We are conducting long-term monitoring of several AGN with the aim of understanding the interplay between the emitting regions around the central black hole as well as the physics of the accreting flow. Here we present results for two of our sources, NGC 3783 and MR 2251–178, with strong evidence for disk-driven variability and the existence of cold accretion disks, where near-IR emission can be clearly detected from a region close to the black hole.