Thankgiving and Christmas!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! This year we stayed in Virginia for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, a first for us! Although we enjoyed a nice time at home, our distant families were missed.

So, since I have been pregnant with Leah, I have been blogging to keep everyone informed about our family. Each month, I gather all of our "adventures" and post them. For Christmas, Jake and Jeanine had all of my posts printed and bound in a hard cover book - I will cherish it forever, it will be nice to have to show the children when they get older :) Thank you!! Also, Jake has been helping me post the last few months, it has been nice to put this together with him!! Thanks Honey :) Your the best!!

Our handsome man all dressed up for Thanksgiving.

Momma and Matthew getting ready to watch the Patriots play the early game on Thanksgiving day

Jake and his cousin Brian watching the Pats and of course, their fantasy football teams

Daddy and Leah ready to play some football

Leah sits down with her cousin's Brian, Maddie and Coley for Thanksgiving Dinner. Thank you to all of them for baby sitting/watching Leah all day.

Brian and MJ hosted an amazing Thanksgiving dinner for our family, which included Grandpa Clay, Grandma Louise and Auntie Jeanine. Thank you MJ for cooking an amazing meal.

Leah is now officially a big girl in her toddler bed!

Leah tops the Christmas Tree with the Angel

Jasmine's 8th grade Christmas concert. The pictures come out so bad...she is playing cello on the right in front of the bass players!

Renee and her friend Kayla after their first High School Concert

I mean really isn't he the best.

Leah and Grandma making christmas cookies.

It's a Finch tradition to make Christmas cookies and they made plenty. At the end of the night over 300 cookies had been made and there was still 10lbs of uncooked cookie dough left.

Jen and I hanging out with friends before our company Christmas party.

We had an amazing night!

Matthew is now sitting up, rolling over and almost crawling.

I'm not sure who like his "exersaucer" more, Matthew or Mom and Dad!

Matthew is teething, and already has his 2 bottom teeth.

Christmas eve traditions in our house are Rock Band...

Lots of Love....

visits from Santa.....

Ho Ho Ho.....

and Appetizers for dinner!

Our best tradition is that Grandpa/Santa reads

A Night Before Christmas to the kids before they go to bed

and finally letters to Santa! (Yes, It is a 14 year old writing her letter to Santa - I made her..haha!)

Christmas morning can not begin until the kids do their excercises.....

do their stretches.....

and brush their teeth!

Now they are free to go downstairs and open gifts

(they get so mad when we stall them..its the best!!)

The girls got digital cameras from mommy and Auntie

Jakes favorite christmas present was his leg lamp from Jeanine.

Matthew likes to eat wrapping paper.

Grandma did a great job picking out shoes!!

Leah and Santa

The kids and Santa!

Leah looking beautiful like her mom.

Macgyver loving the holidays.

Santa and his helper!!

She is such a good big sister

Jakes leg lamp in the window which welcomed Memere and Pepere who arrived at our house around 11:00pm, but still made it on Christmas day!

So that means the morning of the 26th is Christmas part 2!!

Pepere gets the blocking pad he wants so he can legally beat his basketball players.

Mom and Leah buried in presents

Back to the Alves for a Christmas dinner on the 26th.

Leah playing with Coley and Brian.

If you thought he looked handsome at Thanksgiving he looks even better now!

The kids table on Christmas.

Pepere and Matthew looking handsome dressed up at the dinner table.

Thank you to MJ again for cooking another amazing dinner.

Maddie getting Matthew to fall asleep.

Brian and Jake showing off their dance moves after dinner.

If you can't tell from the picture they have no rhythm.

Memere, Jazzy and Renee getting ready to go into "ICE".

ICE is an art display of frozen sculptures in a giant freezer.

The theme was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" - It was amazing.

Its all Ice!!

Leah might have been getting a little cold.

Even with her giant coat.

It was even equiped with a 2 story slide!

Here comes Daddy and Leah!!

Sorry this isn't a frozen ice sculpture.

This is a giant tree made from Peeps. Yummy!

After ICE we went to the Gaylord Hotel which is amazing.

It's tough to tell but it is snowing inside the hotel!

The snow was followed by a water and light show.

This was all in the atrium of the hotel. There was also a train ride!

Our evening concluded with an amazing dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill!

Thank you to all of our friends and family for all of the wonderful gifts - our holidays were truly amazing!!

**Heres to a Happy and Healthy 2011**