The Casiano Family
Eddie and I were married 10 years ago on a warm September afternoon. One year and one month later Liv and Arick arrived. Life has never been quite the same since. We've moved 4 times, all locally (my husband loves to remodel but gets very bored when he accomplishes all of his projects). We have two dogs Lucy who is almost 8 and Roscoe who is almost 5. He is very accident prone but doesn't like to talk about it. He is going to the vet this week to get 8 stitches removed from his poor little leg. For some unknown reason he decided to run into/through the window in our sun room. This is his 4Th major accident. He has fallen into our pool, broken his toe/paw on a stepping stone, rolled under a moving car and now stitches. We think that he might be part cat. If he is he's working on his 5Th life right now! Life is never anything but entertaining in this house.
Our Christmas tree
This is our second real Christmas tree. As a kid we always had the same plastic Christmas tree with 700 branches that were somehow color coded to fit into a pole that magically turned into a Christmas tree. So we decided that our tradition was going to be a real tree. Every year we go to Menard's of course to find the perfect tree. Liv is the designated tree finder. The first year was perfect no problems but this year has been a bit of a disaster. Because of the poor economy the tree selection at Menard's was minimal so we decided to go to Alan's. It was really nice. There was a man outside actually roasting chestnuts by an open fire. It seemed like the start to a perfect tree. So we find our tree, purchase it and bring it home. The first week everything was beautiful and then our tree developed curvature of the main branch. It had a serious gangster lean to one side. It was still beautiful and still our perfect tree and then it happened. While Eddie was at work of course and the kids were just falling asleep. The tree leaned and fell almost out of the stand. So I think, no worries I can fix this and attempt to straighten the tree back to it's leaning position. After about an hour of trying to tighten the very small stump of our tree into our gigantic tree stand. I gave up. The tree rested on it's side until Eddie came home and I proceeded into the restroom to remove the sap and glitter that seemed permanently stuck to my hands and neck. It took two more tries and a few 2x4's and we are in business. Now we can open the front curtains again!

Liv and Arick at their first Cubs game. It was the cross town classic and the Cubs won! They even got a ball from one of the players..