love you so much, and can't wait to see what the next 5 (or 50 years) bring!

Isabella - September 2007

First Father's Day - 2008

Second Father's Day - 2009

Catherine - November 2009

Third Father's Day - 2010

Fourth Father's Day - 2011

Cicerchiata

In honor of my Grandma Alvino, I made a go of making Cicerchiata. (The way my grandparents used to say it, the word sounded like "Chi-ji-dee-kyod") Other parts of Italy call it Struffoli. Loosely translated, it means honey balls.



These didn't quite turn out the way Grandma's used to, but it does remind me of the plate she would make for us every Christmas, covered in wax paper.

It's always fun making things my grandma made all the time with ease, but especially so during the holidays. Just trying to carry on the traditions that I remember from growing up.

Buon Natale!


*A Note From Lisa: I had special Christmas Sprinkles, but was told that only the multi-color variety would do...That's the way Grandma did it!

Celebrating Easter

I'm not exactly sure what the problem is with the blog, but I was able to get some pictures up for our Easter celebrations.

We had a wonderful Easter! We started off the celebrations with the annual Easter Egg hunt at church on Palm Sunday. We then dyed Easter eggs during the week, and I was fortunate enough to be able to go into Isabella's preschool for her Easter Party. Of course, I totally forgot to take pictures of both of these events. On Easter Sunday we went to church and then headed over to Auntie Andrea and Uncle Jared's house for our Easter dinner. It was fabulous as always, and Aunt Andrea went the bar high when she hid nail polish, lip gloss, and stickers in the Easter Eggs for our family hunt!

Catherine in her Palm Sunday/Egg Hunt Dress

Isabella's Palm Sunday/Egg Hunt Dress with her "smile"

Egg Hunt at Church

Hunting Eggs

Checking out what the Easter Bunny brought

The "best" picture I could get of both girls...pretty terrible! But, I was flying solo since Anthony was already at church. Should have left the sweaters off...

A quick family pic at church

Hunting eggs at Auntie's house!

Hunting eggs as only a princess can!

Christmas Morning

There is a huge debate in our house right now.

Are Santa gifts wrapped or not?

I grew up with unwrapped Santa gifts, and Anthony's gifts were always wrapped.

As you can see...Anthony won this debate.

However, the girls received a rather large Santa gift this year. It required 10 man hours of assembly. (It really only took about 2 hours, but 4 people were involved...)

I was determined to convince Anthony that this gift MUST be assembled before Christmas morning. If the girls opened up a brown box that said Pink Polka Dot Kitchen, all the excitement would be lost.

We therefore settled on a compromise. We did assemble the gift before Christmas morning, and we did wrap up pieces of boxes in the Santa paper, straight from the North Pole.

All in all, it was a huge success and the girls are LOVING their new pink kitchen!

Thank you Grampa Mike and Uncle John for your muscles and man hours!

The "wrapped" Santa gift!

Isabella woke up in a little bit of a funk, and refused to put all of her Christmas Eve jammies back on, but by this point, she was pretty excited!

The girls enjoying their new kitchen!

This was the first Christmas that we hosted my family at our house. We loved having my parents and my sister and her husband here for the week. Plus, we were able to spend some time with my Grandpa Paul as well.

Our next Christmas will be on New Year's Day when we celebrate with the Alvinos! We can hardly wait!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is one of my very favorite nights of the year. We are always visited by a few of Santa's Elves, who are busy delivering a few gifts from the big guy. Then we eat a tasty dinner of homemade soup (Baked Potato Soup). After dinner the girls take a bath, put on their new North Pole Jammies, and we watch Polar Express while drinking Hot Chocolate! After the movie we read the Christmas Story from the Bible and head to bed. The evening is so cozy, and I love our family tradition. Here are a few pictures from this year's Christmas Eve.

North Pole Jammies, delivered by Santa's Elves!

Watching Polar Express and drinking Hot Chocolate (I love how excited Isabella is! This is during the Hot Chocolate song.)

Getting sleepy...

Deck the Halls

This is a little clip of Isabella singing at her preschool program. What this clip does not show is that Isabella has become her own walking musical, and can break into song without warning! She's a pro at Little Drummer Boy (which is being sung right now), Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, I Want a Hippopotamus, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and many, many more...

December Happenings!

Now that December is nearly over, and all of 2010 for that matter, I figured I would post a few of the highlights from this December. We had a great month, and enjoyed every moment! We were definitely busy, but it was worth it, and this will be a Christmas season that will always be remembered and treasured. I have decided to post the actual Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in a separate post, so no worries, they're coming! We hope that you have all enjoyed your December as much as we have. Love to you!

Getting ready for the annual Cookie Exchange.

The first picture is of Catherine in 2010. The second picture is of Isabella in 2008. Grandma Becky bought this super cute dress for Isabella, and I was so happy to get a picture of Catherine in the dress as well!

The Classic (okay, Ugly) Christmas Sweater Party! I think if Anthony had a "Christmassy" turtle neck, he would have won, hands down!

There are two ways to paint Christmas pictures: Isabella's Way...
...and Catherine's Way! Don't worry...we were painting with Sweet and Condensed Milk and food coloring. Non-toxic!

Isabella's very first Preschool performance. She did great, and didn't even freak out when Santa showed up! Preschool has been VERY good for Isabella.

Making another batch of cookies. This time for the neighbors! Our kitchen saw a lot of baking action this year!

Super fun Christmas jammies from Aunt Betty! Love them!

The Boys.
We were so blessed to have Anthony's "old" friends come over for dinner. Tyler was definitely missed, but a good time was had by all!

The Alvino Elves!

Merry Christmas!

I know it's been way too long, and we have done way too much. I do have pictures from Catherine's birthday party (a month ago...), our Ugly Christmas Sweater Party, and tons of pictures of the girls, and I will do my best to get that up here. But, for now, here are a few pictures that we had taken yesterday. To celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary we thought we'd have more pictures taken! I do promise to get some December posts on here soon...