The Litabug Phlog

Sorry I didn’t make any posts while we were away. It was a whirlwind of a trip. We decided to save (quite a lot of) money by flying out of Providence instead of Boston, which added some time and complications to the trip. Also, we had only a week to see both of our families, which are 7 hours drive from each other. We got a lot of visiting in, but it felt like we spent a lot of the time traveling, too, especially since our bus/train adventure back from the Providence airport took over 4 hours.

Our first stop was Nashville, where we visited my family. We had a wonderful time chatting, laughing, making cookies, wrapping and unwrapping gifts, playing games, and acting just a little silly. It’s fun to watch the family growing. I have two sisters and a brother, but with my husband and my sister’s fiancé around the house, it really felt like my parents had 6 kids instead of 4. Mom hangs a stocking for every single person, too. This year, she hung a huge stocking for the baby, who, being still in my stomach, will have to enjoy his/her gifts a little later.

On Christmas Eve, my youngest sister, Lianna, got us together to make some Christmas cookies. Austin helped out, perhaps getting a little too artistic with his creations. At one point, he quoted Michaelangelo about the art of sculpture. He free-handed a whole transportation series, then did a few mutant gingerbread men (one with two heads). He also helped mix the icing, and put too much food coloring in the red icing, making for a gruesome headless gingerbread man. You can see it in one of the photos below.

Every year, after all the gifts have been opened and everyone has moved into the other room, Mom hides a pickle in the tree. Sometimes it’s just a slice, sometimes a chunk, and sometimes a whole pickle. If you think it’s easy to see a real pickle in a green Christmas tree, you should try it sometime. Whoever finds this pickle gets an extra gift, usually a game. This has been a tradition in our family for years, but only our middle two siblings, Becca and Nathan, ever find the pickle. This year, though, I had an advantage. I’m pregnant. As we searched through the branches of the tree, sniffing to see if we could smell it, I realized I actually could smell it this time! With my bionic pregnant nose, I managed to track that thing down in record time.