christmas

christmas. the most wonderful day of the year...and boy did we sure celebrate the heck out of it! we had 4, yes 4 christmas celebrations. that may seem like a lot but when you break them into 4 different days and start them a week in advance it really works out!

before all the celebrations we set out to get pictures with santa. this year lisa had the brilliant idea t hit up the now-depressing crestwood mall santa rather than the beloved frontenc santa. genius. while i'm sure the kids would've loved waiting around for over an hour at frontenac (insert sarcasm)...jumping right on his lap at crestwood was a much better choice! he's a good looking santa too...again brilliant idea award goes to aunt bossy! as you can see ryan got over her fear...and with a little coaxing (and cropping) lilly got up there too.

if you look close you can see my arm lovingly pushing my baby to sit on the strangers lap. oh yeah and mays' in there somewhere too!

as you can see jack was not a fan this year...but just look at those big sweeney kids. sitting like champs.

the 1st official christmas celebration was at my parent's house the sunday before. brendan, ryan and lilly all spent the night saturday night. they made a gingerbread train, had a steak dinner and put out cookies for santa for his trial run before the big night. the kids had so much fun! i heard b& r even kicked lilly out of their room when they were going to sleep because she wouldn't stop singing. needless to say they totally got the whole santa thing this year! we decided to move this event up a week because last year we tried to do it christmas eve morning...it was a trainwreck to say the least. i didn't get any good pics of that morning. trust me...we are cuter in person!

the 2nd celebration was at cessie's house the friday before christmas. we have been going over to cessie's for her own little christmas for as long as i can remember. santa was really busy this year as he made a trial run at her condo too! these kids must have been super good this year!

the loot

molly & lil got baby dolls and bunk beds

ryan got a barbie camper. she's officially entered the barbie phase. there are already naked barbies all over this house. why do they always end up naked??

brendy got a batman race track. he is very into super heroes.

lilly was really into brendy's gifts. our little tom-boy already!

brendy trying to convince ryan that yes, batman can go camping with barbie!

the next celebration brings us to christmas eve. my most favorite day of all! usually we hit up 4pm mass at Pillar then head over to mindy & joe's. this year however, we changed things up a bit. may and i stayed home from mass. i wasn't about to bring a 3 week old to a super crowded church where people could cough all over her. especially not after my mom did this exact thing to my brother when he was 2 months and he ended up in the hospital for new years. the picture of him in the incubator all hooked up to monitors is burned into my brain. poor jake! anyway, i digress....back to chrismtas eve. after mass we headed over to my mil's to say hi before heading to my aunt/uncles. this is where she proceeded to give the girls these...

yes, mircrophones. they each got one. so that would mean 2 microphones + 2 girls screaming into them. thanks again elaine!

after a few christmas performances from ryan we headed over to mindy & joe's for dinner and even more presents.

holding great grandbaby #8 of 9!

my christmas present this year...

present time

missing brendy who was sick for christmas eve. poor guy

dinner time. will jake & ali ever graduate from the kids table?

cheers to christmas!

oh yeah...can't forget about the newbies. already best of pals!

that brings us to christmas day. we had a wonderful christmas morning with our 3 gals. the big girls tore through their gifts in record timing all while their sister snoozed in mommy's arms. doesn't get much better than that!

santa brough the girls a dollhouse!!

checking out their stockings

after a trip to the loop for aunt mary's present "santa" brought lilly a new bob marley shirt! she's such a little hippy child.

more barbies!

checking out just how santa got down our chimney

the morning was followed by a lot of cooking (done by that wonderful brother of mine) and getting ready for the hauck family christmas that we hosted. it was a wonderful way to bring christmas to a close.

i love this picture so much.

as always the season went by in a blur but i think we successfully sucked the marrow out of it. we are all still recovering! here's hoping you had the merriest of holidays and are starting the new year off right!

we are off to the park. yes, the park. in january. gotta love this crazy stl weather!