Christmas in Illinois

This year for Christmas we headed to Morton to be with my side of the family. As always the drive was long, but Maverick behaved like an angel! We got in early Thursday morning (like 1am ish, eww). That day we met dad for lunch and then caught a movie (the new sherlock holmes....highly recommend). Afterwards we went to the country club (where we had our rehearsal dinner for our wedding....ahh memories!) and then relaxed at home. Friday we caught another movie (Mission Impossible 4...shockingly I liked that too!) then went to dinner with my parents and one of my brothers. We ended up playing trivia at Buffalo Wild Wings and did awesome! I like to think my random entertainment knowledge helped a lot :)

On the 24th we headed to Pontiac for Christmas with my dad's side of the family. First time in 4 years everybody was together for Christmas! Its hard with all the cousins getting married for us all to be there the same time so it was fun it worked out this year :) After presents we ended up looking at old scrapbooks from when we were growing up till now that Grandma had kept. Nothing quite says Merry Christmas like making fun of your family!! It was great, I was laughing so hard I was crying! Before leaving we got our traditional family pics....I say traditional because since I was in elementary school we've always taken a "cousin" picture in staircase order...tallest to shortest....its fun to look back at them and see us change positions in the staircase...I used to be 2nd and then slowly dropped down to the bottom, thank goodness my cousin Cara is still just a hair shorter then me! Here are a few of the pics from this:

Brian, Jeff, Jason, me, and Cara

Cousins and Grandma

The new tradition picture...cousins and spouses/significant other....Jeff got a nutcracker haha

Uncle Brad, Aunt Cindy, Grandma, Dad, Mom

 After Grandma's it was back to mom and dad's for our Christmas. Got some great gifts and so did Mav! My favorite Maverick gift was from my brother and sister in law....a doggie mustache!!! Hilarious!!!

Wait, this is a dog toy? Guess I should give it to Mav then

It was a fight to get him to do it right!

Family picture!

Jason, Katie, and Baxter

Isn't he the cutest!

Mom, dad, and their grand dogs!

 Christmas day we went to my mom's mom. Had a good lunch and opened gifts. Took a few family pics!  (Normally I'm so bad getting pictures at family functions because I'm to busy talking...we did good this trip haha)

The McCarthy side of the family

My family!

My family and Grandma

Mom, Uncle Kevin, Grandma, and Uncle Tom

 When we got home from Grandma's we made drinks and watched a movie together. We also talked about doing a family trip to Singapore (more to come on that later) All in all a fun weekend! Merry Christmas :).