A SATURDAY WITH FRIENDS

This morning Chris Chambers and his wife, Leah brought their sweet little daughter, Mira over for a visit. When you ask Mira how old she is she says, "One and three quarters." How cute is that? Her grandma, my close friend, Sue stopped by at the same time. How could she resist? We shared Nico also of course.

News flash! Lisa likes fruitbread. To prove it I included a photo of her enjoying it. Lisa says she is older now. I guess that means she has more sophisticated taste. In any case I am glad she likes it. She has always planned to make it, as we all do, for family tradition. It will be much more meaningful if she wants to eat it.

As you can see I captured a beautiful shot of mother and child. The last photo is one of Lisa taking care of Nico. She does this every chance she gets while she is still home. We are still having so much fun.

SNOW ONE DAY LATE

Well it finally did start snowing on Christmas evening. So on the 26th we had some white stuff to enjoy. This made us all want to go out walking and so we did. I just love the seasonal weather we get here in Ashland, Oregon. Note: the adorable hat that Amy knitted for Nico.
P.S. Ron is dying to get to some warm weather and golf, bike and exercise in the sun. That should actually happen in a couple of weeks.

CHRISTMAS DAY

It was a lovely Christmas. I arose at 5:00 am to begin cooking. So much preparation! The rest of the family was up by 9:00. We opened presents for awhile. The we went to Mass. When we arrived home again we opened more gifts.

We had once again a traditional meal of turkey with meat stuffing (Tessie's recipe), manicotti, meatballs and sauce. We watched THE NATIVITY STORY in the evening.

CHRISTMAS EVE

We had a delightful Christmas Eve. The day began with a antlered deer in our backyard. In the afternoon we went downtown and sat by the fire at Alex's. We had appetizers and hot drinks. We then came home and watched THE HOLIDAY. The men watched football. We finished the evening with submarine sandwiches, another tradition. Don't miss how Nico looks at his father in the first picture.

CHRISTMAS EVE EVE WITH LISA AND NICO

Today we mostly hung out with Nico.Check out his little Christmas suit. In the evening Lisa's friends, Natalie and Elisa, came over to decorate Christmas cookies, visit and eat pizza. It's a tradition that goes back at least 10 years with those two girls.

Nico just exhausted himself and went to sleep. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Yea!

LISA ARRIVES FROM ITALY

What a joy to have our beautiful daughter home once again! Ron and I met her at the airport. Check out the stylin' coat that was a gift from the parents of her students. Then we brought her home to meet Nico. Saturday was a very special day.

LATEST NICO PICTURES FROM RICK AND MAY

Hot off the press. These are the photos that Rick and May took of Nico today, December 18th, 2007. They do such excellent photography. But then, how could they miss?

ANOTHER DAY OF NICO

Well things are going pretty OK here. One glitch is that May seems to have a case of mastitis. Poor girl is running a temperature, aching all over and feeling exhausted. We are all giving her some help. We took her to our favorite doctor in the whole world, Dr. Morris. He has her on antibiotics.

Little Nico is finally enjoying his baths. He also likes lounging around with his Dad. Could it be the ugly smell of Yogi that made Nico make such a funny face? How could his Daddy do that to him?

NICO ARRIVES IN ASHLAND

This afternoon, Sunday, Nico came to Ashland. He brought his mom and dad with him of course. He is cute as ever and even more alert.

Rick is becoming the champion burpper. How happy is Rick? I never did well with this "hold".

Then Nico and I had a nice little visit over a glass of wine. Just look at how he is listening to his Nana.

PRE-CHRISTMAS SATURDAY

Today was another day to prepare for Christmas. Hopefully tomorrow Rick and May will bring little Nico down. It has been far too long since we have seen him, nine days to be exact. We miss Rick and May also.

So I want to get much done before they arrive and just concentrate on Nico after. Ron and I did start the day at Starbuck's. Santa was there and I took my turn to sit on his knee after the little kids were all gone. Then I came home and prepared the traditional Christmas manicotti. I also made Grandma Cosley's spritz cookies. I finished my Christmas cards. I cooked up a batch of Saturday night meatballs for tomorrow's spaghetti. I did wrap the Christmas presents that we have purchased thus far. We still have a bit of shopping to do.

Soon I should have more pictures of Nico for you, God willing.

NEW NICO PICS

Rick just sent me new Nico pictures and I am blogging them to you. Enjoy! I sure am.

HOLIDAY PREPS

Since we arrived back home last Thursday we have concentrated on Christmas traditions. On Friday we went to Camp Baker Road to cut down our tree at our favorite tree farm. Ron and I searched acres of trees before selecting ours.

On Saturday we made 19 loaves of fruitbread. It is the best ever---loads of fruit.

Then today while Ron watched football I decorated the tree. So we on our way towards the big day and more importantly enjoying all our family traditions.