Happy Howldays

Baxter needed some holiday cheer...

At first he thought hats were silly.

But then he realized how cute he looks!
Merry Christmas!

Tuesday Treasure: Boys

Vinny stayed with us while my sister was out-of-town. My boys had the best time!

Blissful Baxter

Baxter had a howling good time for the 4th of July! Vinny took care of Baxter all day and let him see some of the fireworks before I worried about Baxter and sent him inside to keep Nicholas company.

Tuesday Treasures

My "son" Baxter.

My Family

After a roller coaster year of family ups and downs, Christmas ended on a positive note. Our families (Petriello/Ancewicz/Morgans) have created a new family tradition! We will celebrate Christmas Eve together just our three families. (Which makes eleven people and eight pets!) We are so glad of the events leading up to Christmas Eve because this was by far the best holiday we have ever had. The 'old man' even played board games..... (wow that was a first.) We have divided up all the other holidays since Nicole and I have 'big girl houses' now! LOL Our parents seemed at peace with our new holiday plans, which makes our families so much happier.
We started the evening with great food, tons of laughs and some cute presents for the Nicole's kids. After the little ones were all nestled on their air mattresses, the grown ups cracked open the wine and board games. We have never laughed that hard! The guys beat us at Buzz Word, but the ladies knew paybacks will come on Christmas Day! My family honored my tradition of not eating meat on Wednesdays by waiting until midnight to eat dinner. We feasted on riceballs, veal saltimbocca, sausage-peppers-onions and antipasto then cheesecakes and Italian pastries. Finally at 2am we fell asleep with dreams of new foods and gifts for the morning.
Christmas morning was like no other, since Nicole's family stayed at mom and dad's we got to see first hand a Christmas Day with the kids. Wow I now Know why Jay and I have just Baxter! The screaming and yelling over their great gifts were deafening. But it was great! As promised we beat the guys during game time and even Baxter had some cool gifts to open.