Christmas Holidays 2011

Well, I'm super behind on posting so I think I'll just do the most massive blog post ever.  It'll mostly be pictures.  These first ones are when we decorated the tree.

The same night, I gave all my nieces their presents, since all but one would be out of town on Christmas.  I made them all t-shirt scarves . . . for more on that, here's a post about it on my crafty blog.

My siblings and siblings-in-law also did our annual $1 Dirrty Santa exchange.  We all bring one $1 present per person.  Ethan usually wins, by pulling out raccoon urine or something else crazy (yes, raccoon urine).  I FINALLY won!  I gave a douching kit.  Yup.  That just happened.  My brothers admired my brashness.  It was a proud moment.  Then Annie, my 10 year old niece was like, "What's douche?"  Nathan told her, "It's for cleaning your crotch."  I then took a moment to do a PSA of sorts explaining that really, douching is bad for you and can give you infections and you shouldn't do it.  Something to remember, girls!  Ah, an Evans Family Christmas . . . 

Not only did I win best gift, I also scored with this awesome mustache kit!  We had some fun with that.

This really isn't holiday related, just cute Charlie stuff.  He decided one night that he wanted to set up a "movie feeter" (movie theater) for his animals.  He set them up on the stairs and watched a pretend movie.

I still have yet to figure out what the monkeys did to deserve the neck-breaking front row . . .

Then comes Christmas Eve.  It's a complicated day for me.  I look forward to it yet dread it at the same time.  Why do I dread it?  Two words: Nativity.  Play.  I'm not sure who invented this Spanish Inquisition-worthy form of torture but I absolutely loathe it.  As kids, my dad would read the Christmas story out of Luke and we would act it out.  I always thought it was lame and humiliating.  The only reason I did it was because we would always get to open one present early afterwards.  I haven't been in one for a long, long time.  But now, there are grandkids which means a resurrections of this cruel tradition.  And much like my sister did to us, my oldest niece takes charge and enjoys it.  Every time it rolls around I get super cranky because I don't want to force my kid to partake in something that clearly traumatized me as a child.  My family at least has picked up on this and always tells me, "We're about to do the Nativity.  You don't have to come if you don't want."  We asked Charlie if he wanted to do it and he said yes.  Until Morgan began dressing him up as a shepherd.  He was having none of that.  He just sat and watched the one woman show.  Attaboy.

Christmas morning!  We had to wake Charlie up early since we had church at 10:50 . . . we needed enough time to open presents, do our formal breakfast, get ready for church, etc.  An aside: I told Charlie a few days ahead of time that we had to go to church on Sunday.  He gave me a LOOK and said, "You're making that up."  I only wish, Charlie.  We still managed to have a good day but it was LONG!

 Charlie in his bow tie I made for him.  : )

New Year's Eve.  On a Saturday night.  When I had to be at church early for an interview.  Not a fan.  Neither was Charlie, really.

But, I got called to be YW Secretary and I'm very excited.  I really love the YW in our branch . . . they are way sweeter than I was at that age!  I've never worked in YW so it's an adventure.  So far I'm loving it!

Charlie's First Georgia Game

A couple of weeks ago, Charlie finally completed a Flynn rite of passage: his first Georgia Bulldogs football game!  It's just over a 3 hour drive to Athens and so he and John got an early start that day (not to mention a late end).  They got to tailgate with Grandpa Flynn, Jarom and Laura and their four boys.   

 He loved throwing the football around with his cousins Liam, Tipton and Hyrum.

By the time the game started, he was worn out.  But he caught a second wind around halftime and even yelled with Daddy and Grandpa.  He has the cheer memorized: "GOOOOOO DAWGS!  SIC' EM!  WOOF!  WOOF!  WOOF!"

"When I Was a Boy . . ."

Last week during dinner, John and I were talking about TV.  Charlie jumped in and said, "When I was a boy, we didn't have TV."  I vaguely remember a character on "Clifford" saying something like this (or not . . . PBS cartoons make me sleepy).  For whatever reason, Charlie starts every other sentence with "When I was a boy . . . ."  They're pretty funny.  Here's just a sample:

"When I was a boy, my panda (a stuffed one) was real and he growed and growed and growed until he was big like me."  (Kinda weird since this panda is huge and bigger than him to begin with . . .)

"When I was a boy, I didn't have a Mom and Dad.  I had to get my chocolate milk all by myself."

"When I was a boy, you were a baby, Mom.  I drove you around in my car and drove really fast.  You liked it.  Then I took you home and built you a babysitter."  (For whatever reason, he thought a "babysitter" was a couch where babies sit.  I'm not joking--he seriously thought that's what it meant.)

"When I was a boy, I had a hair dryer."

"When I was a boy, we had bikes.  We rode them around and around.  Boy, we had fun."

"When I was a boy, I sang this song to go to sleep: 'Roses don't grow at bedtime . . .'" (Er, yeah.  Those are the only words to the song.  Hee!)

Last week, we caught a flu virus.  It was horrible.  I'm still getting over it.  It was the first time Charlie had ever been sick like that.  He called for John in the night and when he came in, Charlie said, "I swulped, Dad." John had no idea what he was talking about until he turned on the light and ew.  John said, "Oh, you threw up."  Charlie said, "Yeah.  I swulped."  I have no idea where he came up with that one!  Today he told me that everyone needs "frow-up dryers."  I asked him what that was and he said, "It's a gun that gets all the frow-up ("throw-up") off of people."  I could have used a "frow-up dryer" a few days ago . . . yuck.  Sooo glad that's over!  I guess I feel like a "real" mom now that I survived (barely) our first stomach bug.  Not in a rush to repeat it . . . I'm going to be crazy mom with the hand sanitizer alll winter . . .

Halloween 2011

I realize Halloween isn't until tomorrow but we've been done so many Halloween things this week that I think we're done.  At least I am!

Monday night we made sugar cookies for FHE.  We used royal icing this time and I LOVED it!  It dries hard like candy so it's less messy and it tasted sooo good with my sugar cookie recipe.  Mmmm . . .

Charlie decorated his pumpkin.  He's obviously too small to use knives so we gave him a Sharpie and let him go at it.  He's not much for drawing so he was done after two minutes.  He's thrilled, can't you tell?  

Speaking of pumpkins, I carved one last weekend.  It's supposed to be Hellboy.  It obviously didn't turn out well but I blame all the painkillers I was on . . . I wrote more about my experience on my craft blog, BTW.

Wednesday night was Trunk or Treat.  Just like last year, Charlie picked our theme: Spiderman.  : )

I got to be Spidergirl!  

John got to be Doc Ock.  I made his costume and I think it turned out pretty nice!  John loved it and got lots of compliments at the party.  Again, my craft blog has more details on how I put our costumes together, etc.