Christmas 2015

Christmas this year was wonderful and low key. Christmas eve as always was celebrated in Long Grove. Christmas day was at my sisters house.

I have to say it, but I believe my nephew s the cutest little boy ever created. I just love him to death. He's  sweet, smart, funny and outgoing

 This year Karrick wanted brain challenging puzzles and games...the kid can solve anything. Id give anything to have his brain

The Christmas season was spent together as a family. Tim and I did our annual Oak Brook Mall shopping and dinner. We got the Christmas tree, a Concord fir that has an amazing citrus smell.

Still the worlds cutest couple after 3 1/2 years!!

Karrick and my niece are one year apart and almost a foot different in height. Karrick has grown an inch in the last 2 months so Im hoping the growth spurt is around the corneer

2015 was an incredible year for us Mcgintys...lots of great stuff

I look forward to 2016 as I continue to workout, eat right and spend time with my family.

Family Day at NIU

This weekend is family weekend at NIU. We picked up the boy and headed out to lunch.

After that we hit Huskie Stadium a little early to get good seats for some NIU football. It was cold, but it didn't rain or snow which we were prepared for. It was so much fun and the Huskies won 17-14 despite 3 horrendous calls that allowed Kent State to score. Huskies are 4-1 for the season!! We stayed for the whole game.

Karrick was on TV, they have a giant screen on the end zone scoreboard. Karrick was standing up on the bleacher in front of us busting out his hip hop moves and sure enough the camera was on him. We all got a kick out of it including the people behind us.

By the time the game was over it was 7:30 ish. Tim and I were almost crippled from 4 hours on bleachers. I had muscle spasms in my back...getting old is a bitch.

We dropped TJ at his dorm and headed home. As always it great to see TJ. We are thrilled that he loves NIU. He is invoked in a fraternity which is very time consuming-Argh!!

He also plays flag football once a week. He seems to be fitting in well by the number of hello's that he received while walking from his dorm to the stadium, one can only hope he is as popular with his studies

can't deny they are brothers

a little boy tired and cold warming up in TJ's dorm after game

the stadium is just beautiful and so was the sky

Graduation/18th Birthday party

Sunday we had TJ's combined Graduation-18th Birthday party. It really turned out fantastic and was a perfect way to close out the summer.

My family all came, Tim's Mom and brother, a bunch of friends, neighbors and of course at least 30 or so of TJ's friends.

I had such anxiety early on in the summer because we kind of let the yard and deck go when TJ got injured 3 years ago. I wasn't sure there was enough time to pull it off. After the premiere of Family Values and dance Nationals we got to work

Again, not a ton of different pictures besides my deck. I really wanted group shots of TJ and friends but that never happened.

The deck looked absolutely amazing...almost impossible to capture the jest of it all.

After family and friends left it was just Tj and his friends. They had 2 bonfires going and stayed out til the wee hours of the morning. I woke up to a basement full of sleeping teens.

Tj said after spending this last night with all his friends (they were inseparable all summer going from graduation party to graduation party June-August) he said he is now ready to go to college and begin his studies!!!!

Friday we take him to NIU!! TJ is living on the newly renovated...amazing!!! STEM floor. He will be with all the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math students. They have their own IT lab and tech support. The rooms are incredible as is the entire tower.

 Just Love and adore my baby Winter...just a sweet cutie!!!

 Katie and Juliette...exchange student from France that was here for 6 weeks. Spent only 3 of those with Katie's family

 lots of volleyball

 We literally have the best deck and yard for parties but never have them...weird

 My candy buffet

 I ran out of stain (a 5 gallon drum) and time...still need to do both sets of stairs and the majority of spindles. I really cant believe people pay to have this done. Thos deck would be thousands to stain professionally.

My joke: "What does a professional strainer and Mary McGinty have in common?"

'Neither of us has a Harvard Degree!"

 Karrick does this crazy fast finger clap, it's really fast and the camera picked it up

 The deck really looked cute, without the flash it was pitch dark. We dont have alley's so no street lighting in back...just bump up to neighbors which is much safer because there is no way for anyone to get in