The Christmas That Never Ends

There's a Santa Claus/Advent calendar on my kitchen wall.

The pink Christmas tree is still in the girls' room.

Ornaments, waiting to be put in their January-November bins cover my kitchen table.

Christmas is lingering in my house this year, and hopefully tomorrow a band of elves will descend on my house and put away every scrap of Christmas evidence back in the garage until after Thanksgiving.

Until Brandon put the tree away yesterday, I had briefly considered slapping some red and pink hearts on the branches and proclaiming it an "All-purpose Holiday Tree".

Between the good book I have been reading and the plague that I contracted in the form of a small monster that has taken up residence in my sinus cavities, my blog has also been sorely neglected in 2011.

I'm sorry, Outnumbered. Please forgive me. Can we be friends?

I wanted to post a few more pictures of our time at my parents' house, on our last day before we headed home to Houston, just the four kids, two adults, ridiculous amount of laundry, suitcases, one pillow pet, and two Little Tykes Cozy Coupes piled into the van.

My grandmother Betty came by the house for lunch and got to meet Emerson for the very first time! We had been showing Emerson pictures of GG Betty, and she met her with a hug at the front door.

Emerson loves to look at pictures, and find people she knows in the pictures.

John and I decided that this very well could have been John and me, instead of our slightly-look-alike offspring in Betty's lap:

This year (and by "this year", I mean "last Christmas") was the first time I have met baby Jack, and he was such a sweet little boy that I just couldn't get enough of.

Harper felt the same way about her littlest cousin.

It may be time to put the ornaments away, and step back from the Advent Calendar. Roll up the twinkly lights, stash the pink tree in the garage. See you in December, Christmas!