St. Louis: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

After a lovely brunch at Aunt Shanny's house, a nap and church, we were all ready for the presents to begin!  First up, matching jammies for all the cousins.

Sunday Best

Doesnt everyone just look so happy here? 

The cousins also opened presents from their aunts and uncles. 

Hello Kitty Toe socks- good for the feet or your hands!

Probably the most favorite game- Angry Birds.  Both Gianna and Colin have their game faces on.

I love love love this picture.  Aunt Colleen and Uncle Bobby found Gabby Douglas Corn Flakes.  She was so excited.

After they were finally in bed, the siblings opened presents.  Then we put out the Santa presesnts.  This year instead of hauling EVERYTHING back and forth, we only brought stocking stuffers and a joint present for the girls from Santa.  Matt and Sarah were dog-sitting back in Dallas, so they made sure to put out the larger santa presents for us to come home to.

Annual fireplace and milk and cookies picture. 



Past 3 years!

Chirstmas day was spent opening presesnts, playing with presents, eating yummy food, and Santa even stopped by for a quick visit.

He gave out little presents to the oldest 4.

 

 

G was toooooo excited here

Merry Christmas!

St. Louis Trip Photo Dump

My mom stayed in AtL for a few days and then we drove back to StL on Wednesday.  We stopped at Patty's, a restaurant in Kentucky that we always stopped in growing up after family reunions.  I felt like it was a right of passage for my girls to be there and eat!  It is very old time, they serve drinks in mason jars, have the most wonderful fried pickles and strawberry butter, and their bread is baked in flower pots!

We were only in StL for 72 hours, but we packed it in with a visit to the zoo, play time with Baby B, and lots of quality family time!

G said the bread grew out of the flower pot!

The girls helping Grandma make hamburgers.

Tummy time for baby Brendan

Photo-op at the zoo!

New Sea Lion exhibit that Uncle Tom's firm helped build!

This orangutan (sp?) got so close to Elia!  Their faces are so weird looking!

Bobby, the ever patient and fun loving Uncle, teaching G to pump gas. 
She held her nose the while time!

Top 6 of Our StL Trip

I could probably make this into 3 or 4 posts, but I just don't have the time! Enjoy my top 6 of the wonderful trip we had!!

1. The Arch and the Zoo. I opted out of the arch field trip. Been there, done that. It is soooo claustrophobic. In fact, a few days after they went, one of the elevators got stuck in there for a few hours and there is NO A/C! Someone had a panic attack while they were stuck in there. But I'm glad Chris took Gianna with Megan and Craig. Afterwards, they met us at the zoo. Elia was hilarious. Everytime she saw a new animal, she would point to herself and say he wike me!! (as in, he likes me!)

"He wike me!!!!"

Grandparent love:

2. Cousin Love. Our visit overlapped with Megan and Craig for 4 days, so it was great seeing them again!

Always, always eating!

3. Hanging out with the marrieds. I don't have any pictures of the adults together, but I'll just say it was really fun to hang out with everyone. Ryan was away at camp, so it was the 4 couples together for a night at the bars, then after Megan and Craig left, the 3 couples went out to dinner sans kiddos, and then once Chris left, there was lots of me and ColleenandBobbyandTomandShannon time. So fun.

4. Road Trip to Milwaukee. My mom and I last minute decided to drive the 6 hours up there. My grandparents are in assisted living and I haven't seen them for 2 years, so it was absolutely wonderful to go up there and see them. Gianna and Elia were such a hit there, all of my grandparents friends just ogled and ogled.

We stopped at a McDs and took some random pics. The girl were obsessed with the double pay phone!

We met some of my cousins at my grandparents home. Here we all are!

On our way back, we randomly stopped because Elia was screaming "Crackers!! I want crackers!" over and over and we couldnt get her to stop screaming! We were 50 miles outside of StL and I wish we could have just kept going, but we didnt. We pulled up to a random hotel (that had a bar! with crackers!!!) and my mom freaked out because this was the same hotel she had stopped at 4 years ago on her way home from seeing her parents. She pulled over because I had called her that morning to tell her I was in labor and she wanted to check on me. So this was the hotel she had stopped at to hear the wonderful news that her first grand daughter was born!! Full circle, I tell you.

This was the only pic taken at the hotel courtyard.

5. Sleepover at Aunt Shanny's. Its always fun to hang out with Shan. But its even more fun when we get to sleep over and have pizza and cupcakes!

We went to Jilly's first to get the cupcakes.

And had lots of Elmo time:

We ended the night with Kung Fu Panda. This pic was hilariously posed!

6. Hanging out at my childhood home. Kirkwood, MO is seriously the best place to raise a family. We went to parks and the pool and hung out at my house for the rest of the week. My dad and Gianna filled up the bird feeder and bonded over the bird book. It was really sweet!

See ya'll next time! xoxo

Colleen's Wedding

Dang it is hard to get back to real life after being out of town for a while! The day after Christmas, the girls and I flew to St.L.

The plane ride went pretty well. The portable DVD player was my savior!

From there, it got CRAZY. The Bachelorette Party was Sunday night.

All the sisters for Col's last fling.

The rehearsal and dinner on Monday night.

G got a really cute purse as her thank you present for walking down the aisle.

And then of course Tuesday was the Wedding.

I love this picture!

Gianna was a star walking down the aisle for the 3rd time in her short life. When Colin and Gianna got all the way down the aisle, they had to bow. It was sooo cute.

It was a fabulous, beautiful, and fun wedding! I can't believe my lil sister is married. She looked beautiful.

One of the highlights and of course I don't have a picture is she wore this white hooded cape and they took pictures at the church courtyard and it looked like she had literally stepped onto the set for Narnia. Then Bobby and Colleen got into a horse drawn carriage. Awesome. I'll post more about the visit with cousins later.