and how was your Christmas?

Can you hear it? It's the sound of silence as we all fall into a too much food, too much rushing, too much wrapping paper, too much Wii coma.

Ahhhhhhh. Sweet Christmas.

It all started last night. We went to church, but first I wanted a Christmas picture of them in all their finery. Of course it didn't go so well because my children are incapable of all looking at the camera at the same time without doing something strange.


And later, a Christmas miracle occurred. They actually posed with my parents and you can see them all looking at the camera!! With eyes wide open!! Nobody is doing anything weird with his or her mouth, finger, nose, or any other body part. But, you'll have to go over to Flickr to see the rest of the pictures since I've used up my allotted monthly picture download for Blogger and now I'm realizing that what I really should've asked for for Christmas was an advanced account where I can download to my heart's content. So, you'll have to venture over to Flickr. But I digress...

After church we went to my parents' to feast on nachos, shrimp cocktail and other yummy treats and somehow at the end of the evening, we wrestled four children into the van to go home, into pj's with teeth brushed, potty breaks taken and into bed. It was now close to 11:00 and we still had to get their gifts together. And that's when Mike and I discovered the Wii. He was getting it set up for the boys' suprise for the morning, but it's just so darn fun. Close to two hours later, I made it to bed. Just for the record, I beat my ultra competitive, athletic, husband's patootie in boxing AND bowling.

Today was just pure fun. We had all of my family over and it was a blast. My cousin's husband, Paul, looks an awful lot like Santa Claus if Santa was in his mid-40's, and had red hair. Yes, I realize in your mind he probably doesn't look much at all like Santa, but to my two year old daughter, that was another story. When I opened the door to greet them, Paul said in his jolly voice, "Ho, Ho, Ho!" just for fun since he was standing on my porch with gifts. As soon as he walked into the house, she ran to me yelling, "Mommy! Santa is here!" Although she was afraid to actually sit on his lap, she walked around the house all day saying, "My cousin is Santa Claus." She was in pure awe.

Everything was going great until an unfortunate occurrance with Molly, our cat. Molly is 12 years old. She's a qwerky little feline, but we love her. For example, she likes to play in her water bowl, get her paws wet and then wipe them on the side of the refrigerator so she can watch the water drops slide down. She also likes to snoop and nose into things which is where the unfortunate occurrance comes in. My Nana's purse was in the living room unsupervised as everyone was either in the kitchen, or in the family room exhausting themselves by playing on the Wii. I walked into the living room once to see Molly's body inside Nana's purse sniffing and licking her chops. Upon hearing me, she ran away. I just chalked it up to Molly being weird until a few minutes later when Nana went into the living room to "get something out of her purse." In our family, we all know this is code for, "I'm going to get a dip of snuff, but I don't want you to know because even though the entire family knows I'm a rampant snuff user, I like to pretend that nobody knows." Ahem. (My Nana grew up in the south in an era where it was perfectly acceptable for ladies to dip as long as they were discrete about it and by golly, this almost 88 year old lady isn't going to change her ways just because it's 2007 and she now lives life as a Yankee!)

As Nana walked into the living room she hollared, "Heather! Your cat is sick. She is sick to her stomach."

Sick to her stomach? Can a cat be sick to her stomach?

The answer is yes, yes a cat can indeed be sick to her stomach and she was being sick to her stomach all over the living room floor only FEET away from where I had a very long table set up and decorated for Christmas dinner.

What made Molly so sick? It certainly wasn't a furball judging from the amount of yuck that was on my carpet. I suspect, and keep in mind that I have no proof, that it was a wee bit 'o snuff that she might've gotten out of Nana's purse. If that was indeed what she was on a search and destroy mission for in Nana's purse, let it be known here, Internet, that cats and snuff do not mix. Please don't let your cat dip. If you have a cat that is heading down the wrong path into the world of addictive substances, steer them away from the snuff!

We're all resting peacefully now after our day of presents, food, laughter, Wii, and cat vomit--even Molly who now is sleeping on the back of the family room couch. Go over to Flickr and see some pictures. Click on my flickr badge at the top until it takes you there.