And This Little Piggy . . .was covered in paint.

Since the kids opened their presents from Grandma & Grandpa Anderson with paint your own piggy banks they've been asking (begging) to paint theirs. I finally caved this morning and let the kids go. (in the basement on paper on the floor). They had fun and now the little piggies are drying.

Happy Christmas to all . . .

We had a wonderful Christmas day, so I'll leave you with a collage of pictures that says it all.

. . .and to all a goodnight!

Hansel & Gretel

So today we made our gingerbread house. I don't know why it reminded me of the Hansel & Gretel story (well candy house and all) but I told the story to both Tyler and Kendall as we made our house. I tried not to make the story too scary but dear Lord thinking of it as I'm telling it, I thought this is a horror story. (I always like it because its really the sister who is the brains behind the operation)








Nevertheless the kids liked it and they enjoyed making their gingerbread house. We had a few follies like the roof falling down and we ate more candy than what went on the house. I'd say ours looks NOTHING like the box cover.








I'd like to blame that all on the kids but I pretty much gave up after putting the walls up. That icing is good for nothing but eating off the spatula.

New York, New York

We just got back home from NYC with the kids. Actually Kevin was there for work and the kids and I just crashed the hotel room. Really all the kids wanted to do was stay in the hotel room and watch TV. It was pretty cold for them so they weren't too excited to get out.








So let me tell you, pushing a double stroller around NY with two whiny kids doesn't give me too much creativeness for great pictures or the desire to take any in the first place. So this was all I could muster up. As I said the kids and I didn't do too much. We stayed in Times Square at the Marriott Marquis so it was a fun location for Christmas shopping. Our first stop was the M&M store.












Then Toys R Us (FAO Shrawtz was too far) where they have a 60 foot Ferris wheel, a huge dinosaur, large train table, and two story Barbie house. (no pictures because my flash wasn't working). We also headed to American Girl, where Kendall kept asking for a doll. I'd love to buy her a $90 doll but at 2 1/2 I better wait a few years. We did mange to see the big tree and the kids wanted to go ice skating but since Kendall and Tyler probably skate better than I do I thought "probably not a great idea". I was trying to get some pictures of the kids on the street and I was wondering what they kept looking at. Can you see in the background? That's the Naked Cowboy. The kids got a big kick out of him. I don't know how he does it. It was 30 degrees out. As you can see the kids were worn out! Kendall passed out right before dinner and Tyler that same night was so upset that he had to go to bed that he got up and said "I'm not going to sleep" and went to the corner of the room where he sure enough fell asleep. The next day (today) Kevin was able to join us and we took a trip out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.












Well it was super cold (with I'm sure some horrific wind chill off the water) so this trip was not so much fun either. We did manage to get to the historical society and look up Kevin's grandfather Angelo Quattrin's manifest or whatever they call it. It's all online so you can see where he signed his name and the second page basically just says that he left his father back in Italy and he's on his way to Chicago. Then it started to snow and NY was bracing for some crazy blizzard so we got out. We might go again next year or Kevin and I might try and go again without the kids. It's only a 3 hour drive so it's definitely a doable short trip.