Christmas Christmas Christmas Christmas Christmas

That's right, we had five Christmas celebrations!  Mackus side immediate family, Mackus side extended family, Matt/Kelly/Luke, Baranko/Eichinger extended family and finally, the Baranko side immediate family.  Phew!!  Each one was awesome.  It is so fun to be able to see so much family!

First Christmas Celebration at Mom and Dad's on Dec. 23rd:

Second at Grandma Della's house on Christmas Eve.....

All the Grandkids

Third at home on Christmas morning.....

Santa brought Luke a new play kitchen, except the top part of it must have been on back order with the elves:)

Hot cocoa on Christmas morning

 Fourth at Donna & Emil's on Christmas day......

 Fifth at Donna & Emil's on Dec. 26th....

And here are some cute Luke shots for the holidays:

The Siblings Return

Kristin, Cory, Paige AND Ben & Linda all arrived back to the Midwest within hours of each other, which we couldn't be happier about.  Friday and Saturday we had an awesome time catching up.  Luke and PJ are soooo cute playing together, they are so interactive.  PJ is a wonderful bigger cousin, showing him things and inviting him to play with her in pretend play.  Luke just follows her around and mimics her.  On Saturday night after the Carpenter's headed up to Wisconsin, we had the pleasure of a big night out on the town with Ben and Linda.  Donna and Emil watched Lukers while the four of us headed downtown to one of my favorite restaurants, Avec, and a beautiful concert by the world-renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra (also compliments of D&E).  What a fantastic kick off to all of the Christmas extravaganzas to come.   

Munching on popcorn and watching a movie.

Playing outside on Saturday.  Now that PJ is an Arizonian the snow is a novelty!  There wasn't much of it, but enough to play in a little bit.

Playing on the fort.  It is still getting good use in the winter too!

Picking little berries in the back woods of our backyard with Spumoni.  

Cutie pie warming up with her hot cocoa by the fire.

After K&C left, but before B&L arrived we sneaked in a visit for Luke to see Santa in downtown Lake Forest.  He seemed excited to see Santa while on the car ride there, but then once we got there wasn't so keen on meeting him.   This year we didn't force the lap-sitting, which surely would have ended in tears.

Yummy dinner at Avec.  

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Walking back from the concert, passing the Art Museum lions, all decked out for the holidays.

Holiday Festivities Begin!

We spent the last week doing holiday prep and having fun with family and friends.  All the decorating was completed, we made a really great dent in the Christmas shopping, and we enjoyed some downtime.  Mom and Dad came down for dinner on Saturday night and surprised me by bringing Grandma too!  They took me out to dinner to celebrate my promotion at work (yay!).  On Sunday we hosted our annual holiday brunch with my swim group friends from when I swam and coached in Chicago.  

Luke is learning how to put all the ornaments on the Advent calendar tree.  He puts up his ornament every day.

It was rainy rather than snowy, so we put on the rain gear to do our Christmas shopping.

Dinner at a cute French Bistro in Highland Park.

Cozy fireside chats admiring the Christmas tree:)  One of my favorite things to do during Christmastime.

Brunch!  Luke enjoyed his visit with Nathan and Ben Sosne.

The ole gang!  Dusko, Valerie, Bryan "Macedawg", me, Luis

Luke's First Real Haircut!

So after 2+ years we decided it might be time to get Luke's shaggy head of hair some professional attention. Not that my uneven snips here and there didn't get the job done:)  We took him to a local barber shop and he did great!  It helped that there were cartoons to watch during the process.  He wouldn't wear the smock, but that's fine, we'll ease into that.  

Before

during

After

We had quite the productive weekend, doing all those things Christmas preparation requires.  Love this time of year:)

We went to the "Winter Wonderland" light show in Vernon Hills - amazing lights that you drive your car through to view.

Luke sat on my lap in the back and we pointed out all the characters and other fun things he spotted.

Helping to make Christmas cookies.

Rolling out the dough for cut out cookies with Daddy.

In Luke development news, he is able to count to 10 all by himself and he knows his shapes.  It is so thrilling as a first time parent to watch him learn and grow like this!  Here are a couple cute pics from the week.

Picture of the monitor.  He folds his hands behind his head, listens to his music and drips off the sleep.  

Kermit the Frog singing "Jingle Bells".  Luke loves him.  

Milk and cookies (pre haircut)

Gram Donna's Birthday

December 1st was Gram Donna's birthday and we had a little birthday party for her at our house to celebrate.  She always does so much for everyone else, it is nice for us to do something for her for a change:)

Luke doublefisting a cake pop and a popsicle, with his empty cake and ice cream plate in front of him.  He went right to bed after this and went to sleep - so far the notorious "sugar high" hasn't impacted his sleep habits too much.   Takes after his parents, we're all good sleepers! 

 Earlier that day we had put up our Christmas tree and most of our holiday decorations.  Luke was a big help (not) when picking out our Christmas tree this year.  He was a wild man at Home Depot and was not interested in perusing the selection with us.  We basically bought the third one we saw, but it it beautiful!  Luke was so fun helping with the ornaments.  I look forward to putting up my ornament collection every year, and this year it was more fun than ever because I had Luke to admire all of them.  He especially enjoyed my Dr. Seuss collection, with the "Green Eggs and Ham" one the fave since that is his fave book these days.  He also loved the jack in the box ornaments that you can wind.  We had freaky warm weather that weekend, so we took a break from all the tree trimming to walk through Open Lands before Donna's dinner party.

Gween Eggs and HAAAAM!  (that's how he says it)

Flying an airplane ornament around the living room.

At Open Lands - Luke likes to run fast and then throw himself on the ground.  It is so silly and definitely slows our walk pace considerably.  His camouflage pants really work, huh?

Throwing himself in the ditch.

Eating lunch outside on December 1st!  I texted Kristin that she wasn't the only one who could eat alfresco in December:)