Christmas Eve 2014 with Hajians and Kalpakgians

Fantastic food, drink, fun and conversation was had by all. Merry Christmas!

 The boys playing Lego's. Their favorite things to do together are to fight with weapons and play Legos.

 aww sisterly love. Wonder if they will still love each other in a few years when Elyse gets into Kateri stuff and bothers her 24-7? :)

 Barnacle baby hanging on my leg

 Vigneau kids and cousin Andrea

Yeah thats what happens when you try to get too many kids to look at the camera at once.

Boys' Room Dresser redo

We can't keep still around here. So no money for big projects like hardwood floors and bathroom remodels leaves us with small projects. I say us but this one was all Mike other than the paint color choice. Some friends from church were getting rid of this solid white girly dresser. It was in great shape so we decided to just sand and paint it. The boys room dresser was in rough shape with broken drawers so we decided to make it over for the boys room. It looks great in their room with their bluish walls and truck decor. Since the dresser was free we wanted to make it over as cheaply as we could. Let me just say there are so many adorable drawer pulls on Ebay. Adorable. But it seemed silly to spend $40-50 on knobs and such when we could spend alot less at Home Depot. 

Saint Benedict Academy Christmas Pageant 2014

 Pre K kids were Little Drummer boys so here is Israel

 Second graders were shepherds ( Keira is in the white tunic with the blue head covering right in the middle)

Spectacular show as always. Funny, uplifting and fabulous singing and music. Such a great show.  We enjoy it every year.

Allegro xmas Party 2014

 The kids always have a great time at Mike's work xmas party. ( Samuel was home with me napping)

Thank you Carroll for the pictures!

Feast of St Nicholas

 St Nicholas brought chocolate and a small gift for each kiddo.

 Chocolate for breakfast!

Its all Star Wars all the time over here.

The making of a subpar Christmas card

We tackled this project early in the morning. Right after breakfast. I promised chocolate to all who cooperated. There were tears and whines and grumbles and finally everyone was wrestled into fancy clothing. And then there was a dead camera battery. Awesome. You would have thought ultra organized me would have thought to charge the camera battery.  We had a back up plan. Mike used his phone camera and I used the Ipad. After 25 min we had not 1 good shot of all 4 kids. I tossed all the Samuel crying shots and the Israel punching Nairi shots. This is what was left.  

 This was the perhaps if I turn on the tv Samuel will stay still shot

 Keira with a lazy eye shot

 Keira has a open mouth  and Nairi has a weird hand shot

 Keira not looking at the camera shot

 The seating looks off shot

 Israel is blurry shot

 Still blurry in black and white ( as if that would magically fix it)

 Israel is blurry again

And the post photo shoot not posed  shot that we went with.

And now Blogger refuses to let me turn this picture so its not sideways or at least reload it. I leave you with that.

Boston Ballet date with Keira

 Every Christmas I take Keira to the local Nutcracker production. This year I really wanted to see for myself ( and bring her to see) the Boston Ballet version. We try to take the kids out 1/1 without their siblings a few times a year for various things because since they are always together its nice to enjoy them by themselves.  This was Keira's day. I am a pansy and driving into Boston scares me slightly but Mike loves the challenge. The 3 of us had a fabulous time at the Ballet ( AWESOME AWESOME PRODUCTION!) and wandering around Boston.  There is something about a big city and people everywhere and buildings super tall and squished together that gets me excited. I love spending time in Boston but we don't do it every often because well, kids. Its 10x more difficult with kids in tow.

 The Opera house was simply amazing. Stunning chandeliers and paint and gold everything. So pretty to look at.

 Pictures are terrible as our flash refused to work and it was fairly dark inside

 For $35 a ticket we even had great seats and could see really well!

 I have never been to Boston Common in the winter.

 There is ice skating on Frog pond (  our kids have played in the Frog Pond pool in the summer so it was cool to see people skating on it)