Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! I hope you find that this day brings you great happiness with your loved ones.  This Christmas has been an awesome one:) I can’t wait to travel upstate tomorrow to have another Christmas with my family:)

Christmas Eve

I just finished wrapping & assembling all of the gifts for Christmas this year. WOOHOO

I was just reminiscing with my husband on prior Christmases that we have spent together & apart.  This year I think we started a new tradition.  Pizza & appetizers on Christmas Eve. Yes, that might sound odd. Ever since I can remember we use to go to my mom’s friends house for Christmas Eve dinner after 4 O’clock mass.  We would go to ML’s house, the children would be in the basement and the adults upstairs. We would play with nerf bow & arrows, nerf basketball & the boys would watch football.  I was the only girl! I still had a great time:) We would have a HUGE Italian dinner & lots of cookies that ML would make.  That is one of the best memories I have growing up and will never forget.  I wish that we still lived in Plattsburgh so we could still attend. Now, since we don’t live there anymore we have adapted a new tradition.  Pizza & appetizers:)  Enjoy some pictures from our Christmas Eve:)

Banana Bread Recipe

Here it is, after I promised it a few days ago:)

Banana Bread:

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups flour
2 eggs
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup of mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium bananas)
1/2 cup shortening (I use crisco)
2/3 cup sugar


Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Beat 2 eggs
Stir the rest of the ingredients in and mix all together.
Pour into a greased loaf pan

Bake for 55 minutes to an hour

Enjoy as my family has for generations:) 

December Love

You can find these around my house in December ;)

Gingerbread houses M&M’s & Yankee Candles…

I love spending quality time w/my girls, hence the gingerbread house.  I Love to eat tasty treats aka M&M’s.  I LOVE the smell of December :) 

Christmas came early ;)

Every year my girlfriends and I like to get together and celebrate Christmas.  Whether it be in Plattsburgh or down here on the island we try and see each other.  This year I was the host:)

Linds and Haley are making a gingerbread house:) 

 Linds   Me     Zoe 

Linds  Me   Zoe   Kasey

Lindsey’s green hands after helping Haley

Aunt Zoe bought Haley princess Tiaras for Christmas:) 

Grace loves her Aunt Zoe

I am extremely lucky to have such a great group of girlfriends.  My girls are even luckier. They have the best Aunties they could ever ask for.  Lindsey & Zoe always here for them no matter what, whether it be for birthdays, dance recitals or Christmas.

We had such a great afternoon/evening.  Lots of laughs, drinks & play time:)

Baking

Yesterday, Haley pointed out that we had some rotten bananas and she wanted to make banana bread.  So at 8 am that is what we were doing:) I will post the recipe later today:)

2011 Year in Review

Well, lets just say that 2011 has been a WONDERFUL year.  We have done so much and have enjoyed every minute! I am going to break it down month by month to show you how much we have done and how much fun we have had:)

Let’s start with January.  Grace was born Aug 2010 and we had her baptism in January 2011. We traveled BACK to Plattsburgh for her Baptism after we had just been there for Christmas:)

Feb 2010.  Grace’s 1st Valentines day:) NO traveling this month…don’t worry we will have LOTS more vaca pics to follow:)

March.  We took a road trip up to Plattsburgh to visit my parents AND it was St. Patty’s day!! One of my FAVORITE “holidays” Gotttta love the Irish:) We also had Haley’s 3rd birthday! 

April.  This month we traveled down to North Carolina for my sister in law’s wedding (Haley and my niece were “bubble girls”).  We had a great trip down to visit my in laws!! We also moved into our new apt, and took a trip up to Plattsburgh to meet my brothers girlfriend Christine & see my brother who lives in Wyoming! It was a BUSY month! 

May. Ahhh Memorial Day & Mother’s day = Cookouts w/ Friends!! We had so much fun doing things around LI this month:) 

June…LOTs of fun things this month!!!

Lets seee….First up we went to Grace’s first baseball game, Nana came to visit for Haley’s 1st dance recital & the Bronx zoo ( on the HOTTTTEST DAY in NYC for the year!), First beach day of the year, Chris & Steph’s engagement party & drunken stooper on my part (love you guys), Trip up to Plattsburgh for Ash’s Bridal shower & Bachelorette party!!!, Haley’s 1st soccer camp:) LOVED JUNE!! 

July… Well this month was awesome!! We took our first trip to Montauk and the girls had a BLAST!! Thanks to Uncle Anthony & Lauren!! We took a quick trip up to Albany to visit my best friend, her husband & two children! We had so much fun with them!!  I then at the end of the month took one of the best trips ever! I went to visit my best friend Zoe & Kasey in Boston.  I haven’t laughed that much in a long time.  SOOO MUCH FUN.  To top it all off my baby (Haley’s who’s 3 1/2 ) got her first haircut! 

Aug… The best month of the year…or maybe because its my birthday month? Well lets see what we had fun doing…First up is our annual trip to my parents lake house in Aug…where we have TONS of BBQ’s lots of fishing, and a whole lot of nothing:) The best vacation ever…every summer! Next up we had our 10 yr highschool reunion! Ahhhh where has the time gone?!  I then threw a 60th surprise party for my parents birthdays…we are ALL born in Aug! We also had visitors that weekend… Mark, Darci & Quinn! Next up was our baby’s  1st birthday!!! She has SOO MUCH fun:) I then traveled to Western NY for one of my best gf’s wedding…Ash:) SOOOOOO much fun! Last but not least our birthdays!!! Scot and I are a year and a day apart:) Aug 24 for Scot and Aug 25 for me:) 

Sept… Well, first off we took a trip to Albany to visit Scot’s grandparents and see my brother in law & niece:)  Haley had her first day of preschool!!! Ahhhh! THEN, we took an AMAZING trip to St. Thomas with our good friends Mark & Darci.  The trip was to celebrate our 5yr wedding anniversaries!! We had a blast and can’t wait to take a trip with them again!! Last up for the month we went upstate with our good friends Steph & Chris for a camping trip.  Well, lets just say we ended up in the van, threw out our tent & air-mattress, & left a day early!  We had a  lot of fun but the weather did NOT cooperate with us! We can’t wait to go again next year! 

October…Well lets see…first up was a random trip up to my parents house.  While we were on vacation in St. Thomas our neighbors hit our van and did a lot of damamage.  We took it in and got a rental car.  So I figured since it was a hybrid we would take a trip up north…yet again;) I took the girls to Rulf’s Orchard and we went on a hay ride to pick out pumpkins!:) We then came back down to LI and went to The Bronx Zoo for Boo at the Zoo w/ Aunt Lindsey!! The girls had a blast! We ended up the month with a little carving of the pumpkins & trick or treating for Halloween:) 

November… This month we traveled to CT for our dear friend’s baby shower! Anna whom just had her new baby boy… Cameron… a week or so ago!! Her husband Matthew, is Grace’s god father:) We then found out we are MOVING to a HOUSE!!!  Thank god!! We are moving Feb 1st to a town a little east of here.  It will be closer to Haley’s school ( around the block) and our gym:) The pictures are before pictures.  Once we paint and do a few updates we will post some more.

Well there you have it.  Our year in review! As I was posting, I couldn’t believe how much we have done in ONE year! I can’t even begin to count the times I have traveled out of Long Island! Seems like every month we were somewhere! 2011 was by far one of the best years to date. We traveled somewhere every month with the exception of Feb & May…   Every year for the past 8 years, there has been something significant to happen for our family…

2004-Met Scot & got engaged 9 1/2 months after dating!!

2005-Graduated College & moved to Long Island (Farmingdale)

2006-Our wedding

2007-Found out I was pregnant

2008-Haley Marie was born!

2009-found out I was pregnant w/ Grace & Moved to Massapequa

2010-Grace Elizabeth was born!!

2011-LOTS of traveling! & Moved to East Meadow

I am hoping that 2012 brings us some more joy and happiness to our lives.  I am blessed every day that I am a stay at home mom to two beautiful girls. I love my husband for putting in countless hours of work & over time.  I can’t wait to see what 2012 brings to our family :)