• Family Matters,  Niece-com-poops

    BEFORE

    I am a very bad daughter. I am posting pictures of my mom’s house that is a big big mess. Today at five pm we are going to have a birthday party for my youngest niece, Superchick (who we renamed from “SuperChunk” because she’s not so chunky anymore and we don’t want her to get a complex or anything). Tomorrow we are having even more people over for Thanksgiving dinner.

    So anyway, what I’m trying to say is that somehow between now and five in the evening, this house will miraculously get cleaned up. And of course I’ll have to post an “after” picture or my mom will skin me alive. She wants to make it very clear that this is not how her house always looks. Right now my brother, his wife, two kids and four cats are all living here too–which brings the total count up to six people, seven cats and three dogs. It can get a little out of control at times. (But between you and me, it’s been this way my whole life.)

  • Family Matters,  Niece-com-poops,  preg-nuts

    Hemet Days

    I’m starting to look scary. I think I’m going to get kicked out of the “big belly crew” soon and sent off to a traveling freak show. All I need is a beard.

    I had a really fun few days out in Hemet. It’s been a whirlwind of reunions now that the walls of Jericho are falling down. I hung out with my Aunt for two days and sewed six blankets. (Half of them are for gifts. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be drowning in receiving blankets.) I finally watched an episode of LOST with my Aunt, my Grandma and a cousin I haven’t seen in ages. If you would have told me I’d be watching television with my relatives last week, I would have slapped my forehead and told you you were crazy. My relatives don’t even have televisions! Television is the “devil in a box”. I guess a lot of things have changed in the last few years. I say hallelujah!

    Watching LOST was great. My Aunt and my cousin got me all up to speed on the fifty trillion details there are to keep track of. Now I know what everybody is raving about. What a freaky show. I don’t know how I’m going to possibly get Toby up to speed so we can watch it next week. It probably won’t even come up since I can’t manage to stay awake past 8pm anyway. I think the only reason I was able to stay up this Wednesday is because I’ve been running on adrenaline. It’s like my heart is at Disneyland or something with all these relatives that I haven’t talked to in ages coming at me with open arms.

    Of course my immediate family (my mom, my dad, my brother and his wife and kids) have always been coming at me with open arms. In fact sometimes my nieces might be a little too loving, like when they tried to squish into bed with me on the couch. But I love them to pieces.

    We went to Starbucks this morning. What a hoot they are with their “medium warm hot chocolate”. I had a decaf eggnog latte for the first time since forever. It was strange but good. Thankfully, my pregnancy aversion seems to be dissipating and the coffee didn’t taste like burnt egg shells like it used to.

    My littlest niece’s birthday is next Wednesday and then there’s Thanksgiving after that… it’s just one fun thing after another. Life is good.