family reunion pictures + one crazy cake at your service

 ^^^ how is Andrew already a high school senior and what is Theo thinking? conundrums for the masses.

 ^^^ when I was little I was 120% convinced that sharks lived in that pool. I'm less convinced now but I stayed landlocked justincase.

 ^^^ reflexology with Nana and stating that she prefers "Julia" to "J" ...

 ^^^babysitters club ... cousins/angels sent from the heavens above

 ^^^If I had a penny for every time someone looked at Sebastian and said, "he's crazy" ... I'd have enough for a can of my beloved Diet Coca Cola

 ^^^ and then she hit up 8 other cousins for their scoops-o-sugar

 ^^^ I don't even know if Grandma saw this ... it's supposed to spell "thanks" but ... that "s" is looking lazy.

 ^^^ let's all appreciate Simon's face for 8 seconds.

^^^ missing four of the cousins but not a bad turnout. I doubt they read this but if they do ... GUILT TRIP. [okay and you see the gentleman wearing the Indiana Chemistry shirt? The blonde next to him and the guy in glasses behind him? They are triplets and I still can't tell the guys apart.]

^^^ three kids with three different gifts: nose picking, getting handsy, and looking miserable. How do I do it? I don't really know.


It was a good weekend. One of those weekends that I was nostalgic about before it was even over because Grandma always does a great job of getting everyone together every summer and providing endless amounts of food, drink, and a smile in the direction of even the moodiest great grandbaby (pointing all fingers at Sebastian Xavier Patton). Not everyone could be there for various reasons (volunteer work in Cambodia? scoff. a huge final to study for? ridiculous. a new fancy pants job? dumb. JOKE x THREE ... mostly) but it was still the classic Quad Cities reunion with lots of ice cream, jokes about reunions past (Andrew vomming all over a Disney World bus, Peter getting caught peeing in public by the cops at the tender age of 8, Peter losing his swimsuit in the lake while tubing, etc more stories about Peter etc), and free babysitting. Julia just thought that she had made a lot of "new friends" but by the end of the weekend she thought everyone was her uncle and when she woke up on Sunday afternoon to find that everyone had left she had a big little breakdown. Oh, and we thought Theo was a little peanut of a kid compared to Bash at his age but then we met Bella. Oh.

And now we're back and like always after staying at my Gram's sparkling clean house I feel like our house is thee breeding ground of all breeding grounds for gross. Basically if Clutter and Squalor had lots and lots of little babies ... they would all live in our house and have more babies. So I'm on a rampage to clean and go through clothes and clean some mo and after six hours and ten trash bags hauled out the house looks no different than it did before I went into crazy-ass-turbo-minus-the-turbo mode. Probably because when I come across things like a bottle of Velvet Tuberose from Bath and Body Works and I think I wore it a few times when I was pregnant with Julia and I KNOW I'll never miss it but shouldn't I keep it to remember that summer?

NO. The answer is no but still! I stop to ponder for far too long.

Simon's been fielding text after text about the state of the house and I will be shocked if some long and emergent case doesn't come up right at five because he married a total nut. A nut that is now off to debate the merit in keeping the white maternity jeans (should not exist) that do no favors for any body - pregnant or not, swear that we are never buying another article of baby clothing ever ever ever again, and do the yearly shake of the rugs and mop of the floors. And maybe I'll get crazy and make dinner.


Laffy taffy that.



Last year's reunions posts ...

I drove up alone with the kids (still waiting for that gold medal) ...
Photos that weren't taken with a cellular device ... 
Julia fell and her tooth went fully (shudder) through her chin ...
I forgot swimsuits ...