Christmas Morning at the Mac Shack

Christmas Day was a casual one at our house.  We stayed in the entire day and the kids never really got out of their pajamas.  It was a chilly day outside but we had the fireplace burning all day long which made the house nice and cozy.

We opened presents around 7:30 with Grandmom Phil and Aunt Kate, ate a brunch of baked eggs and ham, and finished up with a killer roast for dinner.  We had Aunt Kate’s friend John join us for dinner but compared to the night before, it was pretty casual around the house.

Aunt Kate brought her camera and here are some of the pictures she took from the morning.  If you’re looking for a photographer, check her out at on her website and on Facebook.

Here’s Brett opening his iPod Touch.  He rated gifts in order of importance.  #1 was the iPod Touch and #3 was an Aaron Rodgers Jersey.  He missed out on #2, which was a 20″ HD TV with Cable box for his bedroom.  Not something Santa brings to most 8 year olds but it doesn’t seem like he minded too much in missing out on gift #2.

Jim Opening Packer's Stock

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent hosting the Wynne family.  Jean thought it would be fun to do something a little different for dinner.  We didn’t follow any of the traditional meals we’ve done over the past few year.

We ended up serving roast beef sandwiches with gravy fries. The meal was similar to what you would get at Nick’s Roast Beef, which is one of Jean’s favorite places to eat.

We had Jean’s entire family over (23 people in total) so we spent a lot of time on Saturday morning getting the house ready for the party.  As we were doing this, Jean peeled and cut the potatoes (20 pounds) by hand and blanched them all in a fryer.  Once the entire gang showed up we fried our french fries in grease over an open flame out in the garage. It may not sound so tasty but I’ll tell you they were a hit.

Jean’s mom cooked and carved the roast beef the day before and we heated the meat up in crock pots Saturday afternoon.  We served the sandwiches over Corropolese rolls and everyone seemed to enjoy the mini-feast.

After cleanup, we headed over to catch 9 pm Christmas Eve mass at Sacred Heart before getting ready for Christmas Day.

Welcome to the Newest NFL Owners

What do Jim and Jake McMenamin have in common with the following people: Jerry Jones, Jeffrey Lurie, Paul Allen, Robert Kraft, Daniel Snyder, Stan Kroenke, the Rooney family, and the Halas family?

We’re all owners of an NFL franchise.

I guess Jake and I need to check our schedules to see if we can fit in the NFL Winter Meetings…

 

Jake’s 10th Grade School Picture

Here’s Jake’s 10th Grade school picture.  It’s weird, he actually has long hair in this picture, believe it or not.  It’s not his normal 1-1/2 cut he gets at the barber.

I wish when you ordered pictures they gave you a digital copy of the picture as well. Some of us don’t have a scanner that works.  I would love to be able to take a picture of the picture without any glare but that never works out. Oh well, he’s still looking pretty sharp.

Brett With Santa 2012

Tonight was just another example of why one can question my parenting skills.  Having two teenagers in the house makes you forget the importance of giving Santa a visit before the big day.  Sadly, we waited until the last minute before realizing we forgot to visit the Big Man with our 8 year old.

Our penalty for that was spending close to 90 minutes in line tonight at the Coventry Mall making sure that Brett got his few minutes with Mr. Claus.  Here’s Brett with Santa.

Weekend in Pittsburgh

This past weekend we took a family trip out to Pittsburgh to visit my niece Erin.  She is a freshman at Duquesne and most of Jean’s family made the trip out west to see her.  Jean’s parents went, her brother Mike and his family, her sister Kate and her family, as well as the five of us.

Abby, Jake, Emily, Michael, and Erin

The kids went out on Friday with the inlaws and Jean and I followed them out early Saturday morning.  The ride to Pittsburgh was quite eventful as Jean and I almost died on the trip out. Luckily we somehow escaped being sandwiched between an 18 wheeler (who never saw us) and the divider. It was easily my finest bit of driving.

We spent the day in Pittsburgh hanging down in the Stip District.  After that we ate at the Double Wide Grille, a barbecue joint built inside an old gas station with a car/gas station theme. It also happened to be a stop off on a very cool Santa Claus pub crawl. I’m guessing it was a little confusing for my four year old niece Haley as she tried to figure out where all of these Santa’s came from.

Emily, Hannah, and Brett

Jim and Haley at the Doublewide

We finished Saturday at the Duquesne-Penn State basketball game, which was played in the Consol Energy Arena which was right across the street from our hotel.  Sunday morning we had brunch at Primanti Brothers before heading home.

I have to admit, Primati Brothers was a bit of a let down for me.  I had the Pitts-burgher but I wasn’t overly impressed with it.  The fries were a bit of a letdown and I wasn’t a big fan of the bread either.  I generously gave it a 3 out of 5 rating.  It didn’t live up to all the hype.

Hannah, Brett, & Jim with a Fun Christmas Tree

Abby, Hannah, Haley, Brett, and Uncle Aaron

Mike and Jake with a Pub Crawl Santa and His Helpers

The one humbling part of the trip was when we were taking pictures of the Santas in the Double Wide.  They started asking if we could share them with them on either Facebook or Twitter.  They were giving us their info for both of the sites when one of the Santa’s in the crowd piped up, “nevermind, they’re probably still on MySpace.”  Do we look that old and out of touch?

Buddies

Here’s some pictures of Brett and his buddy Liam hanging out.  I just cleaned a bunch of pictures off of Jean’s phone so these have accumulated over the past five months.  I never claimed to be right on top of everything.

Don't worry, they've got their bathing suits on...