Seriously. I don’t think of 4 kids as a huge family - to me, that’s on the small side of average. But since having #4 I have been so frustrated when trying to find ‘family’ themed things like ornaments or jewelry. I love the necklaces and ornaments that look like this

 with the parents and kids joined together. But every single one of them I’ve seen only goes up to three kids. The ad copy for this ornament reads, "The choices below allow you to gracefully symbolize most families." The choices being, of course, one or two parents, and one, two or three children. It’s not like I’m looking for an ornament with 8 or 10 kids - and to parents with that many kids, kudos to you! I’d love a big family like that, but I had to work DH over pretty good to get him to agree to four, LOL - I’m just looking for space for four… when did four become out of the norm? And don’t get me started on trying to find personalized stuff for grandparents. My mom has a dozen grandchildren. All the cute things I see have spaces "for up to ten" names. Since when did having a family become passé?

Sorry. Rant for the day over. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled lives.

At an intersection I crossed today, there was one of those traveling vendor vans parked there… ya know, the kind with big fuzzy patterned blankets laying all over it, tables full of stuff for sale all around it, and one of those folding signs next to it?

This particular van had some interesting contradictions… the blankets draped on the back doors had pretty little teddy bears on them. There were large stuffed animals on tables leaned up against the side of it.

And the sign in front of it read, "Toys - jewelry - swords - knives - blow guns."

Hmm.

Everybody, this is my brother Craig. Craig, this is everybody.

I mention my brother because he is an example of my subject for today…. lurkers. You see, Craig mentioned over the holiday that he likes to read my blog to keep up with my family. Which is fine, since that’s what it’s for… but he’s never left a comment. In fact, lots of you never leave comments! I check StatCounter and get curious who all these people are that come (and return) to my blog, but never comment. I can figure out who many of you are, based on the ISP location on StatCounter. Most are MOFs or family members. The ones that get me really curious are the ones from New Jersey - Cherry Hill, Mount Laurel - and Pennsylvania - Altoona, the public schools to be precise. Who are you people?  LOL

 I’m begging today - leave a comment and ease my mind, you blog-stalkers, you! ROFL

OK, so I was able to get all of that stuff done, plus some, and we had a wonderful - albeit busy - Christmas. Hope all was / is well with you and yours.

Kiddo with his cool new neon clock

Munchkin has had a blast with this annoying toy

Sweet Girl was very, very excited to get Cinderella!

Little Man was similarly entranced by Cars

Good ol’ aftermath

Wanna see the gifts I made for the Primary teachers? Thanks to my friend Emily for the awesome idea!

I made 30 of these suckers. It made for a heavy cooler! LOL

It’s 10:27 as I start this post. Wanna see my list of stuff still do to before about 9 a.m. tomorrow?

- finish doing Primary teacher gifts (punch holes in tags, tie tags onto cans w/raffia)

- bake the prime rib

- make eggnog pie

- make chocolate pie

- bake the ham (I might be able to do this one after church tomorrow)

- find blankets to take to church for kids to sit on

- make labels for vanilla

- finish packaging vanilla

- make Mom’s ya-ya card

- decide what to wear tomorrow that’s festive, attractive, comfortable enough to sing in & play violin in, but I won’t want to suck my tummy in while wearing, and looks good with comfy shoes (I have a lot of standing to do tomorrow)

- decide if comfy dress shoes exist

- put away dinner leftovers (thought DH did)

- do dishes (the kitchen’s trashed, and I have to clean it before I trash it again making all this food)

- clean up Ben’s cereal mess (emptied a box under the stepstool in the corner)

- rotate/finish folding laundry

On the plus side, I got to take an hour long bath earlier (why I’m running behind). On the down side, it was shared by Sweet Girl and Little Man. Oh, they’re still up, by the way. Little Man fell asleep while DH was running errands and napped from 4:30 to 7!!!!!!!!!!! I’m doomed.

Tomorrow I need to be out of the house by 9:30 or so, so I can get to the church early enough to get my violin acclimated to the building, tuned and maybe practice a bit before quartet practice at 10 and choir practice at 10:15. Church starts at 11. I hope to be home by around 2:30. Then I’ll have about 2 hours to finish up all last minute things, change everybody out of dress clothes and be out of the house (with all the presents and the food, including said prime rib, ham, and pies, plus green beans and corn) to be at my mom’s house by 5. Oh, and somewhere in there, I need to make some sugar cookies in the shape of trees, because Sweet Girl promised Santa in her letter that she’d leave tree cookies out for him. And even though we currently have about 7 platters of goodies from various people sitting on our counter, none of the cookies are in the shape of Christmas trees and therefore aren’t suitable for Santa.

Oy.

I’m hoping to be able to relax a little bit by the 26th or 27th.