Holiday Festivities

The Holidays were terrific this year. Reason one: Because I am getting the one thing I truly truly want more than anything else in the world. Two: Because that present lets me eat like it's the holidays everyday (sorta). And three: We got to celebrate on a bunch of extra days, so we got a lot of partying bang for our family buck. Like the 20th of December. My oldest sister Cassie couldn't make it down for the day of Christmas so we had an earlier party when she and all of her kids could make it. There are 6, so no easy task.

Warning: This blog entry is heavy on my family and Allie in general. If you don't know these people, you may not care much for what follows. Enter at your own boredom

My lovely parents did the whole shebang of a dinner early, which might be my favorite part of it all. Our Christmas dinner is always the exact same as our Thanksgiving dinner. My dad does 90% of the work himself, including homemade pumpkin pies with homemade crusts. Here is my muse Allie enjoying a piece of it. Or rather the homemade (ok, I'll stop.) whipping cream off the top.

Here she is resting between bites and talking to my mom. It was my mom's piece of pie that Allie had commandeered in the first place.

Here is my nephew Tommy (Allie's older brother) holding my niece Allison's daughter (my great niece!) Ayla. Got that? Ayla is so lovely and fun at this age. 9 months I think. This picture made the blog because she would NOT stop staring at Tommy while he held her. She didn't show the same love for anyone else like that. Kids are so funny that way some times. What's so interesting about Tommy that a 9 month old is mesmerized? I mean, he is a super cool guy, but how does she know?
My niece Caitlin has a tiny Chihuahua named Mika. Here are my great-nephews (Seriously, are we catching the great part of these sentences?) Nolan and Jordan carefully holding her. She is fragile and has already had a spell of bad luck with her tiny ribs. (Not injured by a kid.)


Here are Clayton and Mika. By the way. That would be a teeny-tiny Juicy Couture sweat suit that Mika is sporting. What are you going to do? This is why I probably can never have a dog quite that small. How can you resist dressing something up that is the size of a Barbie doll? You really can't.


A few days later Clayton and I invited ourselves over to spend the night at Tom & Jenni's house. Mainly to watch Allie enjoy her presents Christmas morning. What is more fun than watching a 2 year old get excited over an orange? Ya ya, she like the presents a ton, but her biggest reaction was on seeing her sister Megan get an orange out of her stocking. Too funny. Here the two girls are in their Christmas Eve pajama's.

My niece Megan and her cousin Kaylee put on a family talent show of sorts each Christmas eve. They make up an impromptu list of what everyone in the family will do and even print off a program. You don't get a say in the matter. They call it the "Sharing of personal talents". As Clayton and I were present this year, he got to give a recap of recent sports news while I had to give a recap of recent celebrity gossip.

(By the way, these really are our talents. Just try to beat us in Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit. It hasn't been done. This isn't necessarily something we are proud of. And we really want you to play with us.)

Kaylee's sister Stephie had to do an interpretive dance to "Santa Baby". Luckily all the girls joined in. Including little Allie. "What? We are dancing now? Ok!" Allie is always game.


On actual Christmas day we went back to my parents for a re-do. It was nice and laid back and cozy. Lots of food and games and general hanging out. Here are me and C in our Christmas portrait of sorts. Note the ever growing tummy? Only two more months. Too bad I hit my target weight gain already. Oh well.


My friend Julie and I got to stop by my friend Betsy's house to see her, Jay and little Spencer while they were in town. Our families lived just a few blocks away while we were in high school. That night we got to enjoy some Rock Band on the Wii, but more importantly a little Spencer time. How cute is he?


Christmas is soon followed by Clayton's birthday on the 30th. He turned the big 2-8 this year.
Here he is blowing out the candles.



Oh ha ha ha. They don't blow out! Clayton is such a good sport. Ya- has anyone actually been fooled by these? They are fun nonetheless.


New years was also great. Good times, great food, fantastic family and friends. Oh, and lots of Rock Band. I'm getting pretty good. All in all it was such a great way to end 2008. Oh, I should probably do a recap of 2008 blog. Maybe that will be the next one. Or maybe my next blog will be about the exciting stuff we got. Ya- all materialism and such nonsense. But seriously, you need to see the little stuff. It's so eye-stabbingly cute. Ok, till then. Happy New Year!