Beautiful Holiday But Glad It's Monday Issue

The last 4 days have been a wild ride!!!

On Thursday, I finished tidying up the house and made a broccoli/onion casserole to take to Jen's aunts for the meal.  I also went and picked up Leon from his mom's.

It had been a long night for Ryan the night before. He and Jen had hung out with her family until the wee hours.

Aggie got to spend time with her other grandparents and I held back because I get to see her every day.  I didn't want to horn in on their time with her.

The Packers/Lyons game was on the tv and while I don't really follow much sports at all, I intently watched this one. Maddy and Matthew were somewhere in the stands with his family, most wearing jerseys from both teams.  

I don't know why I thought I'd see them on tv but I watched clues as to where they were sitting.

Didn't find them. Oh well, there's cheesecake?

Got home around 7ish and watched two episodes of the Haunting at Hill House with Julie (virtually). She's in N Carolina and me in Iowa.  We get on speaker phone together and try to sync up the shows as best as we can, watching movies together.  Been doing this since last February when she moved out there.

I have to admit, this series has freaked us out quite a bit and we need to go lighter with our next movie or series...  The last episode was really good though and actually sweet.  

All our freaked-ness was calmed down.

Friday, I woke up early.  4am I think?  Might have been earlier. It's hard to sleep these days and harder to tell time when you're groggy and the things you need to do for the day are hitting you hard.

I'm awake!  I'm awake!!

Hit Biolife and then groceries for the big family reunion that day.  My cousin, Scott, was there a smidgen before 11am and we started dragging in all the groceries, turkeys and ham.  I didn't let him carry much because he'd had a heart attack a couple weeks earlier and was legally dead twice for a significant amount of time.  He's feeling good now though and really wanted to cook the turkeys, so ok!

I met up with a couple sisters and their families for a quick lunch and then back at it preparing the hall and food.

The reunion was a lot of fun and I visited with immediate family, several aunts, cousins, siblings.  There were 50 people there.  

Lots of board games in the afternoon and a football game on the big tv.

The kids ran uptown to see the town Christmas tree get lit up and were back in time for the big meal.  As usual, there are factions in families and some were avoiding each other.  I've decided next year, we'll need more tables and everyone who is bickering gets their own.

The food was all great and while we worried there weren't enough sides to round out the meal, I still had to skip a few dishes because there was simply no room on my plate!  I regret not getting to that pink salad that everyone raved about later...  AND I didn't have room for any dessert.

The rootbeer keg had something wrong with it and so we had to be careful and fill up pitchers at a time instead of letting the kids get their own.  We only pulled a few gallons at most off of it and did NOT do it justice at all.  I took it back to the liquor store with probably 3/4 rootbeer in it. Oh well.  It was a nice addition anyway. NEXT year, I'll tap it at the store before I leave.  Or not, what are the odds of it being horky two years in a row?

The talent show was shorter but the talents had improved!  

None of my kids participated AGAIN!  Maybe next year.

Everyone worked together to clean up the hall and by 9:30pm, it was all done but everyone was still standing around talking.  

I visited with a couple aunts but mentioned that I needed to get people out the door and how could I do that?  My cousin, the turkey cooker, said but yell it out that we're locking up.  Um yeah but I'd been yelling all evening making announcements and said that I couldn't yell one more time, so he did!  They all filed out the door, hugging as they went.

We're a huggie bunch! :)

Got home and in bed by 10pm.  I remember the first year we did this.  Robb and I didn't get into bed until after 11:30.  We've streamlined it enough now and since everyone helps, it goes much smoother than it used to.

On Saturday morning, I got up at 3am, not on purpose.  Got the house tidied up again and got the gravy in the crockpot, baked biscuits and made one of Robb's breakfast casseroles.  No one came until 9ish.  really?  The biscuits had been in the warmer too long and changed colors so I made another batch.  Two more families came later so that was nice!

One cousin stayed all afternoon while I put up my tree.  

Before

During

Kevin, during

After

That evening, I watched the last episode of Hill House with Julie.  

Sunday was a blur.  After church, I brought home a cheese and fruit platter for everyone to snack on while we decorated the tree.  Only Jen and I ate on it and decorated.  That's ok.  I had Christmas Vacation on while we worked.

I got a pic of the grands and myself under the tree, it was shedding like crazy.

Afterwards I napped in front of the tree for a bit, then babysat Aggie while Ryan and Jen ran Leon back to his mom's.  

She is rolling all over the place now and kept ending up under the tree.  

She likes the dangling things.  I watched Lethal Weapon ( another great Christmas classic) while we played in the living room.

THIS little angel (the daughter of one of Meri's besties and I made the dress) got baptized on Sunday!  Meri was a god-parent.  They spilled coffee on the dress so I'll be soaking it in OxyClean again in preparation for the wedding coming up in a month.

I can't tell you how many pounds of ham, cheese, mashed potatoes and veggie casseroles I ate on Sunday alone but it was a lot and the fridge is still jam packed with leftovers.  

But I was sick of them this morning so I had nachos for breakfast.

ONE of these days, I'll get my diet in gear and lose this weight.

Just not today.