"Haul Back the Holly! Put up the..."

And how cute is THIS???
top row - Ben and Kennedy
bottom row - Luke, Mirai and Lleyton (well, the back of his head anyway...)

I've been noticeably absent lately. There's a good reason for this - several actually.

First and foremost, Christmas so was just SO MUCH FUN this year, that the fact of it being over and the kids/grands having all departed was still very much on my mind. We "Wii'd" until the wee hours of the a.m. We ate caramel corn and snickerdoodles and chocolate chip tollhouse cookies and cheesecake (well, THEY did...although I will admit to flirting with the snickerdoodles and caramel corn). We watched all the grands/cousins interact with each other and enjoyed (laughed sometimes at) their banter with each other and with us. The house was teeming with people - 13 in fact, 14 on the day WE had Christmas (Saturday) with my mom as well. So much fun. So little time. So sad to see it end.

Secondly, Mike has been ill. I did my best nag-a-thon for about a week to go to the doctor. Finally, feeling like he was on death's door, he went on New Year's Eve to the Urgent Care Clinic. Seeing as how Kennedy and Lleyton had been sick with bronchitis BEFORE Christmas and now Mike was ailing, I decided to be seen myself. One hour and $60 later, we had matching prescriptions and care sheets. Isn't that just the cutest thing? :) Matchy, matchy after all these years...but I digress. We will live. I evidently will get to live sooner since I came in within 3 days of symptoms. Mike, however, is looking at 2 more weeks minimum of "discomfort" (a fancy term doctors like to use for "I'm freaking dying here! Put me out of my misery!!! When will this be OVER!!!! - similar to the other fancy phrase they use, "Now, you might feel a twinge here) since he didn't come in till 7 days after symptoms.

AHA! I was RIGHT!! But he's been so miserable that my jubilation is downgraded considerably to pity and compassion.

I am a humanitarian after all. Yes, shocking, I know.

Thirdly (is that a word?) I have been disemboweling the living room, taking down all the decor from all the rooms (anyone who's ever been to my house at Christmas knows that I decorate with, shall we say, "gusto"?) and packing them away. I decided it was high time to organize, clean and clear out the "Texas Basement" (an large attic room that has been drywalled and connected to the HVAC system - we can't have basements in Houston as they would flood). I found boxes that had not even been unpacked when we moved back from the UK three years ago!


So now all the decor is put away properly. The sheets and linens all washed and changed. The playroom is tidy and in order. The living room is in a new arrangement which is more pleasing visually and convenient to room flow. The house is a picture of calm and tidiness with everything in it's place.


I'd rather it be full of people and all the resultant mess of having scores of family roaming the premises.


Sigh. It was the BEST of times....