Out With the Old & In With the New

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and got to spend time with friends and family. I am happy because I got to do both! It was long overdue, but it was great to spend time with everyone. Our home was a madhouse. I returned home first and my Mom and I picked up my Grandma, my Aunt Marilyn, Aunt Jackie, and cousin Bryant. We had a great time catching up and enjoying the fact that we could all be in the same room at once! Then Kyleigh and Courtney arrived home the next day because we need to max out the house with 9 people and 5 cats. At times I thought I was teleported into the Griswold's Christmas Vacation.

Clark: "The Griswold family Christmas tree."

Ellen: "Isn't it a little big?"
Clark: "It's not big. It's just full."
Russ: "Dad, that thing wouldn't fit in our yard."
Clark: "It's not going in our yard Russ. It's going in our living room."

I just had to throw in a quote. I had a full 360 moment of Christmas Vacation when Ky caught Bella May chowing down on the turkey. At least it was a few days after Christmas and no one asked any questions when Kyleigh said there wasn't any left. Haha. Anyway, we had delicious meals (thanks Ky!) and great company. We got family pictures done and it was a pretty funny sight to see. The photographer made my sisters and I all lay stacked on top of one another and basically took a headshot of it. It was sooo funny to do that in the mall (oh wait, did I mention we were in the mall? Every normal photo studio was closed for the holidays, so we hit up the Picture Place), we busted into tears from laughing so hard. They had to give us tissues to wipe our tears, but no one passed me one (maybe because I was up so high on the stack of sisters???), but luckily my tears of laughter did not show up in the picture. We got some wallets of it--I'm currently taking orders.

New Years was just the other night and I had a great time ringing in the New Year. Tiffany came to St. Louis to celebrate; it was great showing her the city! We went out with friends and shared too many pitchers of beer. Ugh. I'm having flashbacks of "the mystery beer", shouting "No one's gonna stop this party train" to Keenan on the phone, and Tiffany and John coming upstairs after getting in a scuffle. Tiff was protecting John from getting burnt by a cigarette, but instead she got yelled at and John got all puffed up and everything..all ready to fight. Glad nothing came of that situation. Good 'ole New Years...ahh. Anyway, cigarette man moved on and the bar closed down on us. I caught word that fellow patrons were fighting over our left over beer on the table. We left the bar and John was convinced some poor girl was in trouble on the sidewalk, but she was with her friends and a little under the weather. We told him she was fine, but he wouldn't stop worrying. Something clicked and he realized she was okay and I have the before and after pictures to help paint the picture for you.




























Upon returning to the apartment, Tiff and I broke into a Mardi Gras- sunglass-wearing-jig. We ate handfulls of M&Ms and craved pizza to no avail. Hope your Holidays and New Years were filled with Griswold moments, perfect gifts that forced you into complete shock, funny flashbacks, crazy family pictures, and lots of M&Ms!