On the second day of Christmas

When I was a kid I always thought that the Twelve Days of Christmas were the twelve days leading up to Christmas.  In my mind twelve days prior to Christmas, on the first day of Christmas (December 14th), the girl in the song got a partridge in a pear tree.  And on the twelfth day of Christmas (December 25th) she got twelve drummers drumming.

I was wrong though.

The twelve days of Christmas actually occur on Christmas and for eleven days after. There is some debate out there about if day one is actually Christmas Day or if day one is December 26th (Really, WHO is debating this?), but for purposes of this blog we're all going to assume that Christmas Day is day one.  Otherwise this title and the next couple of titles will make no sense. 

Wow.  That was a long and unnecessary intro.  Sorry.

Part of our Christmas present to various members of my family was to take everyone to the portrait studio for family pictures.  I paid for all the images and told everyone to get whatever they wanted.  We went first thing in the morning on the 26th.  You know, the second day of Christmas.

Here's the end result. 

For Nick's Christmas card next year.

For Nick's linked-in profile.  (Not really, but I told him that's what he should use it for.)

Siblings

Family of origin

The men

Everybody

The patriarch and matriarch

Grandparents and grandchildren.

This one came out really well.  Bella was just SO excited to sit on grandpa's lap.

Without Bella

The grandkids

Nathan's family

My family

Nathan and Kendra

The ladies

Kendra and Bella

After the family picture session my parents went home and everybody else went to Nick's house for a second day of Christmas party.  It was a nice opportunity for Nathan and Kendra to see a lot of non-family people all at the same time.  Nick rented a bouncy house to put in his back yard for all the kids.  And a lot of the adults.

Elliott refused to go in it, but he was OK with sitting on the outside.

This is Jameson.  He is the son of one of Nathan's friends.  He's two months older than Spencer and his mom and I were both pregnant at Nathan and Kendra's wedding.  We only see him every couple of years, but it's been fun to watch the two boys grow up.  They didn't remember each other, but they got along really well.

Nick also got the pie face game that seemed to be so popular this holiday season.

After a couple of hours Michael's parent's came to get the kids and Michael and I were left childless.  There were very few kids left at all so my brothers convinced me to join this in the jumpy castle.

Yeah.

Within like 2 minutes they collapsed the whole thing and I went tumbling off the side.  I got caught in the net and was totally fine but I was about an inch from hitting the back of my head on a brick ledge with probably would have killed me or at the very least rendered me comatose and paralyzed.

It was a team effort to pull me back up.  It all happened so quickly I didn't even realize what had happened until it was over.

Then they told me to go down the slide and they collapsed the entire structure around me again.  After that I got out.

Which was just as well because a bit later it started SNOWING.  

In Tucson.

Can you see the snow on this shirt?

No?  How about here?

No?  Well that's probably because the "snow" was 45 seconds of flurries and then it was all over.  But really, there is snow on that shoulder.

After the snow the camera was put away because I had consumed enough wine that I could no longer be responsible for anything but just breathing and remaining upright.