December 26, 2007

• Wow - are you ready for this?
  Better grab a beverage - I'll try to keep it short, but you know how my attempts at brevity generally work out.
  

  The women of the family kicked off the holiday season this past Saturday night with our annual mother-daughter viewing of the movie 'White Christmas'.  My sisters and I have always loved this movie - partly because it is the best Christmas movie of all time, but mostly because of the song 'Sisters' that is performed.  This year was extra special since Grandma was in town visiting for Christmas.  [Even though she slept through most of it....]  For the night the boys/men were banished to the basement, and the girls took over the main floor of the house.  Hot chocolate, popcorn, warm blankies and our favorite movie.  It doesn't get much better than that really!

  Here is grandma before falling asleep   Get this - she is 80 years old, and check her out - she has never colored her hair...very nearly no gray - I actually think that I may have more than her...sheesh.

  

  Mom and Jannah

  

  Hannah, Hadassah and I [cause of course the newest girl needs to join in the fun]

  

  Hadassah fell asleep too....that didn't hurt my feelings at all....

  

  This may seem random, but Hannah decided to do her bath before heading home for the night, and who doesn't love a sweet baby in a towel picture?

  

  Okay - fast forward to Christmas eve - I had to work [of course], but they let me leave EARLY [woohoo!] so I headed over to my parents house early to rest and to go to the Christmas eve service with them.  Our family opens gift on Christmas eve instead of Christmas morning, and then on Christmas morning we do stockings [which I am just now realizing I did NOT get a picture of.  Arm jerk].  So we got home from the service, and my littlest brother Jesse was chomping at the bit to get started on the gift opening, but we held off and had dinner first, then gathered around the tree for the wrapping paper carnage that was to ensue.  [A little side note here - it makes me more than a little sad that Jesse is now the only one of the siblings still at home that is still unable to hide his excitement over presents - all of the other 'kids' are too big and cool for that.  I love who my siblings are becoming, but it is still a little sad for everyone to be so grown up...you know?]

  Here are Jannah and I with our 'OOOOOOHHHHHH - we are so excited and can't wait to get started faces'.

  

  Every year as far back as I can remember, I have been the one to hand out the gifts from under the tree - my family jokes that it is because I have always been the bossiest one of all - and perhaps that is true - regardless, consequently, there are no actual gift opening pictures as a result, because apparently I am the only one who takes pictures [unless prompted] as well...

  Here is the one shot that we have - all six of us 'singles' [as in not married/with families of our own] in our new Christmas jammie pants - you can't really tell so much from this picture, but Jannah and I are all matchy - I love it...[yeah - don't even ask me what kind of face that is]...from L to R: Jesse, Sam, Jannah, Me, Jordan, and Abe

  

  After all of the gifts were opened and everyone dispatched to their rooms to put away all of their new crap, we watched new movies and played new games and finally were winding down a little after midnight when my dad discovered that the sewage system was beginning to back up and went to investigate, only to find that tree roots had virtually cut off all drainage.  It was too late to do anything about it that night, so we went to bed, and then bright and early saw dad and four of my brothers digging a HUGE hole in the back yard, and borrowing a friends 'snake' to clear out the lines.  Merry Christmas guys - and can I just say once again how grateful I am to be a girl with many brothers to do things like that so that I don't have to get my hands dirty???  Gross. 

  Dad with the snake [how amazing as well that they all know how to do these things?  Very handy.]  Don't be grossed out - that large dark glob is just tree roots!

  

  Sam surveying their hole 'handiwork'

  

  Sam INSIDE the hole

  

  They got everything fixed and draining properly by a little after noon...so it was a mad rush to brush teeth and shower and get all fixed up before the rest of the family showed up for lunch and visiting.

  It was a feast....

  

  Grandma and Ian enjoying lunch together

  

  Michael, David and Alex...little stair step brothers.  They are great boys.

  

  My brother Joe and his new fiancee Nicole.  They are getting married next November and are super sweet together.  This picture doesn't really do justice to how beautiful she is.

   

  We had a blast playing games all day long - the favorites being Catch Phrase and this fantastic new game that I found called Cosmic Catch.  Puzzle races were saved for later in the day...[which I am hapy to inform you that I won in the 300 piece puzzle challenge - beating the next competitor [Hannah] by five full minutes, thank you very much]  Did I mention how competitive I [we] all are? 

  

  A good time was had by all....

  One last shot of Hannah, Hadassah and I to finish things off....

  

  • 7:32 pm
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