James’ work holiday party is tomorrow. Yay. The kids’ school has a “parent’s night out” that night, so babysitting is taken care of. Wahoo!

My parents are coming for christmas, and now I’m totally obsessing about the house. Our basement is in disarray, with the beginning of the laminate floor going down, and now I’m all, “Can we finish it by Christmas? Let’s finish it. and we need a couch. and an area rug. Could we get a new TV by christmas? What about paint? I hate the carpeting on our main floor. Let’s replace it. Tile? maybe. FLOR? A definite I-must-have-it-now maybe. There’s a shop in charlottesville you know. Let’s go there this weekend. But only after we finish the basement floor.”

So, um, wish me luck. Hopefully we can at least finish that damn laminate floor. We may not have anywhere to sit down there, but dammit THERE WILL BE A FLOOR.

More accurately, wish James luck, becuase he is goign to be dealing with a CRAZY person for the next 4 weeks. At least our christmas shopping is pretty much done. OH CRAP MY PARENTS ARE COMIGN AND NOW I HAVE TO BUY THEM PRESENTS TOO.

Shut up. I would have bought them presents anyway. But it was more of a, “oh yeah I shoudl do that”, order something, done. Now they will BE HERE. Now I will SEE THEIR FACES. So now, I have to actually use my brain and get them something GOOD. Bugger!

You may be thinking that I don’t WANT my parents to come. Au contraire mon frere! (did i just call you my brother? wow, french class was SO LONG AGO.) I’m tickled pink that they decided to come. Me and my lil family is the only ones in my family on this coast. Everyone else is on the OTHER side of this huge country. You know, it would make things a lot easier on me if we could just knock out some of those middle states to make the trip more convenient.
Or I guess we could move to a smaller country. Something to bring up in the next meeting, I guess.

Anyway, we’re in VA and my folks, 2 sisters & families and 1 brother are in Utah, 1 brother & family in Colorado, 1 brother & daughter in Oregon… i think i’m missing someone, is that it? Nope, that’s it. Yes, six kids in my family. We had a blast growing up. I’m the 2nd youngest. My mother, boy, I don’t know how she did it. Honestly. It takes me having kids now to REALLY appreciate the feat of strength and determination it must of taken to raise six children. And she’s mormon, so there wasn’t even any alcohol involved! The mind boggles. Also, it takes having kids to suddenly realize that that little dash of crazy she serves up now and then is a direct result of having raised me and my 5 siblings..

So yes, being so far away from the rest of my family really does suck. We talk sometimes of moving, but we are pretty happy here. I know it really kills my mom to only see our kids once or twice a year though. All in all, everyone is pleased as punch that they’ll be here Christmas morning. Because Christmas is fun and all… but it’s even FUNNER watching KIDS Christmas morning, and that is probably the best gift I could give my folks.

Think that would fly? “Oh, I didn’t get you anything. Here watch the kids open their presents. That should be plenty.”

OK. Must fly off and work now.

-amy has “NO NEW! TALE TO TELL! NO NEW! TALE TO TELL! NO NEW! TALE TO TELL! AAAAHHHHHHHHH!*”

*it would make me so happy if someone actually knew what that was from. go ahead. comment what it’s from and MAKE MY DAY!

PS: OMG HOW AWESOME IS THIS:

Can we say mom-present? YES I THINK WE CAN!

And thank you to misty for pointing it out!