Yesterday started off as a good family night. Incarnate had an alumni night for the basketball game. Maggie had basketball practice so she couldn't go so I had Grandma bring her to practice and Ry decided to stay home as well. Sam met us at Incarnate after work and the rest of the girls were all in attendance. I brought my camera so I could finally catch Shannon doing her Scorpion in the air when they announced the players. (she is a cheerleader) First problem, my memory card was missing....Shannon downloaded some pictures and never returned it, surprise surprise. I deleted the photos that I had on my camera,I believe it holds like 8 photos on it's internal memory. By the time I finished deleting the old photos the battery died. Apparently Shannon left my camera on after she downloaded my photos. By this time I was so mad I considered knocking her "base" over when she was holding "smiley" Shannon in the air doing her perfect Scorpion. Now that would have been a Kodak moment.

The game was great, it was packed and we won by a ton, just like they always do. When we got home, Lauren conned Erin into making her a grilled Pinini sandwich. She made one for herself and one for Lauren. Everything was fine and everyone was talking and laughing and all of a sudden Satan showed up in the kitchen. We were talking about Erin having her hairy birthmark removed on her back and she was showingMaggie her scar when Lauren discovered that she was wearing her leggings from Nordstrom. She screamed "Those are mine!" Erin screamed back, no they aren't, I bought them." Apparently one of them was talking about black leggins and another one was talking about lacy dental floss from Victoria Secret. Lauren slapped Erin on her hip and called her a liar then and I quote, she "Just put my foot up to defend myself." Erin's side, "She kicked me in the stomach." Not sure what happened next, it was all so fast, all I know is that the "F" word and the "B" word were flying freely and Erin opened the lid to the George Foreman and spit on one of the Pinini's twice. I decided it was my cue to go take a bath and pretend that I was an old spinster sitting at home with no children bored with my life. When I got out of the tub I told Dave, "I bet Kelsey will eat the Pinini when she gets home." (Her and Shannon were at Target) He said, "Too late, Erin already ate it, she was still hungry after she ate her sandwich and decided it was her spit, so it was fine. Once Shannon and Kelsey arrived home, Shannon and Erin got in a screaming match about the car, somehow I ended up the loser and I had to take Erin to work in the morning and Shannon, "hates Erin", Well that seems to be the consensus today girls!!


I took Erin to work and we had to stop at QT for a donut, remember this is the kid who gave up QT food for lent last year. When she got back in the car she said that the QT guy asked her where she had been? She explained to him that she lives in Alabama now. I wonder if the QT guy could let her sleep on a cot in the storage room until she heads back to Alabama on Sunday??

Christmas was good, the usual chaotic holiday. Everyone gets along well playing with their new stuff. Sam brought over the game Catch Phrase to play on Christmas Eve. I learned several things about my family. Number 1, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Grandma couldn't get it through her thick skull that the game was not password and you could use more than one word clues. For example, the word she had was "shrimp." Kelsey and Maggie were on her team, she could have said, "It's a food that is orange, it lives in the ocean, we sometimes have it at parties, you peel it, you can dip it in cocktail sauce, another word for short, etc etc. Instead the clue she gave was simply "Crustation." Now I have no idea why my 9 ear old couldn't get shrimp from that??? By about the 20th round we were finally get her to give better clues.
number 2 lesson was that I wasted all my money on private education for my kids. Erin was on my team and the word I had was Killer Whale, the fabulous clue that I gave was, a large murderous fish that lives in the ocean, Erin was so proud when she just knew she had it figured out and yelled at the top of her lungs with all the confidence in the world, "lobster." Yeah Erin a lobster is a huge murderous fish. It wasn't much better when Lauren had the word "Beauty Pageant." Her clue was.... Something that I should be in!I can't imagine why her partner couldn't get that based on her clue.

All joking aside, it was nice having everyone home, even if our dysfunction comes out full force. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. The week before Christmas, Sam went to the Taco Bell by her apartment to grab some food on her way home. It was about 10:00 at night, she was in the drive Thru and had just ordered her meal when some idiot held a gun to her head from outside her car and demanded that she get out of her $%&#*@B car, she immediately started screaming, the louder she screamed, the louder he demanded she get out of the car, the whole time holding the gun against her temple and violently trying to open her car door with his other hand. She continued to scream and hit the gas, luckily there was enough space in the drive thru for her to go forward. He kind of fell backwards and ran away. I can't tell you how thankful I am that I can write this blog entry and joke how she is still waiting for her Crunch Wrap Supreme. She had a guardian Angel that night. A few days later a policeman on a stake out had the same thing happen to him with an attempted carjacking, only he was shot in the face, Sam was much luckier.

My kids draw names at Thanksgiving and buy each other gifts. Ryan had Sam's name and he bought her a $10 Taco Bell gift card, a rape whistle, mace and finally her real gift, new headphones for her I-pod. I told her to make sure she brought the mace home, God knows if she left it laying around our house, someone would be going down.

I can't believe Christmas will be here in 10 days. Where did the time go?? Erin has been back since Friday and the house is hopping again. She has a way of making everyone laugh.

She has grown up a lot since she left for college. The reason I know this is what happened on Sunday night. She was sitting on the hearth holding my large hand mirror plucking her eyebrows when Ryan decided it would be fun to run at her full speed ahead with a pillow and knock the mirror into her face as she plucked her eyebrows. She screamed at him and asked him why he would be such a jerk but the old Erin would have immediately dropped the mirror and pinned the small boy to the ground and pummeled him to death.

Maggie has her school play tomorrow, she is playing the part of Mary. She is a little upset because she saw her costume yesterday at school. She said that the costume isn't even pretty and the veil doesn't match the robe. I don't know what she was expecting, but I doubt the Holy Family stopped by Nordstroms on the way to the manger??

I am almost finished shopping, I have a few more things to buy for my oldest two then I am finished. Yeah hooray. Dave bought himself an early Christmas present AKA midlife crisis present. He bought an electric guitar for himself Tuesday night. He found it on Craigs List and went and picked it up around 9:30 pm. He got home around 10:30 acting like a kid on Christmas morning. He plugged it in and soon realized that he has no idea how to play the guitar. He couldn't wait to get home from work yesterday to play with his new toy. Last night he was a sight for sore eyes sitting in bed in his underwear with a lap top on his lap with guitar playing instructions while he desperately tried to learn a "D" cord. I decided to go upstairs and hang with Erin, Lauren Shannon ,Kelsey and Erin's friend Allie. I sat with them for a while and learned that I could no longer bear the silly girls giddy conversations and that I had no other choice to return to my bedroom and deal with "guitar hero." Finally at around midnight I stated that I think this little mid life crisis was getting the best of me, I would prefer sharing my bed with another woman, she might be a little quieter than the fricken guitar. I think he responded with some idiot comment like "OK, you really don't mind, you are awesome" Funny honey!!