Welcome to Dana's blog!

Yesterday was actually pretty nice. LONG but nice. We were naturally late to church. Altho Dh recaliberated the speedometer on his truck so he was driving all different speeds. We went to lunch and then I went shopping. I desperately needed to get to JoAnns before the just stopped carrying Christmas flannel (this happened one year to me...). My mom was driving and she's a control freak so we have to tread lightly. I still have that Starbuck's gift card and I asked if we could stop by there and got the look and eyeroll. That would be in regards to wasting money on drinks there. She suggested going to the gas station and I told her that I didn't have a gift card to there. ;) Anyway, we get to JoAnn's and I couldn't find any flannel and asked and was assured that there was some and after her looking, nothing. I tell my mom and sister to see if there was somewhere else in town that carried fabric. Nope. Great....... Then my sister found 2 bolts! And either would've worked! I went w/the cream that has red 'flakes' and tiny green dots. Then my mom and I got into a small tiff about how much fabric. She gets at least twice as much as needed and then it sits in her sewing room. her sewing room is like 15x24 and bar none the biggest room in their house. She had floor to ceiling custom cabinets made for one entire wall. This was probably 15 years ago. At this point, there is a small path in the room to the sewing machine. So I got what *I* needed and called it good. Then I wanted to go to Target to see if I could get my niece's gift. We don't have a Target and I saw it on target.com, but I don't want to pay shipping (I can't find a site offering a bumbo tray w/free shipping). My sister wanted to look for a pair of black pants there anyway. No tray, but I did find dark green thermal shirts that will be GREAT w/the Christmas pants! So other than making hte pants, which will take very little time, I'm done w/those! Then to the grocery cuz we all needed to make a dish for the church Christmas program that night. With everything I had going on, I had just completely forgotten so I decided to do an easy salad. I found some salad on clearance and bought some croutons and hard boiled 2 eggs at my sister's and called it good. there was almost none left too.;)

Meanwhile, the boys were playing video games at my sister's house (w/BIL). When we got there we watched Elf (which I hadn't seen and it is cute), and got the food ready. Also, my brother wants to go to the Ozarks next summer and get a houseboat. But he wanted to talk to my sister and BIL before saying anythign to my parents. So I asked my sister and he'd not said so I told them to think about it. If we go to the Ozarks, DH and I won't have our week's vacation by ourselves (we can't afford two!LOL) and I'll turn it into a long weekend somewhere.

THEN DH was sitting int he recliner and said, how are we all going to fit here? Why don't we just have Christmas at our house? SIL, my sister and I had basically agreed to have Christmas at my sister's since it was more centrally located so this is where my thoughts were. HOWEVER, my sister says, You are. Um WHAT?!?!?!?!? Didn't our brother tell you that he wants us all to come to your house on the 23rd, spend the night and celebrate Christmas on te 24th?????? Um, NO NO NO NO he didn't! I haven't recovered from Friday & Saturday and you decide to spring this on me NOW??????? So I guess that's what we are doing......

The CHristmas program was nice. The older boys were daring Joey to talk into the mic. Grrrrrrr Once after singing he said, Thank you Elvis (!?!?!? He doesn't know who Elvis is so I KNOW this wasn't his idea!). After the 2nd round of singing, he went up (on his own cuz he thinks mics are cool) and said, Sleep in heavenly peace (only it wasn't super audible) and then another little boy whispered in his ear, Do it again. So Joey says, Do it again, into the mic!ROTFL! That was the ending number so the pastor took the mic and said that it was his turn (he was praying!)!ROTFL!!!!!!!!

There was another small disaster regarding someone taking my sister's dish. A lady was washing dishes and mixed them all up and I tried very politely to get my sister's dish from this new family that had it (leaving my sister w/an old corning ware dish vs. her new one). My mom was about to have a coronary. I told my sister that if that's how they are, then they really need to be here anyway. I have a huge set of corning ware just like my sister bought that I almost never use so I"m goign to offer it to her today. Her pans are marking up her smooth top stove (less than 6mo) and the corning ware doesn't. That will get me back a shelf in my cabinets and settle my mom down.;0