Part of our Christmas adventures was to have an official family portrait done. My brother’s wife, little Ruth, and little Kate were all new additions to it. Another new addition was my Jay Leno chin. Thankfully Ryan and me combined equal a normal chin. I was excited to have my baby bump in the photo, but had no idea that it would look like my body was literally eating Ruth.
Now that I look at it, though, she looks more like a Siamese twin, joined at the armpits, who never grew any bigger. Yeah, you know Ryan would still want this. (finger snapping in a z-formation) Bowmchickabowow.

I did nothing to her hair that morning either, knowing full well these will be framed on a wall. Ryan and I have a love affair with her “I look like I just stuck my finger in an outlet” look. Who knows, maybe she had. We wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. So I just let her hair go wild and smile to myself when I hear the nursery attendant at church say to the other ” Let’s try to tame these flyaways, Ruthie!” as I close the door. Ah, job well done, Carolyn.

It’s only because I get flack for my hair too. When we arrived at JC Penny’s, my brother-in-law said, “The colors were supposed to be black, Carolyn. Not silver.” Whatever.

So we got to the store a few minutes early and waited for everyone to show up. Ten minutes later someone asked, “Where’s Amy?” She was actually looking for the store and called for directions. Little did we know she was at another area 15 minutes away, and literally every landmark we gave was also on the intersection at the different JC Penney’s: the car dealership, the fast food restaurant, the man dancing outside the tax office, everything. Finally we figured it all out and in the meantime the grandparents got a shot with their grandkids. I love it.

Amy was so frazzled when she showed up, that she hid in the changing room and applied some make up. And then applied some bronzer. And then applied some more bronzer, until it looked like a private jet had landed in the JCPenny’s parking lot (direct from Jamaica) to let Amy off for the photo.

It probably wouldn’t have looked so noticeable if she wasn’t born into a family of pale-faced vampires.

Luckily, Des touched up her face so she could blend in with the rest of the Twilight crew.

Look happy Ruth, for goodness sake.

Maybe she was tired, because within two minutes of getting in the car after lunch, this is what I saw:

She had better get her sleeping in order, because we have a busy day tomorrow. It’s Christmas! Those with kids (me) woke up early (against her groggy will) to hang out with the other people who can’t sleep in: old people, aka my parents. It really is a circle of life.

Luckily all we had to do was sip on coffee and stare at the twinkly lights for a couple hours. It’s actually quite peaceful.

Around noon, everyone started showing up and we immediately got to it. Santa’s little helpers divvied up the presents and I secretly hoped that everyone would open up our gifts to them first while their expectation levels were low.

Ruthie opened up a headband and was immediately confused. This went against every scary hairdo look she’s ever known.

My mom always gets us the (big) kids the same things, so that “it’s fair.” This year one of the gifts was a towel wrap. We should’ve worn these in the JCPenney’s photo.
But then we would’ve had to wait for Amy to bronze her whole body.

My worst fear did happen though. Mom and dad opened up Matt & Des’s present right before ours. Let me just give this example: The siblings draw names and have a ten dollar limit. Lisa (the lucky dog) opened up her secret santa gift from Matt and it turned out to be a breadmaker. He must have had a damned good coupon, is all I’m saying.

So I inwardly groaned when I saw my parent’s look of happiness and love after opening up their gift.

And was too depressed to take a shot as ours was opened. It was the equivalent to getting fruit cake.

But the real fun came when the karaoke machine was opened, along with a ton of 80s songs to sing. Joe started us out with a ballad for his wife: Take My Breath Away, I think.

Lisa was trying to catch her breath between laughs. It was such a departure for Joe, who normally breaks out the AC/DC.

So Ryan took over the reigns to get the crowd moving.

Dad seems to be the only one enjoying himself.

It really is hard for the singer. Especially in this light. Take my mom for instance:
Trying in vain to make eye-contact with anyone. Not gonna happen with this crowd, sorry sister. Not gonna happen with Ruthie either. By this time she was crying every time she saw either me or Ryan. Crying every time we left the room. Crying every time we came into the room. Until we figured out that she needed teething cream, it was time for bed and no one could enjoy our silly little lady and her antics. But before we made a Walgreens run, we just avoided eye contact with her.

Slipping into a chair and blocking our face with a pillow:

Or watching the action through an afghan. We were desperate, folks.

Finally she calmed down after a combo of butt paste (sorry) and teething cream and went to sleep. Matt and Des had already left for Arkansas and Lisa & company went home to play with their new toys.

So what to do? Oh yeah, Karaoke baby! But now that it was a smaller crowd, we could get more into it. Amy showed off her dance moves:

Ryan brought the house down.

I sang heartfelt melodies…

that put animals to sleep.

So drawing on the only soul-sister blood in my body (the fact that my mom loves mo-town), I sang with so much passion and heart, you would’ve thought Aretha was right there in the living room.

The crowd went wild.
Whatever. I can’t help that I soothe people to sleep. At least mom was making eye contact. Thank you.

It was such a good and busy day. All talk, no tv, and karaoke. Can’t get better than that.