new year's rockin' eve

this year we spent yet another new year's eve with the lutz family. this has been a tradition for us now for the past, gosh, 8-9 years now i think? our group has gotten smaller over the years as our friends family's have grown and changed as did their plans, but the 6 (now 7 with tony) of us still manage to continue the tradition and hope to for many more years!

this year lisa's sister and her family (minus 1) joined us. this was fun for tony as they have a son matthew who is just a little over 6 months younger than t (although he looks about 2 years older). they played and played and played...and played and played and played all night. it wasn't until matthew left to go home that tony started to get snuggled in for the night.

tony hung in until 11:47 p.m. - close, but not close enough to see the ball drop like he wanted to. maybe next year...(this was always a fun treat for me when i was allowed to stay up to see the ball drop)!

this turned out to be a great picture of tony with his "uncle" mikey (his godfather)...neither of them typically sit still long enough to get a shot like this!

good ol' dick clark...someone seriously needs to step in and keep this man off the air...i felt so bad for him.

the new "ball"...it's really nice watching it from the comfort of a warm home with a few good friends instead of all the chaos in nyc in the freezing cold! not for me...no thanks!

a shot of mama and t at midnight...poor thing was wiped out after his fun with matt!

hope everyone's 2009 is going well for them so far! hope it's a good one for all of us!!

here is the link to the full album from that evening.

christmas 2008

after waking anthony up at 8 a.m. (yes, we actually had to wake him up on christmas morning - hmmm, he's my kid as far as the sleeping goes, but not in the getting up christmas a.m. dept. - i was always a very early rise that day!)...he came downstairs to see if santa made his visit.

when we visited santa at the mall a few weeks ago, anthony had asked santa for 2 things specifically...a soft pretzel (yes, you were reading correctly) and a pair of scissors (this was followed by santa repeating back to him scissors? and anthony screaming, "scissors to cut paper with" in his face...it was honestly very funny, not nasty).

santa did not disappoint and left not only the soft pretzel where his cookies, the carrot and milk had been, but also this cool note for t.

along with this very cool pair of zebra striped scissors...to cut paper with!!!

after a quick a.m. nap for tony after opening the rest of his presents, we headed off to my mom and dad's for brunch and more presents that santa left at their house...tony got a drum set! he loves it and honestly, mom and dad think it's pretty cool too.

from there we came home and t took another good nap before heading to betty nana and gary's for christmas dinner and yet more presents.

we had a beautiful christmas and thank God for giving us another happy and healthy one with our families!

here is the link to our christmas album.

oh holy night

christmas eve was so much fun this year...tony was so into the preparation for santa's arrival, that although i absolutely love christmas eve service at church, i myself felt like a little kid waiting for it to be over so we could go home and get the night moving and get to bed!



following the candlit church service, we arrived home where tony got to open his christmas eve presents from mama and daddy (tradition of new pj's and a disney dvd - wall-e).

then it was time for the milk and cookies for santa and carrot for rudolph before heading off to bed. i was amazed at how nicely/quickly he went to bed too given his obvious excitement!

here is the link to the christmas eve photo album.

a schmomudabru christmas

on saturday, december 20th, we held the 2nd annual schmomudabru (schaeffer-mohr-mulligan-d'angelo-brumbaugh) christmas. it's become too hard for us to hit all family member's houses on christmas day, so we've started celebrating a couple days before.

this year, we did a cookie exchange to switch things up a little bit...it was very entertaining and aside from my thumbprint cookies turning out to look like the jolly green giant shoved his thumb to make the hole instead of mine, everyone's cookies turned out great!

another fun treat was when santa arrived on the reiffton fire truck. he drove right down my parent's street and stopped in front of the house. he waved and gave a few hearty ho-ho-ho's while a nice fireman handed out candy canes to tony and harry...only cindy mohr could arrange something like this (or happen to live in the right part of the township for santa's arrival).

since i'm catching up on posts, i won't be putting any pictures right into the post itself, but here is the link to the album so you can peek into our evening.

merry christmas to you and yours...

because it wouldn't be christmas without it...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

another one under my belt...

i recently completed (like an hour or so ago) another set of invites. candina came as a referral to me from bobbi-jo (thanks for spreadin' the word lady) and i was happy to accomodate her request for dedication (very similar to baptism) invitations, as well as response cards and hotel information cards (lots of out of town guests). i hope she's pleased with them when i deliver them to her tomorrow. obviously there are some blurred out areas to protect candina and her family from any "uninvited attendees" at the dedication...

lighting the way

i am really lacking in my posting abilities this week. i finally finished shopping tonight for tony...now to just find time when his nosey little behind isn't around to wrap the darn stuff!

sooo, to leave with you with something so i can say that i posted today, i will show you the outside lights we put up last saturday along with the window boxes i "stuffed". my mom used to do the window boxes back on orchard court just like this...i love that she handed the large gold christmas balls down to us when they moved and that we actually have the window boxes now to use them!

got that done...

for the first time since 2005 (when he was a mere 2 weeks old), tony sat on the big (red) guy's lap. top on his list of things he wants santa to bring...a soft pretzel and some d-b-do's (dvd's in non-tony-speak)! hmmmm, that's my kid!

christmas 2008 begins

sorry for being mia this week...it's a busy time of year for me at work we have a huge presentation on 1/5 that i am in the midst of preparations for so i don't have to work too much through the holiday...

well, christmas is under way for the d'angelo's...well if you're standing in our house anyway. outside of the house still looks like fall but i hope to change that today! i've been waiting for a dry day which was hard to come by this week!

last saturday, despite the entire d'angelo family being sick (john having it the worst - he had no voice...it was very quiet in this house), we loaded in the truck to go get the family christmas tree! this year we headed to plow farms (acquaintances of john own it - it's a really nice set-up they have)...as we were heading out of house, snow began to fall which made this annual trek even more exciting!!

before we could get the tree, we had to make room in the living room for it by relocating mass quantities of toys, books and puzzles belonging to tony d! it was a tough job, but we ended up cleaning up and rearranging his room in the process. he then decided to read books to mickey and the gang...it was really cute.

t fell asleep in the car on the way to the tree farm (again, we were all sick) but woke up once we got there and enjoyed the fun. here is tony and mama in front of the tree we chose and another of tony and daddy. his hands are out in both pictures trying to "catch" the snowflakes.

we brought the tree home that night and got it in the stand to let the branches hang (plus none of us felt well enough to decorate it). tony and i decorated it and the rest of the inside of the house on sunday (with home alone on in the background - it's tradition) while daddy rested (he did put the star and lights on it sunday before tony and i took over).

here is a slideshow of the rest of the pictures from the "beginning" to the finished product! or the link to our web album if you just want to view the pictures normally.

oh and here is tony d with his favorite (new for 2008) hallmark ornament!!

thanks alot bobbi (read with sarcasm)!

as if i, my husband, or child need to be reminded of my addiction to blogging, i came across this little gem of a quiz on bobbi's blog...here are my results:

82%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

i guarantee there will be several people i know that would think that score was not high enough...i on the other hand can only think why it wasn't this easy to score a percentage like that on any test i took in college! ha! perhaps if i'd have taken blogging 101 at iup, i'd have actually gotten a 100% on something!

thanks bobbi, old friend, old pal, for feeding my blogging addiction!!

**click on my score to take the quiz yourself**

he's making a list...

hey you mommies and daddies out there, a friend sent me this link to a free site (yes, free...i know, i know...in this economy, that's hard to come by) to get a download of a personalized letter to santa...

i did it for tony today - at the end of the "personalization process" it will give you the option to purchase one complete with an envelope and stamp from "the north pole"(even at the low price of $2.99 - i still opted for the "free download" option). i figured at tony's age, he won't notice my "santa writing" and "fake stamp" on the envelope when i pull it out of the mailbox with the day's mail.

here's a sample of his letter...have fun creating your own!

20 years

today, december 1st, marks the 20th anniversary of world aids day. while treatments, medicine and our knowledge of the disease has come along way since 1988, there is still much more work to be done. please take a few minutes of your day to remember those who live each day with the disease, those that have already lost their lives (regardless of how they contracted it) and pray that a cure can be found.

a night out

saturday night, john and i enjoyed an evening out. we attended a dinner honoring the owner of my company who was in for a visit from taiwan. i was in charge of organizing and planning the evening, from finding a location to hold it, sending out the invites, picking entrees, and making the placecards and centerpieces...don't think for a second, i'm complaining, because i absolutely love doing that sort of thing...it's kind of like planning a wedding reception (which i tease john all the time about "redoing" because i love party planning so much)...it's just i had 2 weeks to plan saturday's event...yep folks, two weeks. i was very nervous pulling it all together, but i think it ended up going quite well, and everyone seemed pleased.

i was very happy with the outcome of the centerpieces - it's so nice when you have a vision and it turns out exactly how you saw it. the dinner was held at the french creek golf club and the building and room looked beautiful. i snapped a few pictures of my centerpiece preparations...

votive candle and votive holder

copper wire - wrapped around the votive holder

branches (from front tree after a storm) placed in terra cotta pot with morter and moss

ta-da...finished product lit and on the table

here is a link to more pictures of the evening.