Christmas

 We had a wonderful Christmas in Ithaca. We met the newest addition to the family, Seamus Michael, who was born on December 3rd.  He is a beautiful little baby!

 Jacob and Seamus.

 Theo is already over six months old. He had a great first Christmas. Aunt Maria also recently became engaged.  Congratulations Maria and Pano.

 Here is our family photo shoot prior to Christmas Eve mass.  Jacob had just been crying so he doesn't look his best.

 All the grandsons on one coach.

 Here are all the Keating girls and the boys!

 Doesn't Rebecca look awesome for just having had a baby?

 The proud grandparents.

 Our little family.

 This is Theo on Christmas morning. Jay was sporting his winter beard.

Opening gifts, gifts and more gifts.

We headed over to the Albanese side on Christmas morning.  The cutest little Santa Claus was waiting to see us....

I love this picture of everyone in the family room together.

 Beautiful Aunt Laura and Theo.

 Poppy once again made his delicious seven course meal.  This year it included:

Baked brie and marmalade wrapped in puff pastry

Mixed greens and arugula with goat cheese

Onion potato roquefort soup

Crab cakes and clams

Lemon sorbet (Mom and Laura made this and it was excellent!)

Roast lamb with rosemary sprigs

New York style cheesecake and Christmas cookies

 The soup, made by Jay!

 The delicious sorbet.

 The crown jewel of the night-lamb!

 Seamus and Theo, they are going to be best buddies.

 Holding a newborn is pure joy.

 Mom cooking while Theo plays and sits in his high chair.

A tired Theo and Aunt Kristen. We had a wonderful time catching up.

Happy New Year to all of you! We are so blest to have you in our lives.

The gift of baptism

 Here is Theo the morning of his baptism.  We had a great weekend with family celebrating this joyous event.  Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim were the godparents.

Great grandma made the hat and booties he's wearing

 The boys did great during mass, but were super antsy during the baptism.  They spent most of it in the vestibule of the church or upstairs in the balcony.

 Theo is receiving the chrism oil.

 Theo received the light of Christ.  All the mothers also were given a red rose, very sweet.

 This is as close as we got to a group photo.  Everyone was tired and hungry and ready to leave after being in church for over 2 hours.  I'm sad that we did not get more group photos, but what can you do.

Grandma and Poppa with little Theo.

Our family.

 This cake was excellent!

 After the baptism we enjoyed a meal of strip steak, salad, bread and shrimp.  We had a couple of incidents involving wine glasses.  One wine glass was shattered across a room and another glass of wine was spilled all over a rug.  It was actually quite comical...

 As a result Poppy ended up drinking out of a sippy cup.

 The day of the baptism was rainy and cool, but the day before was hot! Here's Raphael wearing Theo's shorts.

 Aunt Rebecca enjoying the afternoon.

Theo!

Thank you to everyone for making the trip up to Buffalo. We had a wonderful weekend and we're excited that Theo is now part of God's church.

A visit from family

 Aunt Laura, Uncle Chad and Gianna made the trip up to Buffalo, for the weekend.

 Gianna is almost six months old.  She is super cute.  She is constantly smiling and is overall very happy.

 It was a rainy weekend, but we went outside when we could.  The boys went swimming in the pool.

I love the colors in this picture.

 More garden pictures!

 Flowers that I brought back from the cottage.

 On Sunday evening we went down to the waterfront,  It was super windy.

 The babies.

 Ordering ice cream.

 Chad was patient enough to sit with Raphael while he ate his ice cream.

 Jacob was enjoying the view and the ice cream.

All the cousins, so precious.