Mueller Family Christmas 2012!

Today was our annual Mueller Family Christmas! Every year I look forward to this party.  It's so fun.  Every year we have to rent a hall because our family is huge thank in part to my Grandma and Grandpa Mueller.  They had 13 kids!  Every year a different family is in charge of the festivities.  This year was our turn.  This kind of party take A LOT of time and planning.  We had fun making the invitations.  We incorporated quotes from all kinds of Christmas movies.  It was really cute.   I don't have a pic.  My mom and Amy did make this sign though to welcome everyone as they came. 

 

Every year too we have contests.  One year it was to make a Christmas hat.  Last year it was creating a diaroma using Christmas peeps.   This year everyone had to decorate their gingerbread man in an ugly sweater.  Here is ours.

 

My Aunt Maureen's family take the cake though.  They always do a good job. Here is their display.  They incorporated the 13 original Mueller's on a sweater and using my Uncle Wally's sweater as the 'mannequin," you could mix and match them.  Afterall, 13 is the baker's dozen.

 

So cute!  I love thier creativity! They won first place and received an ugly sweater award.

 

Here are some of the other gingerbread men sporting thier ugliest.

 

We have a pretty little tree that we use to take pictures in front of.

 

Here is my family being silly, especiall Presley.

 

We had so much fun!

 

But then pretty soon, Santa came!  My sister and I sat on Santa's lap and told him that we were good and needed lots of good presents!

 

Out of order, but my mom takes everyone's pictures every year and updates them in our Mueller Family Scrapbooks.  I think we have 6 books of Mueller Christmas fun in those babies.  We have to haul them in a cart now!  They are big and heavy.

 

This is the first year that Evie and Presley went up to Santa and didn't cry. They even told him what they wanted.

 

This little guy right here, this was his first Mueller Family Christmas.  This is baby Logan and you might remember him from the Christmas miracle story last year.  My cousin Diane and Bill got the call just a couple of days before Christmas that their wish had come true!  They had found a baby to be adopted!  Best story ever!

 

These two are quite a pair.  Gracie has been talking about her friend Addie (my cousin Jen's daughter) forever.  The other day at school, we had a holiday shop where the kids could come and shop for their families.  Gracie insisted that she buy Addie something so she picked out a necklace that says "BFF".  Isn't the cutest?

 

These pretty girls right here belong to my cousin Janis.  Their names are Molly, Allie, and Meredith.  The little guy there is Auggie and it is his first Christmas!

 

Gracie went up to Santa too and told him about her princess Barbie castle that she wants.

 

We decided to take our family picture with Santa too because afterall, we do know him!

 

These two remind me just how much fun I always had playing with my cousins at Christmas parties.

 

Aren't they darling?

 

Here are me and my cousins, the ones I always loved hanging out with.  These girls are the best and although we don't see each other much, we'll always be great friends.  And we will always have the memories of hanging out on Grandma Mueller's porch showing each other our Christmas gifts and sending someone to go get plates of food because it was too darn crowded for us all to go!  Good memories!

 

Here is Mrs. Claus, aka my friend Patti.  I love Patti and Gil. They are the nicest people that you will ever meet.  In fact, Gil plays Santa every year for lots of organizations and parties.  Last night while out on some runs, they stopped at the store.  Patti was leaving and a little boy with down syndrome was asking if he could ring the Salvation Army bell because he said it would make Santa come.  Patti ran like the wind and got Gil, who was already still dressed in his Santa attire, and brought him over to make this little boy's day!  What a great story!

 

Here are the two little new additions to our family this year!  

 

These girls just played all afternoon.  Evie and Presley kept trying to keep up.

 

The big gift exchange came and Gracie got a new Barbie from cousin Willow.

 

Evie got a Tangled doll from Ellen.  Baby Logan thought it was pretty cute too.

 

And Prelsey got some new Lego Duplos from cousin Derrick.  He so badly wanted to open them but instead, we just gave him the dog that came in the set to occupy him until we got home.  He was happy.

It was a great party and everyone had a merry good time.  Merry Mueller Christmas Everyone!