A Christmas Stop in Buffalo, NY

Beth's younger sister, Steph, lives in the greater Buffalo area. Since we were in Rochester during Christmas-time, we all stopped on over to see Steph, Bob, and their 5 kids. Really, who's crazy enough to have 5 kids? :-) Three of our kids match up pretty closely in age, so they had a good time eating, running around, and playing on the Wii.

Allie, Steph's youngest

Pete, her oldest, is about 5 months older than Rachel

Pete, just like Rachel got a cell phone for Christmas. They were busy texting each other.

Beatles Rock Band was a huge hit with everyone

Matt, Steph's 2nd

Sam, Steph's 3rd is about 3 weeks older than Ben. They had a great time hanging out.

Tom, her 4th, is about 6 months older than Ethan and such a sweet boy.

A gaggle of cousins! (minus Allie)

Late Christmas in Rochester

After Christmas back in Boston, we headed to Rochester to join Becky, Mike and my parents for a post Christmas get together.

Christmas Morning : )

It always the best day of the year. The kids go crazy for silly things they will generally forget about in a few weeks and Mom and Dad get the fun of enjoying the excitement and smiles on each of the kid's faces.

Right out of the gate, Ben was looking for one particular gift. He was very nervous it might not show up ↓

If you haven't guessed it, Bethany bought the boys matching pajamas. The stripes made the whole morning that much more fun to watch ; ) ↓

Sarah went crazy for this simple gift... ↓

A baseball glove.... Wooooooow ↓

Ethan's "big" gift this year was a Leapster. It plays computer games that help you learn math and language skills.

Sarah was not always happy. ↓

As the morning progressed, Ben became worried Santa didn't bring the gift he most wanted. ↓

I have no idea why Ben always does that? ↓

Sarah climbed in and out of this thing for hours. ↓

Finally, his LAST gift of the day was the one Ben most wanted. A Nintendo DS (its a little computer that pays games). Life was OK once again. ↓

Rachel, however, scored BIG. She got her first phone and was able to TEXT her friends all day. Based on her tween standards, she deemed herself socially acceptable once again. ; ) ↓