how much Christmas can one post hold?

...well, we're going to go ahead and test the limits, cause I have a little problem called shutter-finger - in I like to do me some point & shoot over the holidays.  Brace yourself friends, the holly jolly hasn't ended yet:)

We kicked off holiday festivities on Christmas eve morning with some cinnamon rolls and entertainment supplied by Dadda with a million fake burps in a row which got Booboo giggling so hard that he was squeezing gooey rolls and icing out of his teeth.  Totally disgusting if it was anyone's kid but mine.  sorry if you find this picture gross, its adorable to us.

After Booboo's last nap of the weekend practically, and a quick cleaning run-through of the house, we made our way to Christmas eve mass (the 4 o'clock "children's" mass - aka the noisy one, where we definitely belong...as Greyson stands on my lap and shouts "Booboo BIG!").  My parents and sisters joined us for mass and then stopped over to our place to enjoy some traditional Christmas eve spirits..

my husband has an obsession with Wisconsin Lunchboxes

and the girls will take a little bubbly:)

Followed by a Birthday song (complete with lighted candle) for Baby Jesus.  Grey even sang too, although his version goes like this:

"Happy to Cheesus"

[blow out candle]

..what can I say - he gets to the point.

By 6p on Christmas eve, we had already celebrated quite a bit of the holiday, but things were just getting warmed up..

hhhhhhahahhahahha, so weird all around.  

We made our way across town to Mimi's house (Brandon's grandma/Grey's Great Grandma) to enjoy some dinner (delish) and gift-opening with family.  Booboo was spoiled rotten by everyone and showed surprise interest in things like..

..putting on his winter vest as soon as opening it, even though it was over 80 degrees in the house...

...and borrowing his cousin Gracie's new faux glasses while going around to each person with a camera and shouting "Cheese!" until they took a picture of him

...I can't possibly imagine where he gets his weirdness....waaaaaaait a minute...

It was wonderful spending our Christmas eve with Mimi and Grey's cousins; Morgan, Ariel, and Gracie.  

By the time we got home, there was just enough energy in Brandon and I to get Grey to leave some cookies for Santa, pry the hockey stick out of his squirming hands and stuff him into his jammies...it took about 45 minutes to get him to fall asleep considering he at approximately 42.5 cookies during the day.  After we finally got Booboo down to sleep, Bud and I weakly attempted to uphold our Christmas eve tradition of watching "Christmas with the Kranks" (which I think is absolutely hilarious because I think Tim Allen is comic genius and I may as well be Jamie Lee Curtis in that movie)...but then we both fell asleep after 10 minutes and didn't wake up until the credits...because we're old.

Now it's confession time, I'm a chronic early Christmas morning riser...like 5am riser.  I can't help it, this happens every single Christmas and I'm not even excited about opening my gifts..I just love the excitement of the day and the prospect of delicious breakfast and wrapping paper on the floor.  I understand this is totally lame and I should be happy to sleep in as long as possible...alas, I was up at 5:15a staring Brandon in the face breathing hot air on him until he groggily opened his eyes and said, "maybe we should let Booboo sleep since he went to bed late."  And then I huffed about and went downstairs and ate cookies and stared at the tree for THREE and a HALF hours, until my two sleepy guys awoke from their slumber.

why is there a robot in our tree?  Brandon hides Grey's stuffed animals in there.  There is also a stuffed football, an alpaca, and Gee the monkey in there too.  Grey found them all and then asked them each, "whayadoin?"

Grey was experiencing some toddler Christmas giving spirit and even helped Bully open one of his gifts before he dug into his own.

Bully must have been good this year (at least in Santa's eyes) because he got about 15 different kinds of bones and treats.  Must have been all the beating he put up with from his human brother this past year.  

Grey's gifts were a mix of toys we already had (like Maxie and his football) and a few new things like some football books and a teeball set. 

pleasantly surprised to find his best pal Maxie under that wrapping paper

his heisman pose

All the while, Bullet continued eating his bones...

The only thing (besides footballs) that Grey really wanted from Santa was a donut - and he lucked out because Santa delivered a whole bag of little donuts for our guy.  He opened them up and sat in shock for a few minutes before screaming "DONUT?!??!"

And then demanded to eat them immediately.  A 10 minute recess of gift opening followed in which Brandon and I got too bored and started opening our own presents.  

After Booboo's belly was adequately coated in chocolately donut goodness, he continued on his present opening.  The next best thing to an actual football?  Well books about football of course!  (My Football Book, Touchdown! My Football Book, and T is for Touchdown: A Football Alphabet (Alphabet Books) ).  They were a big hit...enough of one anyway that then we took a Reading break from gift-opening...which lasted another 15 minutes.

After all that reading, we headed for Grey's stocking which contained his single most prized gift of the day:  a lollipop...which haulted all gift opening for quite some time as he ate his "allee-pop" and stuck his sticky fingers all over everything...

...and after Bully tried many times to steal it...and then did actually steal it once with a strange accuracy that included pop in mouth with stick perfectly sticking out...which makes me wonder if perhaps Bully wasn't a human in a previous life

After a very long time, we finally finished opening the gifts and made a royal mess

And then it was only a matter of time before my two sports loving boys pulled out the teeball set and went about attempting to break things in our house.  (they didn't...yet)

Brandon even got Grey to watch the ball closely enough that he was able to swing and hit some pitched balls, which was probably Brandon's best Christmas gift this year.  

While the two of them got to hitting balls around the house, I headed to the kitchen to whip up some deliciously easy pastries, thanks to Pinterest.  They were divine and I may need to make this a Christmas morning tradition.

Source: navywifecook.blogspot.com via Tabitha on Pinterest

Oh, and besides bones for Christmas, Bullet also got an extra large crate that Brandon felt he needed to go inside of to help get Bully acquainted with it.  And then Greyson went in too and then finally Bullet ..and then they all laid down in it.  And then I secretly hoped that somewhere else in the world another mother is also taking a picture of her entire family in a dog crate because seriously....we can't be the only ones, right?

After our own action-packed Christmas morning, we somehow tore ourselves away from the mountains of donuts, cookies, and giant kit kat bars (thank you, Santa!) and got ready to head over to Gigi & Pap Pap's house for some more holiday cheer.  

It was obvious that Grey's arrival was being awaited since my in-laws had spent the morning building a block corral around Grey's rocking horse and gifts (hehhehhe). 

While Grey opened his gifts...and watched his Gigi attempt to ride a tiny rocking horse (oh, Gigi, sometimes you're too much!)...Bud and I enjoyed snacking and unbuttoning our pants from the overload of good food and lady locks. 

Booboo scored a ton of toys and clothes - but was most infatuated with his set of tools (some of which were battery operated which made for noises and shaking...which he loved).  He got to work on using them to help open other presents which caused him to wear a very serious face.

And then he ate about 14 more cookies

And then I made Brandon take a picture with his two "sisters."  (Mare, please print this for your cube)

But even after all that Christmas cheer on the 25th, we still weren't done with the merriment.  We headed over to our family friend's house; the Siwy's, for a Christmas day finale.  Grey was so pooped from the day that he laid unconscious on the couch for about an hour when we got there - totally oblivious to all the poking and attempts to wake him up.  He finally woke up and spent the rest of the evening playing hockey with Bryce and watching football...which is basically his favorite two things on earth right now.

best friends!  Pam, Abba, and Becky

By the time we were heading home, we were all exhausted and barely crawled to our beds before passing out until almost 10 the next morning (which is record breaking for us in this house).  

The 26th held only more holiday fun for us as we got ready to spend the afternoon at Abba & Chum's house for more gift opening and delicious food consumption.  And it wasn't until we arrived that I realized in the bustle of the morning that I had forgotten my camera and then I cursed at myself for the rest of the day.  Because you see, besides all of us getting mountains of more presents, Grey got a whopper of surprise with a Sesame Street drum set which started a full out jam session...that my mom must have been anticipating because she just happened to have a keyboard on hand, and Jordan just happened to have his new guitar and amp in his car...

So I had to settle for Iphone pictures of the whole gang getting in on the music fest...

Although that meant that I scored some sweet videos too

Besides being obsessed with playing the drums (thanks Abba & Chum!), Grey is also obsessed with other musical instruments...but mostly he's just obsessed with Jordan.  So when he got the chance to help Jordan play his guitar - he was one little happy elf.

Abba & Booboo:  "ho, ho, ho"

After a long Booboo nap and some more eating at Chum & Abba's , the 26th was topped off with a visit to my Great Uncle Sam Uzelac's Christmas party where we spent the evening listening to our cousins serenade us all on the karaoke machine and giving Mallory and Baby Hunter 2 million kisses.  But since I didn't have my camera (ugh, cursing myself some more)...we're left with no pictures of this final holiday event.

So instead, I'll leave you with this photo of my two sneaky fellas who stole granola bars from the snack cabinet and sat on the landing trying to rip the wrappers with their teeth.

We had a very busy, very whirlwind-y holiday - but it was one that we were reminded at every spin of how lucky we are.  Lucky to have some many family members.  Lucky to have so many presents to open.  Lucky to have so much good food to eat.  And certainly lucky to have upset stomachs four days in a row due to massive amounts of cookie consumption.