Christmas Traditions

This Christmas season has been topsy-turvy to say the least. However, last year I gave some thought to creating some family traditions and I really wanted to try to make those happen this year. So, while the repair men were working on the bathrooms and laundry room, Luke and I where in the kitchen making cookies for trimming the tree and Santa. This year we added another helper:

We thought the family room would be fully repaired by Christmas Eve which is where we put the Christmas tree each year. We would be semi-back to normal. Woo-hoo!! Then we found out ON Christmas Eve it wouldn't be ready. Boo! I was so bummed. Would we really not have a tree this year? We haven't had the tree in the living room in about five years because we no longer live like college students and have furniture in there. But we decided better to be super-cramped in the living room then to have no tree at all. This means we got to put up our ornaments for this year. Yeah!!

Luke's was Handy Manny.
I love when Luke puts a pencil or crayon behind his ear like Manny. Ha!

Maddie's was Tinker Bell. Too cute!

Yep, that's a washer. One day we will laugh about this. Well, I hope we will.

Let the Christmas Fun Begin!

My mom wanted the kids to open their Christmas gifts from her while we visited this year. Since we are always in the ATL for Christmas, my mom usually hears via phone how the kids enjoyed their gifts. Luke received some Match Box cars and....

DRUMS!

Luke loves them and Maddie thinks they are pretty cool too! If flooding her house didn't upset our neighbor, surely the drums won't either. Right?!?

12/3/09 - The Great Mancini Flood

On Thursday, December 3rd, the kids and I pulled into the driveway after work. As the garage door was opening, I noticed there was a river of water running from the wall and water droplets were falling from the garage door.

It took me about two seconds to realize we had a leak. It wasn't the water heater so it was either the dishwasher (on the second floor) or the washer (on the third floor). Not knowing what was facing me inside the house, I got out of the van and locked the kids inside and went in. When I got to the second floor, I quickly realized it was the washer on the third floor since water was pouring out of the air vent and the light fixture in the ceiling.

You can't tell but that light fixture is full of water.

I went to the third floor and shut off the valves for the washer and learned that the water supply hose for the hot water had burst. The water flowed back into the wall. There was not a drop of water in the tray under the washer or the vinyl floor in the laundry closet.

The carpet didn't appear wet at first. It wasn't until you walked on it and realized you were leaving footprints that you noticed it was soaked.

I tried to put some buckets and bowls on the floor to catch the remaining water. I also got some towels to start drying the floor. I quickly realized this wasn't going to be cleaned up using Bounty. Oh yeah, aren't my kids still in the van in the driveway?

Dan got home and he called our "repair dudes" as I like to call them. It turns out they are a restoration company and specialize in this type of damage. They were at the house in less then two hours on Thursday night. They quickly went to work to prevent further damage and started the drying out process.

After five days of huge fans, huge dehumidifiers, having the house at 90 degrees, removal of vinyl and drywall, the house was dry. Well, except for the hardwood floors. They were as wet five days later as they were when the water first fell. Awesome!

Master bath

Wall between the laundry room and the master bath. Yep, that's the tub.

Half the wall in the TV room is gone plus some ceiling.

The garage

The down sides...

• Every floor was effected. You can't escape it.
• It happened just weeks before Christmas.
• I hate clutter and chaos and I have it in quantity at the moment.

The positive sides..

• None of our personal belongings were damaged. Given the extent of the damage, I find that amazing and I'm very grateful!
  
• As we fix things we can update items. We want to someday put this place on the market and design has changed a little bit since we first moved in six years ago.
• We have a fabulous restoration company taking care of the repairs. As soon as they got here, I realized it was going to be okay. It wasn't going to be easy but it was going to be okay.
  

Oh yeah. When we re-install the washer we will be using braided stainless steel washing machine hoses. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

Thanksgiving 2009

Okay, with all the craziness in the Mancini household these days, I'm just now getting around to posting pics from our annual trek to Chicago. Here are the highlights:

As predicted, Maddie didn't fair well on the journey. Since we've returned home, Dan has tried to say that she just wasn't as great of a traveler as the Luke-man. Granted, Luke is a fabulous little travel; however, crying until you throw-up when you have 20 minutes left in the journey does not make you a good traveler. In fact, it makes you down right horrible. There is more that could be said but lets move on to happier times :)

It was really fun watching the cousins interact and play together. This may have been one of the best parts of the trip.

Luke, Maddie and my niece Brianna

My other niece Mariah (isn't she a cutie!)

Thanksgiving Day

Luke and Brianna at the kids table

My sister Danielle and Dan

My brother Ryan and my Mom

My youngest sister Dominique and Isaac

Miss Maddie enjoying Turkey Day

The last stop before we left town was to visit Rick, Valerie and finally meet their son Ruben. It is always nice to catch-up with old friends.

Isn't that Ruben a cutie?!?!

Next year, I need to remember to take a picture of Rick and Valerie and not just the kids. It was a good trip and good Thanksgiving!

Maddie's new favorite pastime

As you guys know from a previous post, Luke isn't exactly gentle with Maddie. He tries to be gentle and we discourage rough play, but really Luke's interactions with Maddie seem more like man-handling. Well after putting up with it for 17 months, Maddie has decided that tackling her brother is one of her favorite things to do.

Luke will be sitting on the floor watching TV and she will get a little running start and run right into him and take him down to the ground.

Once she gets him to the ground, she sits on him, and then bounces up and down.

Payback for 17 months of unnecessary roughness!

In all honesty, she loves the Luke-man and she thinks this is hilarious. I think he too gets a kick out of it. Of course, I broke it up before anyone got hurt because the only logical conclusion for something like this (without mommy intervention) is tears.

Halloween 2009

Okay, so I'm a little late updating but better late than never :)

Halloween was super fun with Luke this year because this was his first year officially trick-or-treating. We were all set to go last year but he came down with a fever that afternoon and couldn't go. SO sad.

Anyway, we got together with some friends from our small group and started the evening with a Chili potluck dinner. It was so yummy and fun.

You would've never know there were 7 kids playing in the house. They were very well behaved and played extremely well together.

Aren't they cute?

The boys loved running from house to house. They soon got the code and you could hear them yelling to each other about porch lights being on or off.

Cutest little Tinkerbell!

The night was cold and wet, which reminded me of most my Halloweens growing up in Chicago. Of course, you don't mind this when you are a kid. Aaahh, nostalgia!

On a side note, I've decided that Halloween means way too many pictures of my backside. I think I'll wear a mask on my butt next year just to make the pictures more interesting!

Burt's Pumpkin Farm

For the last four years I've been looking forward to bringing Luke (and now Maddie) to Burt's Pumpkin Farm. For those of you outside of Georgia, I can't explain the compulsion to go. It just seems like your fall isn't complete unless you visit Burt's and take pictures of your kids standing next to a giant pumpkin. Of course, your children are to be dressed in fall gear to make the most out of these great Kodak moments. Yes, as I type this, I realize this must sound weird...

With all that said, we've lived in Atlanta for the last 11 years and we've never gone to Burt's because it's a HIKE from our house. It just seemed like the drive was too long to make with babies in tow...until this year. Luke and Dan have started a tradition of carving a pumpkin every week during the month of October and they will carve two the week of Halloween. Luke LOVES it and I knew he would now appreciate going to a pumpkin farm. It was so fun!! Here are the pics:

Don't we all look SO excited :)

She is SO serious and cautious when she gets into a new environment.

Luke is starting the hunt for the best pumpkins.

Is that a smile?

The hunt is on!

They have been victorious!

Without further ado, here are the giant pumpkin photos...

I've included the following picture just because I think it's cute :)

Yes, I realize we are not in "fall gear" and there is no orange, black, or brown clothing. We may follow the herds but we will march to our own drum :)