Christmas Cheer

For the third year in a row (you can see last year's here) we're going strong with our cousins-under-the-Christmas-tree tradition!  This year was a bit harder than years previous -- the kids were not wanting to cooperate (shocker!) and definitely not wanting to sit and look adorable under the tree.  Fortunately in my trusty camera bag of tricks I always have suckers so that seemed to really do the trick and get them to smile.

Not kidding, for a solid 15 minutes, ^^^ this is how it went.  No one wanted to sit under the tree, lots of tears from diva dee Rosie, and silly faces galore from Patrick.  Geesssshhhhh.

I did manage to get a few cute snaps of Lizzy who was being the most cooperative.  But yeah, this was about as good as we got.  The audience got up and went to dinner and I said to Rosie, "Go sit by the tree!"  And, wouldn't ya know it, she did!

I think sister bear does much better without an audience.  Because once she sat down, Patrick came wandering back in and sat nicely next to her, then Lizzy came over and BOOM!  We got the picture!  Katie was being silly behind me and threatening tickle attacks and that made the sucker-bribed little Mooneys all giggle and smile.  Whew.

Aren't they adorable?!  Only took 20 minutes and some suckers for that magic to happen.

Their faces, especially Rosie's, in this pic KILL ME.  Total real life like, "WHAT ARE YOU MAKING US DO WOMAN?!!"

Despite a bit of stress for getting a matching jammy cousin pic, I'd say it was a success.  Whew.  Next year is gonna be a wittle more challenging with SIX Mooney cousins!  We'll just have to get the older cousins (ahem, these three!) to each hold a baby next year who hopefully will be immobile and not on the move yet.  Fingers crossed for that one :)

Have a great week friends!  Stay warm!