Christmas Week

So Christmas week was a busy and exciting week around the Fleischman house. It started out last Sunday with the arrival of the first of 11 guests. 3 of my sisters - Kiersty, Megan and Brittany arrived as well as Seth my bro in law. So of course we had a late night of the home tour, Blue Bell ice cream with turtle cookies and catching up.
Monday found the 4 of us touring the Round Rock outlet mall and picking up some sweet steals. Brit found a great dress at Banana Republic for $34 that was all silk. SCORE!!! I found a great dress at JC Penney for $32 and was totally excited. The boys found a new Wii game to entertain themselves. Then cousin/adopted Lund sis BrieAnn, her hubby Jake and baby Cora made it late afternoon. We again spent the day touring the house, catching up and yet again - eating great food. We had decided to split up the days everyone was here between the 5 Lund girls and BrieAnn. So Monday was Thai food courtesy of Kiersty. It was apparently pretty good because James even gave it an acceptable. Quite a feat for those of you that know him. :-)
Tuesday morning (not so early considering we were up until 3ish the 2 previous nights) found us heading downtown to go to the LBJ Museum. They had a space exhibit (and it was free) that we thought sounded fun. Megan found herself a boyfriend who won't talk back....
Britt became a green beret.
Kiersty helped out with the "Race to Space"

Cora and BrieAnn became great pilots. The pic didn't come out that great, but I loved Cora's face.

We saw an eerily realistic LBJ thing (?? not sure what to call it) that talked to you and moved while playing funny recordings of LBJ telling stories.

And Brittany found her new calling as a mannequin.

James and I then introduced them all to Katz' Deli which is this great kosher deli downtown. And for dinner it was BrieAnn's black bean tacos. YUMMY!!!
Mom, dad, Kalli (sis) and Steve (bro in law) all arrived between 10 pm and 1 am, only to find out that the house they were going to be staying at was not available for the night. I was given the wrong key so they instead crashed on my dining room floor for the night until we could get the right one the next day. Always an adventure.
We spent Christmas Eve doing all kinds of things. Mom and Kiersty and Kalli were making aprons for everyone. They found these super cute retro patterns and we all bought fabric and that was the majority of the day.


Steve was kind enough to let Kalli open her gift a day early so that she could find out it wasn't a fish tank like he had been telling her all week.

Here is Kalli's finished product.

The boys went to see Yes Man to avoid all this girly stuff. :-) And then came home to play more of the Wii puzzle game. It took 4 of them to solve portions of this. When Steve got here he was immediately attacked to find out which of the 4 of them took physics 2 last and could be a better problem solver. See how hard at work they were?

And then we had some yummy lasagna for dinner - Thanks Meg and Brittany, made sugar cookies - as if we hadn't eaten enough - even Cora jumped in to help.
And I started baking for Christmas day. We had chocolate pecan pie, pumpkin caramel cheesecake, and caramel apple pie. And we ended the night with White Christmas to really get us in the spirit of things. And Cora let dad hold her and play with her and laughed at his funny faces. :-)


Christmas Day was a pretty laid back day. We ate a late brunch of Grandma Carlene's famous stuffed french toast and buttermilk syrup (THANKS GRANDMA FOR SHARING THE YUMMY GOODNESS!!!) and we finally started opening gifts around noonish. We always start out with the youngest and work our way up, so Cora was up first. She really wasn't sure what to do but enjoyed tearing up the paper more than the gifts probably.


Here is BrieAnn holding her best present of the year. Bows and all.
As well as a fabulous necklace - Thanks Steph.

I got a garmin so I will stop calling James for directions when I don't prepare before leaving the house.

Seth got a soccer sweatshirt from Kiersty and his face says it all.
Brittany started a wrapping paper war with Seth and Steve...She just got beaned in the head twice in a row by them.

Jake for all of his spare time, now has a Rubiks cube to help occupy it.

And Steve got some new goggles so he can be totally pimp out on the slopes in 2 weeks.
Mom got a new shirt to wear for pictures and of course for work too.

Dad got I believe the only John Wayne movie he doesn't already own. (now what do we get him. :-)
James got some new Wii games to entertain him when not busy with his car.

Megan got some new movies to entertain her roomates with.
And then there was the end of Hurricane Christmas '08!

We had a great Texas Christmas menu of brisket, mashed potatoes, homemade mac and cheese, and of course yummy pies. I will be trying to lose the weight for months to come!! And we did family pics. I'll post those later as this is already super long!
Friday morning BrieAnn and Jake and baby Cora had to head back home to Oklahoma for the Johnson family Christmas. We were sad for them to go, but so glad they made it and we got to hang out with them. The rest of us piled in to the cars and headed for Fredericksburg. It is a great little German, touristy town about an hour and a half from here. James and I love going there. Great food, great shopping and lots of fun. We took everyone to our fave restaurant - Friedhelm's Bavarian. It is fantastic food. I introduced them to schnitzel, spaetzle, rye bread and they loved it!! We then tried to go to the George H. W. Bush museum/Admiral Chester Nimitz museum of the Pacific Theater of WWII, but it was under construction. So instead we walked around the memorial wall. So many people gave their life for that. It is such a wonderful reminder of all those people were willing to sacrifice, and it makes me wonder how we can't comprehend a sacrifice for the war we are in now. I really liked this plaque.

We saw dad's hero, Ronald Reagan.
We found the plaque for one of the ships Grandpa Roy served on. The USS Monterey.

And we found a friend of Grandpa Irl's who dad even met one time. He served on a ship with Grandpa Irl, but the plaque is for another ship he spent time on. The Arisan Maru was a Japanese ship that was sunk by US Ships and was carrying over 1800 POW's to do slave labor in Japan. Of the POW's 9 survived and Grandpa Irl's friend Robert S. Overbeck was one of those 9.


We came home Friday night and Steve made us all Ukranian borscht. James was unsure, but being the great person he is, tried it with a brave face ;-) and then realized it wasn't as bad as he was expecting and actually said it was good. Yea Steve! That is a high compliment around our house.
We saw everyone except Steve and Kalli off early Saturday morning. Kiersty, Seth and Megan headed for Tucson so that Megan could be dropped off, and then they made it all the way to about Kingman before finishing the rest of their journey back to Provo on Sunday. Mom, Dad and Brittany headed to Phoenix. Britt is spending the rest of her Christmas break at home before hitching a ride back to Provo.
We kept Steve and Kalli for a few extra days showing them the stuff they had missed earlier in the week.
It was a great week for us to all catch up, get to know each other again, add a new little one into the mix and remember how lucky we all are to have a great family.

Awful School Photos Tag

So my cousin Alyssa had this tag on her blog and I figured if they could post their fugly pics from childhood that we all try to forget so could I. And I think I went through a bad phase until about 24. It was a really long phase. But here they are.

This was 3rd grade I believe. Not a great year for me. Look at those puffy bangs. And the half smile. What is that all about?


I think this was my 8th grade orchestra pic. I thought I was hot stuff at the time. YIKES! Some crooked teeth in there. Glad I got braces so my wisdom teeth could mess up all that work for me years later. And those really hot shoulder pads so I could look like a line backer.


How could I be so cute as a child and not so cute after about 5?
I'm the cute one in the lacy dress. ;-)



I guess at least I didn't have any bad glasses to look back on. But some bad hair.

Well Alyssa, Larae and Leann...you haven't posted your fugly pics in vain. I've added a few of mine for you. Now the rest of you are tagged to add your embarrasing photos as well.

Update

So I just realized it was 2 weeks ago when I posted last so I figured I better give a quick update before it is too overwhelming.

James and I went to Amarillo to hang out with Dan and Susan and her family for Thanksgiving. James' parents were on a cruise so it was kind of a fend for yourself holiday. But we had a really nice time. Relaxing and just enjoying hanging out with the nieces and nephews. Ate too much and had the best caramel pumpkin cheesecake and caramel apple pie. I'll be working those pounds off months down the road.

Then it was on to my fave part about Thanksgiving. The day after. Ever since we moved to Austin, it has become a sort of family tradition with Susan and Michelle- my sis in laws- to go Black Friday shopping. After Thanksgiving dinner we scour the papers, find any of the deals we just can't live without and make our lists. Then we wake up at the crack of dawn and go out to pretty much the same places every year. Start at Kohls for the 4 am opening, shop there until Old Navy opens up at 6, go to Starbucks for a hot chocolate and latte to warm up (it is usually FREEZING cold there) and then on to the mall for a few assorted stores. Then Michelle is worn out by 11 am and Susan and I hit Target and have lunch before heading back to meet the boys and watch the Nebraska game.

Sounds crazy right? It may be but we always have a good time and enjoy just being able to catch up with each other. And then since we are all together it is also a great time to get exactly what is on the nieces and nephews wish lists and knock out that whole group in one shot.

That was basically our holiday weekend. And then a long drive back to Austin to work on Monday morning. I spent all week last week procrastinating about doing my laundry and picking up from the trip but this past weekend after spending Friday night and most of Saturday helping decorate for a wedding reception, decided it was time to quit procrastinating. I cleaned the whole house - mainly in anticipation of getting all of my Christmas decorations down.

This is one of my favorite times of the year. I love to decorate the whole house for the holidays and I'm especially excited this year because it is the first year that I will have Christmas at my house. All 4 of my sisters, my 2 brother in laws and my cousin/adopted sis and her husband and daughter will all be here along with my parents. So for those counting that is 13 people in one house. YIKES!!! What a crowd. But I'm super excited because they all get to come here and hang out with me. And I'm taking the whole week off of work which is super exciting too. As you can imagine I'm counting the days down. But there is my quick wrap up of my past couple of weeks.

Here are a few pics of my decorations. I got this cute little vinyl at Kohl's and was so excited to put it up. James was less tha thrilled when I forced him to help but I think it looks great.

This is a pic of my decorated tree, and then my Willow tree nativity set that was my Christmas gift last year. I love it. And then a ceramic nativity set that my friend Mary is making and I had her make me one. I love nativity sets and I try to get something like this each year to add to my collection. Not sure where I'll put them all someday but oh well.




This weekend is the Pflugerville Downtown Holiday Stroll and I really enjoy that, they have lots of great little booths - my friend Steph will be there with her jewelry so anyone interested go see her. :-) And I'll be there seeing what other sorts of great little crafty things are around. The holiday season is always full of fun little festivals and activities around Austin so it is never dull. I think we might also try to go to Main Street Bethlehem in Burnet this weekend before it closes. If you haven't been to that before it is great. There is a church in Burnet that puts this on for the first 2 weekends in December. Everyone dresses like they are in Jerusalem during the time of Christ's birth and you can walk through "downtown" Bethlehem and see all of this, interact with the people, freeze your butt off and get this great Bethlehem bread.

Well I hope I haven't bored you all to tears but there is my latest update. Hopefully we'll get our lights up this weekend early in the day on Saturday so that I have time to do all the rest of the stuff on my list.