My Holiday Typhoon

This holiday season has been a whirlwind of activity! Family, friends, fun, along with to-do lists, shopping (grr...), and housework (double grr...)..it's been a wonderful ride.

Maddy and my grandma at dinner.

Maddy and my brother, Jeremy, at brunch the next day. Mmmm...gingerbread pancakes!

The highlight of my Christmas would have to Saturday after Christmas. We had dinner with my whole family, we had great food, wonderful company....Ahhhh. Awesome!

Our tradition to demolish the gingerbread house (Godzilla-style) at our family dinner:

Part of the awesomeness of Saturday was due to my brother's visit, and my mom's. My relationship with my mom is, as I've said, complicated. But she strode in the door the morning of our planned family dinner and blessed my socks off by baking the bread and helping clean, and best of all, loving on and playing with my kids. I wouldn't exactly call her a cuddly grandma, but she sure is a fun grandma. She had brought beach sand from near her house in St. Augustine, along with various shells and starfish. She's unemployed at the moment, so the ocean provided her Christmas gifts this year. She had made all us grown kids a fragrant oil warmer out of clam shells that was pretty genius.

Neena (my mom) playing in the sand with the kids. They kept disappearing all day and I'd find them out in the garage in the sand.

My brother is definitely the star around here. He and his wife live in Savannah, so we don't see them as much as we'd like to. Jeremy is a computer programmer (or something like that...network administrator, I think? OH, I don't KNOW!). He love video games (and has even won an award for one he created!) so CJ loves having him around. Jeremy and his newest fan, my niece Alina.

For Christmas, he and his wife bought a Wii, and rented Rayman and the Rabbids 2. Oh, my gosh, that was such a hilarious night. We all took a turn, and then took turns laughing our butts off at each other. More awesomeness. In hindsight, I wish I had taken some video.

Of course, I don't want to leave my dad out, who is so sweet, loving and generous. This year we all decided to get gifts for only the children, since "things are tough all over". I think my dad missed the point, because he seems to have spent the same amount of money, just all on the kids!! My kids got so much stuff from them! (Nerf guns were a fave--for the grownups, too.)

Dad with his gag gift from us:

Last night we had some wonderful friends--some old, some brand new-- over for New Years Eve. We played games, talked, and ate-- ALOT. Some of the kids fell asleep, some did not (especially mine, *sigh*).

Miscellaneous children piled into my bed:

We watched the ball drop and toasted each other with sparkling apple juice, kissed our spouses.....and went right back to our game of Apples to Apples, where I FINALLY won a card in the very last round. Whew, at least I wasn't a total loser. Maybe if I wasn't so insistant on picking smart-a** cards.....ah well, "smart a** is, as smart a** does," isn't that what Forrest Gump said?

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!