Christmas fun

Hey there ... hope your holiday was fun!

Buddy & Aruba were anxiously awaiting Sal's arrival home from work so that we could get the long holiday weekend underway (so cute!):

Sal and I kicked-off the holiday weekend with a Christmas Eve get-together hosted by his Mom ... lots of festivity and good food! ... here are some scenes from our visit:

Sal enjoying time with his Mom & her sweet little pup, Noel:

Sal and Mom Lepore cooking up a traditional Italian Christmas meal (pasta, of course!):

It was a full house!:from left to right, back row: Angie (Tricia's daughter, age 13), Sal, Jonathan (Tricia's son, age 18), Ralph
L to R, middle row: Tim (Patricia's son, age 12), Mom Lepore with Noel, Patricia, Deborah (holding Rebecca, Mark's daughter, age 3), Jen, Mark, Carolyn (family friend)
L to R, front row: Marisa (Patricia's daughter, age 9), Leah (Mark's daughter, age 9), Sarah (Mark's daughter, age 6)

Sal and his brother Mark enjoying a moment together:

My niece Rebecca playing with her favorite toy:

Sal and his sister Deborah, just hangin':

Mom Lepore with one of her gifts ... a Snuggie (yes, it's a blanket ... with sleeves! LOL):

My nephew Tim modeling his COOL new shirt:

Later, Tim & I played MANY spirited games of Connect 4 (and he's so good at it!):

Meanwhile, Uncle Sal was helping Leah tune her new guitar (that's Sarah in the background):

The festivities and good food continued on Christmas! Our day was split between a holiday lunch at Patricia's (Sal's sister) and then a holiday dinner with my family.

This year, I made my own gift wrap, "recessionista"-style! It was a nod to my Dad, who did this one year with gifts when I was a kid. I got some brown paper bags from the grocery store and, of course, glammed them up using my scrapbooking stash. Because bling is my thing!

Each recipient's name was in red glitter ("garnet" by Martha Stewart), using alpha stamps from one of Lisa Bearnson's Kits-of-the-Month and a glue pad. Then I used a "Merry Christmas" stamp and gold glitter ("florentine gold", also by MS). To complete the look, I added snowflakes using 3 fab MS punches ... aspen snowflake, glacial snowflake, and alpine snowflake. For an even more diverse look among them, I covered each snowflake shape in a different variation of white glitter ... Diamond Stickles, Crystal Stickles, and MS "crystal" fine glitter, respectively. Everyone loved their package! :-)

And then I got a surprise of my own! ... Sal also did the brown-bag gift wrap thing for ME! I had to laugh. Take a look at my gift package, front & back:

He even used red letter stickers to label my package! (this will be of interest to my sb'ing pals ... he chose the Tinsel Thickers in red (cherry) foil chipboard - nice font!) So, can you picture Sal in Michaels choosing letters? ... too funny! ... whoa, he must love me! *wink* (and, yes, he gave me the leftover letters for my stash, LOL)

My sister, Terry, received some scented luxuries from Bath & Body Works:

Terry's husband, Heince, will be picking up a good read and a coffee at Barnes & Noble:


My Mom will be heading to Michaels for some new crafting goodies (she does crochet, cross-stitch, quilting & sews too!):

My Dad will be looking spiffy in his new shirts: And Buddy & Aruba always LOVE opening their gifts! ... wanna see? ...

It really WARMED my heart to see Buddy so healthy and active, our sweet angel! He & Aruba had such a fun time! :-)

Enjoy this final week of 2009,