The Messina Family

The Messina Family
Barcelona 2010

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas visit

Christmas was a fun at the Messina house! My brother, Craig and his wife, Mayra and their 5 month old son, Alex, came from Houston. It was so wonderful to have family here for Christmas and also to meet my youngest nephew! We had a white Christmas and it was good just to sit around and talk and get to catch up again.

Lily is having fun with her new Leapster (she is no longer allowed to bug her biggest brother to play games on his iPod Touch!) She also received a lot of arts and crafts projects and materials. She is quite the little artist and can be found drawing pictures everyday at one of our tables. She drew pictures for everyone for Christmas and put them under the tree. Aunt Mayra had a picture of her holding baby Alex. Uncle Craig got a drawing of a motorcycle (complete with flames on the tank). Tim got a very impressive drawing of him playing basketball. (He couldn't believe she drew it on her own....I had to remind him that she HAS spent a great deal of time in the stands at basketball games over the past few years!) Joe's looked kind of abstract....a whole bunch of colored rectangles. Joe was looking a little disappointed after seeing Tim's drawing and asked Lily what it was....she told him it was "lots of sticks of gum!" She wanted to draw something that he likes! We all got a good laugh over that. :o)

Rich made everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to me on Christmas morning. No, it wasn't my birthday, but my birthday is in February and it's the big 4-0. There's a 99% chance he will be deployed, so I got a fabulous Christmas/40th birthday gift of a digital SLR camera and telephoto lens. I am excited to try it at the boys' basketball tournaments this week. It took some pretty good pictures around the house! Alex was patient with me as I clicked away. :o)

Rich is so proud of all the countries we have been to in all our travels. I got him a stand and a miniature flag from each country he has been to so far. It was quite a few!

Tim enjoyed getting anything having to do with basketball. Always exercising, he also got some equipment that kept him busy that afternoon! Tim also got a few hoodies to keep him warm through the Nebraska winter.

Joe also got a few hoodies to wear along with some items for his car. His front driver's seat now sports a Tweetie bird seat cover. :o) Thanks to Uncle Craig, he now has an emergency safety kit for the trunk and I got him some much needed new windshield wipers. :o)

We had a wonderful Christmas and now that Craig and his family are safely back home, we are cleaning up and getting ready for my parents to arrive on Wednesday. We'll celebrate Christmas with them and then get ready for Lily's birthday party. She's going to have two parties...one with family around her birthday and then one at the end of January with her friends. (We like to throw Chinese New Year birthday parties for Lily) Her friends are back from their holiday trips by then.

Enjoy the pictures!




It's Santa! I always imagined he'd be a bit bigger...and hairier!


Alex


Cousins - Joe, Tim, Lily and cousin, Alex


Cyndi and Lily


Mayra and Alex


Cyndi, her baby brother, Craig, and his baby, Alex


Craig, Mayra and Alex

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