I'll grant you, that it's to some degree because we always have one weekend or another filled up with something we're supposed to do. This past weekend, we went to celebrate Robin's youngest first birthday. They expected a lot more people than they had and had a boatload of food, but it was a small and intimate group and actually really a lot more my style than their usual fare of huge party filled with people I barely know. Her husband and I got into a tickle fight in the kitchen and were laughing our butts off.

Genny was mostly sitting on Mom or Dad, but people gravitated towards her and snatched her for periods of time, giving Mike and I the option to eat. Everyone got to see the Godmother's Bragging Book and commented profusely on it.

It is so cool that I can do this book thing. I made one for Russell's soccer team and I made one for the grandmothers and now there's one for the godmothers, too.

My parents finally got to see the one I made for them and my mom couldn't say enough about it. She also said that (holy shit) she's actually going to upgrade from her 486 and get online in the spring, so she'll be checking out the pictures, too. I took a bunch this weekend, so I'll have those up shortly.

And now, to that which I'm avoiding...the holidays.

I have learned to loathe the holidays with Mike's family with good reason, after last year's fiasco and the various Christmas disasters over the years. I am feeling big-time guilty right now though because I thought Mike's grandparents would be doing Thanksgiving with Mike's aunt and uncle, but the aunt and uncle are going to Monterey and Mike's grandparents are staying up in the mountains. I invited them to join us, but they declined. And I refuse to go up there. Grammy chainsmokes all over the house and my asthma has been iffy, so I'm not inclined to go up there and end up with prednisone and the increased sugar problem that presents. The kids both come down with colds and I swear I can't leave there fast enough to escape the smoke.

I had this whole thing in my head worked out that I'd tell Mike's grandma that I couldn't deal with her smoking, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her. I know if she asks us pointblank to come up there, that I'll have to spill it, but I couldn't do it yesterday when I called. I'm a total wuss and PROUD!

Mike's brother, Chris, is coming up tonight, we think. With Chris, you never know. I'll invite him to Thanksgiving, but I am pretty sure, he'll blow us off. Even if he accepted it, he'd probably show up super late. I wouldn't hold dinner for him, so if he's late it's his own thing. I plan on baking a big turkey, so that there will be leftovers forever, whether he comes or not.

And despite my better judgement, we've accepted an invitation to spend Christmas with Mike's mom. I love her, but we piss each other off a lot, so I'm kind of nervous. I think we're going to get some kind of Disneyland tickets for the holidays. Bear will be in hog heaven about that, though we haven't told him yet.

I suspect that it will be a lot of me sitting there wandering around with the baby and Mike and Bear riding on everything, unless we can talk Mike's youngest brother into coming with us and helping us out.

*sigh*