T Day and other awesome things

^^^The thing that has made my life complete, my friend, is the discovery of our camera's (which we've had for years...) SELF FREAKIN' TIMER! That thing is the best! OMG. So here I was on Thanksgiving morning giving it a test run. Once the kids refused to join me in said testing mode, I began a series of awkward robotic movements. I mean. It is THEEE best!

But anyhoo! T Day was gosh darn great! Mother Paplia hosted, so that automatically meant extreme relaxation on ours and the sister's family's end. My brother was granted leave from 29 Palms where he's killing it at life. I mean seriously? He's so cool. In his own words, he summed up his life: "I go to school, I work out, I sleep, I eat and I drink." Can I be you in my next life, Vince? JK, I would never pass those math classes you're taking, you electrical engineer in the making, you!

Okay. So we picked up Grandma Berniece, as we are the lone IE-er's of the Paplia family, freeing my Dad up from driving to Chino then back to MV before the celebration even started. I have to say, women in their 80's are the jam. I really love talking to my grandma! She's got strong political and religious views and is very with it. So the 5 of us, Grandma, Chad, the kids and I, heave-ho'd down the 241 to the parental's home, where we arrived quite early (of course on Thanksgiving the 91 chooses to open up westward. That freeway is like the 8th wonder of the world. No one understands it). We then proceeded to eat, drink and merry-make until we felt close to explosion. It was great! Carter did as he does, latched onto the day's activity and didn't stop until the sun was no'mo (he was a bad mitten badass, I daresay). Kota cuddled up with her older cousins and Chad and I were all about hangin'.

At the end of the night, we made the drive back home, Grandma in tow. So all in all, a great holiday. On Saturday, we made our 7th annual gigantor Thanksgiving dinner at home for leftovers, and I have to say, it was one of the best yet! We had super awesome company and hey-o! They were of the same familia! Super SUPER cool! I'm still chowing down on those leftovers and it's 7 days later. Success.

Sunday we got the tree, which was great. Once we put the kids to bed, I laid down on the couch and took about 1,000 pictures of Chad stringing the lights. The next day I went to upload the rest of November's pictures to the computer and guess freakin' what? I placed the memory card thing down for one minute and who decides to destroy it? SNOW. I was fuming mad. I mean really? Out of all the things in a room to destroy, he chose my 1"x1" memory card? The only thing that was on there was Chad stringing the lights, but still! Thankfully Amazon should be delivering a new one in the next few hours. One CANNOT enter December sans memory card. THAT would be a tragedy.

2 days ago, on December 1st, I thought "hey, prooooooobably a good idea to get on planning the kids' birthday party.... just a small thought..." The reason I was postponing the process was because a) my brain seemed to be packed with Thanksgiving thoughts, and b) I seriously was having anxiety about who to invite from Carter's class. I sincerely would have liked to invite the whole lot to avoid any hurt feelings, but that's 30 kids. If even half of them showed up, the house would burst given our other people who were confirmed guests. Can you imagine if some of their parent's would want to stay? That would be a potential 60 person addition to family and other friends! I was FREAKING OUT about it. Like going nuts. My first go at the problem was to ask Carter who he wanted to invite. Mainly it was his best guy friends and a few nice girls, but then I had no idea how to get the invitation to those kids. We don't have a class roster with addresses. HOW?! Corner the parents? I barely knew some of them! Then a light bulb went off - I decided to just invite the kids who's parents I talk to regularly. I told Carter which kids that included and he was like "sure!" So all my worrying was in vain, the only thing he really cared about were that SOME kids from his class showed up. I shot those moms a text and told Carter repeatedly to not talk about his party at school because we didn't want to hurt any feelings. Success! Kota's school situation was easy. In her class, if one kid is invited, everyone must be included. That was a fast and easy "no," haha! No way.

Now that that nightmare has been tackled and resolved, I can think about how FREAKING fun this party is going to be. PEOPLE. I have not one, but TWO December children and never EVER have I thrown a holiday themed party. I always wanted to it to be THEIR BIRTHDAYS, and then CHRISTMAS. Never combined. But this year, we already have our Xmas decor up so why not embrace it and do holiday activities?! BEST IDEA EVER. Now guess what that means? The party decor shall be purchased from Hobby Lobby where one can buy endless Christmas goodies, not from Party City! Literally the party things will be real decorations for Christmas, things we can KEEP FOREVER, not throw away after the party has taken place! What have I been thinking all these years! I should have done this from the get-go!

So yes, stoked. AND, since the party's theme is Pancakes and Pajamas, the Cisneros pair will NEED legit Christmas jammies. Tears of happiness, tears! Literally the pictures from this party will be my favorite of all TIME. Wooo!

Okay, this has turned into a very lengthy post. Tonight we are going to put the ornaments up on the tree and Chad's officially going to back up the family videos on a USB thing. Pret-ty excited. Wooooooo! (What a peppy tone considering we are all sick as dogs! Well Kota and I are, Carter is borderline and Chad is okay. Tis the season!)