Festivitization Has Begun

Though I hadn't even begun my Christmas shopping yet, our holiday "officially" began on Friday night, when Momo and Matilda rolled into town, and friends joined us for homemade pizza. (Mike had to stay in NC another week, so we missed him but made good use of the speakerphone by screaming at him in unison.)

It ain't a party unless the kitchen's a disasater. That's Clint back there, readying to bake a pizza, while Di stands ready to roll out the next crust. Diane was the official crust roller outer for the evening.



Mark & Shirley, Landscape Architects To-Be, finished their last final of the semester Friday afternoon. Mark, stuck in traffic before the party, called ahead to say "I'm bringing 5 gallons of wine, and I'm not sharing it with anyone."

But he shared it with Shirley. Oh, how they laughed at whatever was so funny.

This photo of Matilda is particularly funny if you have a little background on her mother.

You don't think you're getting this phone back, do you? You're cracked.

Marcy-Momo is virtually incapable of maintaining a blank, stoic expression on her face if she finds herself mortified, horrified, disgusted, irritated, or angered.

For instance, her mother once received a butt-ugly sweater for Christmas. While she politely thanked the gift-giver, Marcy sat next to her wearing some semblance of this expression:


At the end of the day, her mother chided her, "You really need to learn to control your face!"

The hilarious thing is that she never realizes that she's expressing herself so openly. So, we try to help her. For example, say someone were to join our table at the coffee shop, and say that person were oblivious, to say, a very runny nose (this is purely hypothetical), this would be Marcy:

We, then, her trusted and loyal friends will whisper "Face, Marcy." She will immediately transform her expression thusly:

Look how she understands now, that people's noses run. There's a box of tissue right behind her. Care for one? And some hand sanitizer, perhaps?

Anyway, Matilda apparently takes after her mother, with her expressive expressions. If you're up to something she doesn't approve of, you'll know it pretty much immediately!

She also does a mean Cookie Monster imitation:



Too many photos, here's a slide show of some more:

So, Night #1 of the Holiday Festivities was very fun. Mark shared his wine with me also, and I woke up with a *bit* of a headache on Saturday morning. I managed to get breakfast on the table by asking Clint to help me cook, and then leaving it to him completely while I found coffee and Advil.


After nomming on some eggs and bacon with Matilda, I felt MUCH better, and we were off then, for some Christmas shopping.

We shopped, and said our goodbyes to Momo & Matilda.

My card reader broke yesterday (horrors!) so the rest of the weekend's photos aren't currently available. The missing highlights are 1) Brian made it home from Fort Benning at 7:37 this morning (but who was keeping track, really), and 2) I took my Mother to visit my Grandmother today.

We're in full swing, I'll be tuning in with more photos ASAP. Spirit: I has it! Yay!

Confidential to Revision 99: I don't think I look that bad in this thing.