how was our winter break you ask?

oh we were just hanging around, literally. classic parenting i know.

Its Christmas day in the morning! and night

Presents under the tree. the tree was a little heavy with ornaments
Ellie looking all big in her high chair
Jordan and lucky with his red nose
Carters 1 non Thomas item. I think Shaun liked it more
Roasting S'mores to end a great day! and don't worry those are Thomas underwear so its OK to be naked.

yes I know, I can't believe it either. I am posting on the actual day that the event happened!! what??? well. I am attempting to get caught up and have several days of Italy and Jessie in town to cover but i wanted to keep y'all (yeah i know i said that) updated on how Christmas went. IT WAS AWESOME! Santa came, and with him Lucky, Jordan's lost puppy, magically showed up from over 4 months of being lost. it was seriously a Christmas miracle the way he ended up back in our tree. Santa wrote her a letter and everything. long story short: Santa found lucky, asked him to help guide his sleigh, he said yes, his nose turned red, he missed Jordan and Christmas Eve he decided to stay with her and wound up in our Christmas tree. other than that we had Christmas casserole after opening presents. Carter got 99% Thomas, which we thought was a little excessive, but he was really disappointed in the non-Thomas items so it worked out. Kailey and Jordan got an easy bake and digital cameras they love along with too many other toys and Ellie got a high chair! Santa really knows how to be practical sometimes. Shaun got a remote control car, yes they are for 12 year old but do you know my husband? i got a skillet and a hand mixer. 4 out of 6 of us got naps. I made my first ham dinner with Au Gratin potatoes and we roasted marshmallows in our fireplace. We decided we are bad parents after letting our kids watch Dodge ball with us. not the cleanest movie to let kids watch FYI. now the kids are in bed, the house is fairly picked up and i am updating my blogs
its been a nice relaxing day. now we have 10 more days to do nothing, we'll see how fun the easy bake is a few days! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Christmas Eve

Tonight we went to the Kennedy's, they are the ones who bravely watched the kids while we went to Italy. I'm surprised they wanted to see us again! We told the kids we were going to drop them off for a few days and be back, they didn't like that too much. We had a nice Christmas eve dinner, desserts and watched Luke 2, then headed home to open PJ's and get ready for Santa to come. The kids can't get enough of Mary, their 16 year old daughter.

My little helpers

Ellie fell asleep on the floor because she just wanted to stay up with us

Carter spilt chocolate shake all over his face, he didnt think it was too funny but we did

Making cookies again

Carter giving the "do i have something on my face" look. makes me laugh at how chubby he looks!

Jordan helping me put chocolate on the shortbread cookies

since being back these guys are with me non-stop it isnt bad, its kinda funny, they help me with everything, and are very messy in the process

Jessie,Chris and Hadley come!

Jessies version of Shreks Gingerbread man. pretty good!

I put jessie to work! fun work

Ellie and Hadley trying to bond. Hadley was sick so they didnt stay around each other much.

Jessie, Chris and Hadley came in town on Saturday to babysit for us while we were gone, we got lucky enough for them to stay a few extra days. they had a few papers to write, and I watched Hadley while they did a little sight seeing, she slept the whole time, i got lucky! it was sad to see them go, hopefully they will come again soon.

Christmas is coming

Setting up the Christmas tree

I think he likes frosting

Today we, well I, got a Christmas tree and brought it back to decorate! Shaun was out of town and time was running short. With Jessie, Hadley and Chris in town we made sugar cookies, Gingerbread men and decorated the tree. the one good thing about buying a tree 10 days before Christmas is they are super cheap!

We're back! Wild Wings here we come

i was pretty glad to see this face!

Shaun looks happy doesn't he?

we made it back! Jessie and Chris picked us up from the airport. It was so good to see the kids. We took them to Wild Wings to celebrate coming home. nothing like wings in the US after 10 days of pasta.

Day 8: Rome

This was Shaun the day after he drank from the fountain, he didn't feel good. he threw up outside the bus stop, it was funny, to me not him. then he realized he didn't bring his jacket which i told him to bring and he was freezing the whole time, i kinda felt bad, but i warned him not to drink from the fountain and I told him to bring the jacket. he ended up sleeping on the seats while we bus toured all around Rome. he missed 90% of it.

I Love Ellie's smile!

I thought this was a cool picture. on the right side is the Arc of Constantine and he inside the Colosseum. we took a guided tour of the Colosseum, Palentine Hill and the Roman Forum. it was also pretty cool ( I say that a lot) it was pretty cold and by 3 hours we were tired

Inside the Colosseum

Me and Julius Cesar

Day 7: The Vatican, The Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps

Shaun drinking out of the fountain at the bottom of the Spanish Steps

Trevi fountain

Ellie and Dad outside the Vatican

Inside the Sistine Chapel

Yeah! Dad was super excited to wear the Bjorn! i wore it so much i think I pulled my shoulder so he got lucky enough to wear it

talk about a busy day! we woke up and went to the Vatican, of course we were running late, but we made it. Good thing things were so slow this time of year. the Vatican was pretty cool, there was so much art. the Sistine Chapel, St Peters Basilica, it was a little overwhelming! you can't take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel, but we got one and Shaun got in trouble with their God I mean guards. its crazy to think it is all so old!? it really is amazing how similar and different our beliefs are. the grandeur of their buildings, all across Italy are really immaculate, the designs, the details, the age. It puts a lot in perspective but at the same time made me so grateful for our church.

After the Vatican we headed lunch and it went to the Fontana di Trevi, threw a coin in to guarantee we would be back someday, and took the subway to the Spanish steps. For some reason Shaun saw some kid drink from the fountain and thought that meant it was sanitary... lets just say the next day he wasn't feeling to hot.

Day 6: Pisa

These pictures are out of order... our day ended with this site, it was a pretty cool end to a very tiring day
the Colosseum at night, we made it to Rome

we traveled in style

the bridge in Pisa

If you look closely you can see the slope in the steps from how people are forced to walk

the view from the top of the tower. the mountains you see is where they get all the marble for Rome and all the statues that were built in the 1400's and still today

This was in the church near the tower. not my best picture but I'm looking at actual skull and bones. gross. you can also see the marble floors and granite. this style was unique to this church than the others we saw.

Shaun holding up the tower, isn't the sky crazy blue!?

Me holding up the tower, it was falling!!

we made it! the Leaning tower of Pisa. I read it wasn't worth the trip, it was about 6 hours out of the way, but I figure, when we will ever be back? it was a great beautiful clear day and the tower was well worth it. I've decided I like architecture more than museums. When we tried to climb to the top we found out only kids 8 and older can go up. So Shaun stayed at the bottom with Ellie and went into the baptistery (baptisteries are not worth the money) and I went up. it was a much weirder sensation than i anticipated. it was so obvious it leaned it knocked your equilibrium off balance. the steps were worn from the way you were forced to walk. it was neat and the view was great! i booked it up to the top because we had an hour to go up, down and run to the train, we basically ran too with Ellie in the stroller. it was a busy trip!!!

Day 6: Terrenia

Shaun and Ellie at the beach

It was a beautiful beach. I wouldnt mind going one day when its less windy and a lot warmer!

Today we headed to Rome, along the way we stopped in Pisa and headed to the beach for my sand. Terrenia is about 25 min away from Pisa via bus ride. it was a funny story: we got on the bus and headed to the beach (we had 4 hours in Pisa/terrenia before our train left for Rome) once we got on our free bus, because we forgot to pay, we didnt know where to get off, so when we saw Terrenia we hopped off. the beach was to somewhere near but we didn't exactly know where. we walked down one road that looked hopeful and ended up on a miliary base... it was a little scary so we hurriedly backtracked. when we finally found a beach and got sand it was about an hour and half into our trip. so we waited at the bus stop only to be told the buses were on strike and would no longer be running for the day. AWESOME! so we tried to find a taxi. we did and 50 euros later we were back in Pisa! we had an hour until we had to get on the train. it was the most expensive sand I have collected so far, but worth it since everything worked out.

Day 5: Milan

Ellie and I had an awesome day! we went to see The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. only 20 or so people can see it at a time, for only 15 min and its so much more amazing than i imagined. It is a whole wall and in the pictures you see it looked like its cracking or something, In reproductions I never been like "oh that is a cool picture" I've always thought, it was OK, neat maybe, but when you see the real thing the cracks and the stucco or stuff its made of is more like texture rather than cracks. needless to say it was cool. Ellie of course decided to start crying when we got in there. The lady explaining the painting had to compete with her. by the way there are NO babies in Italy. almost creepy like. Everyone LOVED her, police would stop and coo and make funny faces, men, tour guides, museum workers, it was crazy. the kid got more attention in this one week than she probably will the rest of her life! (and more bottles, we had to keep feeding her bottles to keep her quiet in all the museums we went to) after The museum we went back to the hotel and took a much needed nap! the go go go of the trip was hard on all of us. when Shaun got back from work we headed to tour around Milan with Francis and to eat the best pizza and cal zone of my life.

This is the Castle Sforzesco

Amanda and I toured this on day 3. it was neat then when we got to see the moat and inside, and night time was cool too. they lit the whole castle up with Christmas lights and it would light up to music. this was at a loud part when the whole thing sparkled. I'd totally live in a castle.

Shauns turn to get good luck

Ellie had to spin on the bulls balls too

Me and Shaun at the Duomo at night

Day 4: Florence

The "Lee Pose" made it to Florence

Ellie's first Gelato. the Gelato was by far the best in florence!

Life imitating art

It was such a great night!

On top of the Bell Tower, 414 steps, it was well worth the climb, especially since

The statue of David. it was way bigger than I thought

I know I am picture overloading but this is only 5% of what we took!