Family Fun

After we got home Thanksgiving night, sick and exhausted neither our fun nor our sickness came to an end. Friday, I went shopping for a few things and got most of my Christmas shopping done (it's amazing how quickly you can accomplish such a feat when you have very limited funds :)). Then, Clara and I just pretty much laid around all day and all night. When Jason got home from work, he laid around with us. We were all coughing, had fevers and felt miserable. Saturday seemed to be a little better, or maybe I was in denial that sickness could last so long. Jason worked in the morning and then met me at my mom's to watch Clara while I got to go to the Temple with my family. Casey Anne loves the little babies, so Clara was off on a wagon ride before I even left.

Since it's quite rare to all be together, I didn't miss a chance to take some pictures. As always, Clint and Ryan were very enthusiastic about my happy snapper finger.
Of the "grown-ups" we're just missing Emily. Hopefully someday we can all be together. Note: it is apparently a Melzer trait, one I didn't inherit, to close your eyes in 95% of pictures. However, I couldn't help but notice that in almost every picture I took out in the bright sun, the typical eye closers had their eyes open perfectly fun.
After that, the married kids went to dinner. My mom and dad stayed with Rachel's kids. I feel bad because it seems like my mom always ends up babysitting. I know she loves her grandkids, but I think she'd also like to go out with us one of these times. It is always fun being with my family. Because really, do any of you have brother-in-laws that would draw something so randomly well as this? Oh, and notice the bread he (Clint) drew and being the nice Uncle he is, offered some to Clara.
I had our server take a picture of all of us. If only Rachel's eyes were opened, but apparently the server was too enthralled with her smile to notice. After he took the picture, he looks at her and said, "Great smile" with a little grin. He was nice, but did a few strange things. Like when Clara started getting fussy, he said, "You're my last table, so I will hold your baby if you want. I love kids." I used the best excuse that I could muster up that she was afraid of strangers and he said, "Well, she can watch Sesame Street on my phone." I thanked him and tried to sort through how to take his offer. That type of thing is borderline super nice person/psycho freak. After dinner, we were going to have a girl's night out. We were going to get dessert and watch Hair Spray in the theater. We ended up going to Golden Spoon with all but one of the kids (Don, Jason and Micah decided to go have a guys outing... so off went the babysitters) and then watched Hairspray at Ryan and Kathryn's. Jason did get back before we started the movie so he took Clara and put her to sleep and Don took Lucas. This is Emma. She's just like a littl ray of sunshine spritzing around.

Oh and little Lucas. He's so little and just so cute. He is just a tiny bit taller than Clara but walks (he's four months older). I love how his itty bitty pants are still too big for him.Of course my night wouldn't be complete without attempting a cousins picture. Emily's kids are missing, so hopefully next time we're all together we can get one with all the kids. Okay, now how I felt about the movie. It was totally cheesey, but it made me laugh. I was a little surprised at the number of sexual innuendos and thought it'd be a little cleaner than what it was. I'm sure I'd watch it again and I'd probably laugh because I'd catch even more of the subtle lines in the songs. I can't imagine Jason even enjoying five minutes of it with me, so it was a good thing I watched it with the girls.