O'krzesik Fest 2012

Last Thursday all of Keith's family gathered at our house for what we call O'krzesik Fest (the apostrophe is due to it being held in Dublin of course).  And the fact that sometimes when people just hear our last name they ask if it is Irish.

We had a full house!  Keith's parents arrived first and they were followed shortly by a van from Chicago/Naperville with Aunt Heather, Uncle Todd, Olivia, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Erica, and Macy.  We had five children here under the age of 3!  It was total chaos but also tons of fun.  Heather, Todd, and Olivia spent their nights at Todd's brother's house which is about 15 minutes from our house so we didn't actually have that many overnight guests.

This was the first time that Keith's brother and sister and their families had met Julia and Caroline!  There was lots of interest in the babies from Olivia and some from Macy too.  Oh and I could barely pry them out of Auntie Erica's arms :)  Not that I wanted to!  It was great having the extra hands to feed, hold, and put the girls to sleep.

On Friday we went to Touch-a-Truck.  We thought it wouldn't be very crowded since it was on a Friday morning and not a weekend.  Boy were we wrong!  It was packed and pretty hot too but the kids still had fun and touched plenty of trucks.  The kids and grown-ups made thumbprint shirts on Friday afternoon and we successfully went out for pizza on Friday evening.

Saturday we had professional pictures taken!  I was not very optimistic about how they would turn out with so many little ones but I was totally wrong.  She got some excellent pictures of everyone.  Grandma and Grandpa wanted one taken with all of the grandchildren and the three oldest ones even smiled and held hands for it.  Absolutely amazing.  I'll put some up here when we get the CD from her.  We got some good group shots of everyone and then some great ones of individual families and individual kids.

Saturday afternoon was spent playing in the sprinkler and in the kiddie pool in the backyard.  It was a beautiful day of only about 81 degrees!  We were able to sit on the deck and enjoy the weather.  Saturday evening we grilled out and had a good meal.  Sunday morning the Chicago contingent packed up and left while Grandma and Grandpa stayed around for awhile.

Uncle Jeff, Colin and Macy

Macy and Colin hang out in their jammies Friday morning

Colin in front of the snow plow at Touch-a-Truck

Making thumbprint shirts

O'krzesik Fest shirt for everyone!

Olivia and Colin having some fun in the sun

Auntie Heather gets some snuggle time with Julia

Auntie Erica and Caroline 

It was so great to get together with everyone.  Unfortunately, it doesn't happen often enough!  Thanks everyone for coming to Ohio!