This week, I was a woman on fire. I cleaned this house from tippy top to bottom INCLUDING, but not limited to, re-shelf papering cabinets in need of a shelf paper refresh. Seriously. I can entertain in any room or closet in my house if I wanted to it's so spic and span. But whew, that was a lot of work.
On New Year's Eve, the Venable clan has a tradition of going on a nice family hike during the day. This year, it rained cats. We wanted to do something together anyway, so just like any middle-class American family we decided to go to the mall. Lucy and Max found the fountain in the mall way more entertaining than any store, see?
grandmother and lucy check out the fountain from the pedestrian bridge
dipsey and max look at the coins people have thrown in (i wouldn't let max get in to retrieve coins, btw - he asked)
max looking cute as usual
lucy looking like her adorable self
Next, I thought it would be fun if we all made faces. It was.
max's face
lucy's
clay's
mama's
mine
Dipsey left before I could take a photo of his funny face. While at the mall, I decided to go peruse a store called Forever 21 because it came highly recommended to me from several friends (I rarely go to the mall so I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity). I went and decided it was called Forever TWENTY-ONE for a reason. My eye was caught by a pretty pink tutu party skirt, but I was turned off by the $25 price tag. (Tutus are awesome, BTW. They rank up there with sparkly bathing suits, but how often do you find sparkly bathing suits for sale?)
Empty-handed, I made my way back to the food court to rejoin the family and decided to take a detour into Wet Seal for old time's sake (sidebar: when the heck did West Town Mall get so many cool stores? And why could they not be there when I was in college? Seriously - we have a DELIA'S, a BODY SHOP, and a WET SEAL, and this new thingy called Forever 21 which I would totes patronize if I was, in fact, 21 and could pull off hootchie mama gear.) Anyway, I wanted to check out Wet Seal and see what was hip for the Millennials to be wearing. That's when I found this little baby:
a tutu on sale for $10. it was as if it was made just for me.
I really love my tutu. I put it on when I got home and the FedEx man did a double take when I answered the door that afternoon. Seriously, I never want to take it off. So for two days I didn't.
On New Year's Eve, we go to the Mowrers and ring in the New Year with them. First off, Jenny and I make pizzas!
jenny made the mowrer specialty - supreme pizza! i made my favorite - butternut squash! i think i was the only person who ate any squash pizza... apparently i'm the only one with a refined palate...
mama and dipsey showed up to watch the game with us! mama's not in this photo, btw...
dipsey got cold, so he borrowed jenny's gift from her sister cera (in from california! whee!)
i feed row mow
At midnight, I tried to get a Smith/Mowrer montage, but everyone kept goofing off. Well. Except Jenny and me who look smashing in every shot:
tommy's not in the shot and mattie looks mean
my finger's in the way and tommy's trying to lick jenny
matt fell asleep in this one
not bad, but tommy's head is ginormous in this one and mattie looks like he might have a tummy ache
our feet - tommy can never sit still
in case you missed it, i bought a tutu
We went to bed shortly after midnight. The next morning I spied my tutu on the ground and before anyone knew what was happening...
tutu... day two...
New Year's Day we have friends over and we cook, eat, visit and play games all day long. Showers are encouraged but not enforced. I usually wear pajamas (and I had some with me) but what are pjs when compared to a TUTU??
marty and rowdy play cranium
i did jenny's hair and kristina said it looked awful, so she redoes it
tommy bought himself an xbox... looks like i am going to be an xbox widow... siiiiigh.
please note: this is what happens to cranium clay when you don't use it for awhile. it becomes a science project.
tommy, shawn and kristina play guesstures
they then rearrange to play scategories
matt determinedly thinks of words beginning with the letter "l"
marty is worried he might not win
we decide we should start an iphone club
Food and drink is involved, natch...
shawn is always teasing marty about spilling food and then she dumped her pretty crudite on the ottoman hahahaha
ki made sauerkraut! someone had the bright idea of offering everyone a beano appetizer - good call on that one; crisis averted...
jenny and tommy sample shawn's apple cinnamon vodka infusion
dipsey brought over peanuts the night before that mama had roasted herself and they were extra good! lottie sue mowrer is being toilet trained and the mowrers are using m&ms as bribes for going potty. i don't know who it was, but someone made the discovery that the combo made the awesomest peanut m&ms ever. my ratio was two m&ms:one peanut - here are the leftover peanut skins after we hogged them all. we also took care of like a two pounder bag of m&ms - sorry, lottie!
before we went to bed that night, there was a tutu intervention. i was told i can never wear the tutu in public, so here you go. please view the last image of me in a tutu. siiiigh... what are friends for, right?
Here is a photo of us from yesterday - last night of vacation!
tomorrow it's back to the workin' world!
Great holiday; great times with family and friends. 2010 is off to a good start! Coming up, Amanda and I are planning a trip to Hot Springs, NC (with a side detour to go shopping for fabric for her wedding dress at Mary Jo's Fabric {Best. Fabric Store. Ever}. She and John are planning on May 22 for their nuptials and I am making her dress!) so please stay tuned for more adventures in the exciting new year!
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