Oh the holiday parties...peppered with lots and lots of pictures for your enjoyment

This weekend was a busy one. We had holiday parties on Saturday and Sunday, both were very fun. The first was at Pete and Deb's - our annual Mullins/Shelton party, always a hit. It was especially fun this year as we had two new additions to the festivities - Lucia and Olivia. They really do love playing with eachother and checking eachother out.

After dinner, we decided to open gifts,which was good as the kids were starting to get a bit tired. Lucia helped Carlotta open her gift.

I opened one for Brian and I from Carlotta and John - a lovely bottle of wine which Anthony was quite interested in.... looks like he loves the wine just as much as his mommy!

Ron opened his gift next, which both him and Diane were excited about - wine. Not just any wine, but sulfate/sulfite?? free wine. Not sure which one is correct - I know there was some argument about this at the party. :) No big deal either way, I just think Ron was happy to get a bottle of wine he could enjoy.

Pete's gift from Ron and Diane was a nice one - a bottle of Margarita mix which Diane explained was for making Margarita bars. Pete asked if he could just make drinks with it which Diane said would be alright. :)

Many other gifts were exchanged, but I did not get a picture of all of them.... I am a bit dissapointed I do not have a picture of Deb's lovely snowman she received from Ron and Diane. I learned something new about my friend Deb - she loves snowmen. I guess I never knew this about her until I noticed her many shelves in her basement filled with snowmen, lots and lots of snowmen. :)

It was a fun evening and we would have loved to stay longer, but the kids were beginning to melt down. We also needed to get home and get some sleep as we had a long day ahead of us with our family holiday party over here the next day.

Party #2.....

I was a little apprehensive about this party as I was not sure how it would go seeing that my whole family had not been together for over 7 years. Let's just say we all have not gotten along well over the years (not sure why exactly), but we haven't. Because of this, everyone has pretty much steered clear of eachother. Well, I decided that 7 years was way too long, and this family "feud" was getting ridiculous, so I decided to organize this family get together. It seemed like such a good idea from the get go, but as the party time approached yesterday I found myself getting a bit nervous. I was hoping nothing "Jerry Springerish" would go down. You never know if someone would start something, bring up old arguments, etc. If this happened a fight could break out. No, not a fist fight, but a verbal, yelling type fight. Alright, I have a very active imagination, I know the chances of that happening were slim to none, but still, it was a thought that was in the back of my mind.

Anyway, my worries were all for nothing as the party was a great success. Everyone caught up on eachothers lives....

Had some cocktails, which made conversation flow a bit better.... (always amazing how that works)


The kids played really well together - they were loving the video games which my sister loved (anti -t.v., video game woman) gotta love her. But who could complain as they were kept busy, which was really nice as it made it easy for us adults to catch up...

Anthony was shy at first, but quickly warmed up when my cousin Pat started rough housing with him. Oh how Anthony loves this....

I don't think Pat knew what he got himself into, as once he started playing with Anthony, Anthony would not leave him alone!!

What a great weekend full of great Holiday parties, spent with great family and friends who I love so very, very much. Times like these remind my of how truly blessed I am to have all of these people in my life.