Christmas 2011: Manganaro-Gardners in Omaha

On Christmas morning, Nick, Cruz, Maya & I headed back to Omaha for the Manganaro-Gardner celebration. John & Janice cooked up a great meal (mostaccoli & meatballs for me and prime rib for everyone else) and after dishes Dom and Sicily were able to break into their piles of presents and it was so much fun watching how each of them have grown. Dom is a little character who wanted to know if every present was "for me?" And Sicily is so calm compared to her active little brother.

After gifts we all moved downstairs for games and drinks - the guys watched football and the rest of us played a mean game of Catchphrase. Sis played with the big girls...the best of the night was when Marcy was describing a fruit whose name is the same as a color....Carly yells out "red apple" at the same time Sicily quietly asked if it was an "orange" - I'm sure you know who got it right! :)

We were all exhausted when we left around 11pm, but had a great time catching up with family and planned to get together on Tuesday night when Ross & Morgan were back from her family's house in Minneapolis.

Grammy Jan & Sicily

Opening presents

Cruz hanging with his Grammy

Nanu feeding him the good stuff

On Tuesday night, everyone came back together to celebrate one last time. Instead of an elaborate meal, we had sandwiches and snack foods and lounged around catching up with everyone. We also had a guy/girl gift exchange and the best gift of the night goes to Brent's "tailgating package" which Marc ended up with. We are planning to put that to good use on our next group trip (see below)!



Best gift of the night - beer belt!



Hanging with uncle Ross & aunt Morgan



Nanu, Cruz & Dominic

Sicily and her new shoes!

The best shot...Cruz hanging on tight to daddy's thumb...
worn out after a lot of celebrating

Another Christmas in the books - we had such an amazing time with Little Mango's first Christmas and can't wait as he gets older and truly understands what is going on!