Geese A-Laying... Around the House on New Year's Eve

Audrey has been working on some required service hours for a project at school. We decided to end the year by finishing up those hours, and I decided that it wouldn't hurt any of us to go help out somewhere for three hours.  Dan was working, but me and kids spent the early afternoon at the bishop's storehouse, moving pallets and sweeping and mopping behind them. We learned many important new skills, like how to maneuver a pallet jack, and why you should never try to move a huge pallet of boxes with sharp edges in next to a pallet of bags of sugar.  The reason why, in case you don't know, is that there is a good chance the corners on the boxes will puncture some of the sugar bags, and sugar will spill out everywhere on to your freshly swept and mopped floor.  Yeah, we had a little fiasco with that, but we didn't get fired.  They kept us on til closing time, and everyone survived.  Three hours is a long time for any one to spend in a warehouse, and it was an especially long time for a nine year who had not had breakfast. She was a pretty good sport up until the end, when a nice man took pity on her and gave her some chocolate milk.  I guess one of the perks of working at the storehouse is there is always something to eat.

We have exchanged Will for Alicia for the weekend, and will be commencing our New Year's Eve celebration soon.  We considered a few options for what to do tonight, and the winner of the pleasure of our company for the evening is our own couch, with a fireplace, a warm puppy, new pajamas,  and a little sparkling grape juice, if we get to feeling really festive. Ah, the joys of middle age.  Duncan is working til ten, and we have to pick him up, so that put a damper on any plans to go out.  Having people over sounded fun, but then we would have to entertain them.  The kids will be watching movies and pigging out on left over Christmas treats, and that is how we are going bid farewell to 2014 and say hello to 2015.

Five Gold Heads

These five, plus the cute guy in the back, had the best time together over the past few days.  We had to kiss them all goodbye tonight.  Now we are counting down for the next time we can get together.

The alleged adults in this family went to dinner for a last hurrah tonight. June and Carole came too. The girls stayed home at Grandma's and had their own private party of In-n-Out, junk food, and movies.

Then we came home and tortured everyone into taking a bunch of group pictures.

Lisa and I keep telling them one day they will be glad we took these.  In reality, it will probably be our kids that are glad to have them.  We are a rather handsome bunch though, I must  say.  Mark and his crew are flying out early in the morning.  We will have to come up with some New Year's Eve plans without them.  At the rate we are going, we may just crash early.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas....

---we woke up (around ten for me- I finally dug the sleepover crew out about 11:30) to about eight more inches of snow!   Poor Dan left for work at seven this morning, and spent 90 minutes crawling through snow packed roads.  And at our house we had to shovel.  It really looks like winter now. We might even have to do some kind of sledding party for New Years Eve.


After digging out of the snow a bit, we packed up the crew and hit the town for lunch at Noodles.

They were all happy to be there, I promise.

After lunch, we headed to the movies.

Some of us went to Unbroken, some of to The Hobbit and the rest of us went to Annie.  Imagine our delight when we ran into cousin Jenny and her brood! They were seeing Annie too, and we wound up sitting on the same row.  Too bad that those things happen by coincidence instead of us actually thinking ahead, and planning to meet up with them while we are in their neighborhood. Oh well, it was still fun to see them, and to finally meet sweet baby Tate.

Oh, and lets not forget that there was some serious pore cleaning going on today as well. Nothing says quality time with your cousins quite like treating your blackheads together.

And now we are back home, sans Olivia who is staying at Grandma's tonight.  We have a few things planned for tomorrow, then this crew flies out early Wednesday morning.  And we will be on to the NEXT stage of our holiday. Whew, I'm getting all holidayed out.

Three French Hens

On the third day of Christmas, we said a tearful goodbye to our two Frenchies, who are on their way back home to the sunshine.

Before that, we compared eye color at Einstein Bagels and debated what constitutes a rotten customer.

 In true Metcalf fashion, we took about twenty minutes to say goodbye, and everybody had to hug at least twice.

I keep thinking it will get easier to say good bye, but it seems to only get harder each time.  Much better having them in Southern California than Northern France though.

Later in the day, we had dinner at Grandmas and finished off the remnants of Christmas dinner. We traded Rebecca for Audrey for the night,  and now I have two excited and bubbly little girls doing their best not to sleep.  Pretty sure the same thing is going on at Grandma's with the other three.  I still don't know how my girls got so lucky with cousins.

Dan has to go back to work tomorrow and I have to work Tuesday, but we are not going to let that dampen the  holiday spirit around here. We have nine more days to go, and way more stuff planned!

Two Turtle Doves

The second day of Christmas for us consisted of a trip downtown to City Creek for lunch and shopping. Out of the twelve attendees of our shopping trip, we managed to purchase two dolls, a set of earrings, and a shot glass.  Apparently, we are not the die hard shoppers we all thought we were. 

After shopping, we headed over to see the lights at Temple Square.  We stayed long enough to snap a picture or two and see the nativity, and then we were all freezing cold, so we called it a night.

These two turtle doves are birds of a feather for sure. They sat at lunch together, chatting non-stop like the closest of friends.  I love them.

 
Comparing notes on their Ever After doll purchases, and trying to explain Ever After to Grandma Sally.

Alisa and Erwann popped in on us for a second before heading over to the Jazz game.  I don't know if I will ever get used to the idea that my daughter is an NBA basketball fan now.

These guys can qualify as my three french hens for tomorrow.  Such good sports.




No trip to see the lights would be complete without a stop at Starbucks, right?  Waited at least thirty minutes for some hot chocolate and a few coffees.  Olivia was not impressed with the hot chocolate.  It was very dark and rich, but not too child friendly. Carla was happy to find a Starbucks in Salt Lake.  Audrey was just happy to be along for the ride.

And I managed one shot of the group at Temple Square before we surrendered to the cold and took cover in our cars.

A lovely night with lovely people.

Partridges in Pear Trees

The twelve days of Christmas is all mixed up and it makes me mad.  Nowdays people think that the twelve days of Christmas starts on December 13.  But traditionally, today is the first day of the twelve days of Christmas, and it goes through til January 6.  And it makes me mad, because now, thanks to nobody understanding the  twelve days of Christmas, Christmas Day just gets here, and BOOM it's over.  You have put all this work and thought into planning Christmas, and you haven't had a spare moment to sit down and enjoy anything because you have been so busy shopping and cooking and wrapping, and by the time you catch your breath, it's December 26 and it is over.  Presents are over, and we are all back to work, back to regular music on the radio, and the Christmas tree is in the gutter.  Doesn't it make more sense to START celebrating Christmas on Christmas day, and then continue it right on through to New Years, when everybody has a chance to relax and breathe?
So, this year, we are going to keep on celebrating.  The tree is staying up, the music is playing, and we are all still eating way too much.

Today, we got real family pictures taken for the first time in about six years,  and then, we hosted the Metcalf family Christmas party at our house.  More on all that later, but Happy First Day of Christmas to us.

Pictures of the Metcalf Extravaganza

We are such a crew now, it required three separate tables to seat everyone.  So we had a grown-up table downstairs, a teenager table in the kitchen and a kid table at the bar.  I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of the kid table, because they were done eating before everyone else was seated.  But this is the teenager table, and of course this was the table with the most drama.  Duncan thought he should be seated at the grown up table.  I told him he was a teenager for two more weeks, and would sit with the teenagers.  There was a little angst that 11 year old Stockton got seated at the teenager table, but he was pretty pleased to be there, and I backed him up.

And the grown up table.  Well, grown up in age anyway.  Some of us will never grow up.  Emotional maturity level was not a requirement.

Lucky me, I got to sit with all the best looking guys there. I have not yet learned how to take a selfie and smile at the same time.

These cousins always bring out the goofball in each other

And then Alisa and Olivia tried to hone in on my guy time.  Olivia had just fallen down the stairs and was not feeling very merry.

After the food and presents, a little lethargy settles in.

A little later on, the musical entertainment portion of the evening started, most of which can be found on Facebook in video form.  Erwann got in on some of the pickin and grinnin, which always makes Grandpa happy. And now that Will got a mandolin from Grandpa Santa, maybe next time he will get in on some of it as well.

Happy Holiday Happenings

Christmas 2014 is pretty much wrapped up, and oh what a time we have had.

Grandpa Dee's birthday is on December 18, and we usually usher in the Christmas festivities with a birthday cake and candles.

I can only pray that I look this great on my 82nd birthday

Then a few days later we had the Paulson family Christmas family party. The Paulson Christmas, for many years, was a circus- all the kids and grandkids, packed into Grandma Paulson's house for Christmas dinner and presents.  Then, several years ago, that group got too big and unwieldy, so everyone kind of branched off to do their own celebrating.  Then my aunts and uncles missed seeing each other for Christmas, so they started their own private Christmas party- grown ups only.. It used to be that in order to receive an invite to this party, you had to be a child or child-in-law of Don and LaVon Paulson-  Now, that all the grandkids are grown up, the invitation has been extended to the grandchildren of Don and LaVon.  No great grand kids.  What makes this really nice for me is that most of the people at this party are the original cast of my childhood family Christmas parties- aunts, uncles and cousins. No matter how old I get, these faces will always be my first family.

Only this year, since Alisa was in town (YAY) an exception was made to the no-great grandkids rule, and we got to bring her with us.  It was a really nice night of catching up, delicious food, and fighting over presents.

Then, finally, on the 22nd of December, the kids were out of school. We celebrated with a shopping trip to finish up Christmas and a late lunch at In-n-Out.  This was also an auspicious occasion because Olivia stayed home all by herself for the first time.  She had been to a birthday party earlier in the day and had already eaten lunch there. And she had no desire for shopping, so we left her on her own.  And she survived And I survived.  We are entering a new realm of parenthood here.

All that eating and shopping wiped poor old Piper right out.

By Christmas Eve, we were all raring to go again though

 Erwann flew into town on the 23rd.  On Christmas Eve, Mitch had the day off, but Will had to work at five. Boo. So we headed out for an early afternoon Christmas Eve celebration with Grandma and Grandpa at their house.

Now that's a box of chocolates!

When we got home, there were ginger bread men (and women, and snowpeople) to decorate.
This picture makes me so happy.  My kids in the kitchen, being all crafty and happy together.

There was chili and tamales for dinner, new jammies, more presents, a movie, popcorn, and way too many treats.


Here is our family Christmas picture, 2014.  Looking at this picture, with all my kids together makes me realize that this Christmas, we really have it all. Couldn't ask for anything more than to have all these sweet faces together.  Good, good times.

And soon, this little one was heading excitedly off to bed, stocking hung,  and milk and cookies for Santa  left out.

There was a small spat with Duncan about what time in the morning constituted a reasonable time to get up.  He just could not see what was wrong with getting up at three..  Mitch voted vehemently for nine  I said somewhere in the middle would be a good compromise.

Above is the before  picture, shortly after Santa's departure, presents under the tree and stockings filled.  Below is the aftermath.

Christmas morning was simply perfect.  We woke up around seven ( a few of us were up at five, and a few others not til about eight)  to a  beautiful white Christmas, the first real snow we have seen this year.  Everybody was happy with their gifts.  Peace and chaos existed in perfect harmony.  There was a hashbrown casserole and cinnamon rolls for breakfast, followed by lovely naps.

Audrey got a bow and arrow, and we couldn't help but make her pose for a Christmas Story-esque scene involving snow, boots, and shooting out your eye.

And then, as if that was not picture perfect enough, Christmas evening, just when we were getting tired of laying around the house in our new jammies, we got to pack up some presents and head out through the snow to Grandma's house to welcome Mark, Lisa, Tyler, Carla, Rachel and Rebecca to Salt Lake for Christmas.

We had another perfect present opening session, with excited cousins, presents galore for everyone, wrapping paper and bows flying, and lots of Merry and Happy.  We are so glad  these guys would give up their Christmas to come to Utah to be with us.  We never get to see them on holidays, and having them there made everything brighter.

We still have the Metcalf family Christmas party to look forward to tomorrow, as well as a visit to see the lights downtown, and a hopefully a few good times with cousins while they are here.  All too soon, it will back to real life.  Having a few magical days together at the end of a very good year is almost too much good luck to hope for.