All is calm, All is bright...

nearly everything is ready for what promises to be an exciting, crazy, wonderful, sweet, fun Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! i just wish we had a couple more weeks of anticipation because i'm not ready for it all to be over...elli and ralphy have had such fun counting down the days with their advent calendars and finding our "elf on the shelf" each morning...they've made lots of goodies to share with family and they've received letters from santa himself...and we've watched polar express about 100 times! hopefully i'll get more pictures posted soon, but here are few from the last few weeks:

the kids with their baby cousin, dante angelo

it's amazing that we even got any pictures of the kids outside in october - it rained and rained and rained...the rain prevented us from doing some of our usual halloween outings, but we worked in a few...and we had a really fun halloween night!

velma, scrappy doo and shaggy!
lots of elli's soccer games were cancelled, but she played last weekend and scored 2 GOALS!!




ralphy started swimming lessons...
(and has grown about a foot taller in the last couple of months!)



sal is almost crawling...actually, this video is from a couple of days ago and last night he really started scooting/crawling on his hands and knees, so i'll have to post another video of this soon!





elli has been doing really well riding her bike without training wheels and ralphy is right behind her!

looking back...again...

elli at 6 months...

ralphy at 6 months...

sal at 6 months...

a few quick pics...

sal, the 6-month-old...

elli getting ready to score her first soccer goal...

ralphy looking sharp for my cousin maegahn's wedding...

the kids with their new baby cousin, dante angelo...

just goofing around...

3 years...

Ralphy is 3!

Ralphy has a fire in him that Ralph is so proud of and a sweet, loving side that I am fond of. He is smart and inquistive, always wanting to know how and why things work and happen the way they do.

And I guess I don't have to mention that he's very handsome, too...

Happy Birthday, buddy!

5 years...

5 years have gone by in a hurry...the little baby who made us parents is growing up...

our elliana is a strong, smart, beautiful, funny 5-year-old and we love her so much!

happy birthday, elli lou!