This year for Christmas we went to visit my mom in South Carolina. If you don't know much about my family, I have 4 brothers and 4 sisters, 4 of us are married (including myself), and 3 of us have children. We were ALL home for Christmas this year, and my mom also invited my Grandparents, my aunt, and my cousins. The grand total of people sleeping under one roof was 26! Not only that, but my mom has 5 cats, 3 dogs, and 4 snakes. As you might imagine, it was a bit chaotic at times. Here are some of the highlights:
It is kind of a tradition (well, when my sister and I are home anyway) to build a gingerbread house at Christmas time. Originally, we tried to make it look as professional as possible, but in recent years it has gotten a bit silly. Last time we had King Kong climbing up a castle turret and a man doing a hand stand at the front of the castle. This year... well, here are the pictures.
View from the side.
View from the back.
I designed the water wheel myself (I can't take credit for the decorations on it, I only designed the gingerbread part of it). That would be why it is a little lopsided.
View from the front.
Santa (or someone) lounging under an umbrella, drinking a Piña Coloda on the roof. The umbrella was originally going to be a spaceship, but somewhere along the way it transformed.
An alien sitting in a chair on the front porch.
Opening his very favorite gift...
Thomas the train!!!
One of the funniest things was listening to Eli and Natalie sitting in the back seat of the car together. Eli would say something like "Derby Pie" and Natalie would laugh hysterically like it was the funniest joke she had ever heard. Natalie is the cousin that is closest to Eli's age, so he played with her the most. He did make her cry sometimes, but it was usually when all of the adult's back's were turned, so it was hard to tell if he actually did anything wrong. We have some video of them playing together, but I have to wait to get it from my sister before I can post it.
We also went out to the movies to watch "Blind Side." If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it!
All in all we had a great time! Eli is still talking about his cousins and grandma (sorry aunts and uncles, but he hasn't mentioned you).
Fun gingerbread house. I love the water-wheel and would have never thought of doing it.
ReplyDeleteWe also went and saw Blind Side and liked it a lot. How was your travels across the country in the opposite direction that we traveled? Ours went well, except the day we came home. We were supposed to land at 10 (only 8 Utah time) and get home at 1. Well, we landed at about 1 and filed a lost baggage claim and didn't get home until 5am. Yuck. We were pretty wiped out for a few day, since we all had colds that were wore us out too.
It was so fun to see all of each of our families though!
Poor Trina and family! That sounds horrid! Our flights this year were uneventful. We were taking a southern route, so there wasn't really a chance of getting stuck due to weather. On the way back we even got to let Eli have his own seat because the flights weren't full. We brought the car seat with us and he slept in his car seat most of the time.
ReplyDeleteHooray for the gingerbread house!! Um, I mean... booooooo-ring! >)
ReplyDeleteRude!! :)
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