Christmas Eve 2011

Nonnie Raimondo cooks a traditional polish dinner every Christmas Eve of pierogis and polish sausage and it always is delicious!!! Everybody at the table always makes a "happy plate"!

Before dinner we attended Christmas Eve service at RPC, as we do every year, and Ava wanted to hold her own candle....with fire. Other then that, the service was beautiful and we are so blessed to call River Pointe our church home.

**coming soon: pictures from RPC's Christmas Eve candle lit service**

After dinner we took our annual Raimondo family picture (minus Pete because he was the photographer) then Colin and Ava opened their gifts from the Raimondo's.

 Aunt Gina bought Colin a Texans pillow pet and he LOVES it! He yelled and immediately hugged it with love!

 Uncle Andrew bought Colin a singing and dancing Santa hat. It sings "I want candy..." Ah, such a perfect gift for C!

 both of the kids got new remote control cars, which became the main attraction of the night!



When we got back to our house the kids set out carrots for the reindeer and cookies and milk for Santa. Ava enjoyed "counting" (and eating) the carrots and feeding Oscar some reindeer food. Colin made a bag of special reindeer food at school to sprinkle in the backyard for Rudolph. It was raining so we just added it to the plate of carrots.

 after the plate was finished, colin realized he had reindeer dust on his hand and asked if he could fly now lol then a little fell on oscar...OOPS

Colin asked if he could wake up when Santa got to the house and watch him put the presents out. We reminded him that even though we spend time with Santa at Colton's house, we still have to stay asleep while he is at our house delivering the gifts. :)

Christmas Eve 2010



Christmas Eve 2009

Christmas Eve 2008

Check back soon for our "Christmas day" post!

Santa Claus came to town

Every year Santa and Ms. Claus come to a friend's house for a pre-Christmas visit! It is such a terrific time!!! The kids have a private 10-15 minute time frame with Mr. and Mrs. S, there are no lines, we get to spend a memorable evening with friends and family and Katie Lee takes pictures for us. Santa always brings a small gift for the kids in his big red sack and fully enjoys his time with them.

Colin just LOVES Santa and thinks it is "cool" that he comes to Colton and Madi's house just for them! Colin gave Santa such a strong high-five, he hurt his hand. LOL. Ava, on the other hand, HATES him! She isn't one for strangers and then you add a white beard, giant red suit and a "Ho, Ho, Ho"?...not so much! There was one point in the evening that she and Santa were BOTH petting the dog but as soon as Santa talked to her, she ran away. Oh well...at least we were able to capture her "excitement" on camera.

santa's visit 2011

he's telling santa that he is 5 now...notice the 4 fingers + 1 finger = 5! :)

Last year, Ava was only 6 months old so she didn't really understand what was going on. She did pretty well at Colton and Madi's but when we went to the mall for round 2...that was a different story. We went to the mall too because every year we let the kids pick out a new ornament for the tree from Hallmark. The kids were dressed cute and Colin colored a picture for the Big Guy so we went in for another photo opp.

santa's visit 2010

santa's visit 2009



santa 2008

Maybe next year's Santa pics will have a baby bump in them ;)