{Merry Christmas!!!!}

Climbing into a big, fluffy, soft, warm bed….completely exhausted from yet another amazing Christmas.

That is one of the things on my “favorite things” list :-)

Another Christmas has come and almost gone and I can’t believe it. Between my crazy work load, the traveling, the babies, the wedding, Christmas prep, etc…..it just creeps up on you and before you know, it’s done. BUT, this year we lucked out and we get to have a week long Christmas celebration :-) Most of us are already in town, but the Sedlaks get here on Tuesday and then the Bobziens arrive on Wednesday and the wedding is on Saturday. It’s going to be a SUPER BUSY week, but a super fun one with everyone in town and getting ready for a wedding is always exciting!!!! Especially one that is on New Years Eve :-)

Believe it our not, our “yes” responses for the wedding are at about 90%….and typically, with weddings, you plan on a 75% “yes” rate….so the 90% threw us for a loop :-) BUT we’ve got it covered and as long as we don’t have any wedding crashers (ahem….anyone who did not receive a formal, in writing, hard copy invitation) we will be good to go! We’ve gotten pretty good about tossing out wedding crashers, so it should be a breeze if duty calls :-)

ANYWAY- I’ll let you know how that one pans out.

So Christmas was amazing yet again! My mom is crazy amounts of talented and somehow managed to pull of her traditional, take your breath away, sentimental, adorable, gorgeous, warm & fuzzy Christmas, while also getting ready for a wedding that is less than a week away and making sure she saves enough time to snuggle with her precious new grandsons. I DO NOT KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT!!! People ask me that question all the time and I really have no idea who her and my dad do it. The best answer I can give is that they are the two most selfless, family orientated, hard-working people I’ve ever known.

So to start off our Christmas Fest 2011, we headed off to Midnight Mass in Edina with a record LOW number of participants. NINE people. It felt weird without as many people, but it was still the same old wonderful Midnight Mass that we all crave so much. If you haven’t had the pleasure of going to Midnight Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Edina…you need to go. First of all, St. Joe is a GORGEOUS church. We like to get married there, my parents included :-) Secondly, the music. OH THE MUSIC. Words can’t even describe. Third, the small town feel. St. Joe Midnight Mass gives you the warm fuzzy feeling that Christmas is all about :-)

So……my Christmas morning was full of FUN surprises……….

I had asked for nothing but B&H Photo or Schillers gift cards. My parents HATE to give gift cards, but I knew they would be so crazy busy with the wedding that they wouldn’t mind getting some gift card requests this year. So you can imagine my total shock when I opened this box

I opened it the same time as Molly opened hers and of course she was much quicker and befor I could even take off the lid I hear, “OH MY GOSH, ARE WE GOING TO NEW YORK!?!?!?”

YAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! I get to go to New York with my parents & Molly in March :-) Yet again, just another reason to hold off on getting married….I get in on all these little trips my parents keep taking us on. This is the first one Caroline didn’t get invited to :-( That’s what happens when you get married….suckas!!!! We did Washington DC in March of 2010 (SO FLIPPING awesome and I want to go again so bad!) Check out my abundance of blog post HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. Then we did Seaside in summer of 2010 with just the 5 of us and now we get to do New York!!!!! I’m pumped!!!!

We’re all hoping for Ireland next :-) Possibly Italy??

That gift was followed up with my new favorite necklace from THIS Etsy Shop. You absolutely have to go visit her shop. I really think I’ll be wearing my necklace everyday for the rest of my life, I love it that much :-)

Lots of snuggling

Lots of sweet, sweet babies :-)

Lots of cousins

This was just after Baylor pushed Owen straight into the coffee table. That’s what cousins are for, right?

Our family’s motto: The More the Merrier :-)

This is the sweetest moment on earth. Briley had drawn a picture months ago at school and it was supposed to be something like the people you love a lot…or something along those lines. Typically kids will draw their mom and dad in the middle or something similar….well, Briley Mae drew grandma and it melted her parents heart and they just had to frame it and give it to her as a Christmas gift :-)

Ali & Andrew got their AWESOME double stroller…..I got a SUPER cute pair of red wellies :-)

Cute boot socks my mom found for me on Etsy. LOVE!

Getting a KitchenAid Mixer is alway the most fun :-)

One of Papa’s gifts to all the grandsons :-)

Not joking- this is a picture of my Christmas gift to my parents. It was a outdoor movie screen and projector table for when we watch movies outside in the summer. We got the projector for them for Christmas last year and this summer, we would set it up out on the pool deck at night and projected the movie onto the pool house. So I thought this would be a nice little addition to the collection, so we can watch movies anywhere. Well, turns out UPS beat the crap out of the boxes and I was busy helping Ali & Andrew at the time these boxes arrived, so we just stored them in the garage. Then, while I was sitting on the couch this morning watching my parents open gifts, I remembered those boxes were still sitting in the garage, unwrapped and still looking like crap :-) Luckily my parents still love me.

Then it was time for my mom’s big surprise. My Uncle Denny had pulled me aside and Thanksgiving and told me that he had found my mom’s bicyle from when she was little. He’s always finding all sorts of neat stuff in my Grandpa Killday’s barn and he does the most awesome stuff with the things he finds. It’s always sentimental and makes everyone cry :-) Grandpa & Grandma Killday were some pretty amazing people, so any memories of them make people cry. They remind me of my mom and dad :-) So anyway, Denny wanted me to look around for a picture of my mom and this bike so that he could give it to the guy who was going to restore it. I was SO EXCITED and I could hardly contain it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find a picture right away because all my mom’s old pictures were down in the basement and she locks us out of there from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Plus, based off how he was talking, it sounded like maybe it would be ready in a year…so I thought I had time to look for this picture. WELL, turns out he was able to get it done and ready to go for Christmas. He got my dad involved and had him hide it from my mom till Christmas morning. Everyone was so excited to see my mom’s face. She’s always the one surprising everyone else, so to see her get something so sweet, so sentimental, so up her alley….well….it was just too much fun! We all rushed outside as soon as my dad told her she had to close her eyes while he walked her out back.

See??? Just makes me teary eyed just looking at the pictures :-) Watching how my Aunt & Uncles take care of my mom, the baby, baby of their family (my grandma had her when she was like 46) it’s just too sweet. They take care of my mom and it melts my heart into total mush. Those Killday’s :-)

So after we started cleaning things up, Kaitlin decided to test out some of her old cheerleading moves and soon realized she’s not as flexible as she used to be :-)