I am the youngest of three girls, my two older sisters, Carmen and Candiace, are twins. They came from my dad's first marriage. He also had a son from that same marriage. His son, my half brother, always lived with his mom in Florida, so I never really knew him. He passed away at 15 from cancer, I was in the 4th grade. Him and my sisters have the same mom, but she never had nor really wanted a relationship with my sisters, only him. Non of us have a true relationship with my dad, I haven't spoken to him in over 6 months, it's not for lack of trying, I have. The last time I spoke to him he was supposed to come see our new house and never called again. The silver lining in all this, is that my sisters and their kids have good relationships with my mom. She treats them all like their own children and grandchildren.
My sister Candiace is married to Jeff and they have an 11 year old boy, Courtland. My sister Carmen has a 12 yr old girl, Hailey, from her first marriage to Travis. Travis is now re-married to Stacey and she has a daughter, Lexi, who is Hailey's age. Travis and Stacey actually met through Hailey and Lexi. Carmen's second husband is Jason. They had two kids, Emma who is 8 and Layne who is 3. They divorced about a year and a half ago. Carmen is my sister who passed away last January. e
Like I said, it's not often we are all together, but we made it tonight. All but Travis, who was working. Stacy, Lexi, and Jason too. We try to keep it as good for the kids as possible and everyone really does still have a good relationship.
After a some yummy ham it was time to dig into presents. We got Hailey (in the back) and Lexi (long blond hair), also Emma but I didn't get a picture of her, personalized thermal totes from 31. I got Stacey's input on color so I hope they liked them.
I didn't get any of Courtland, we got him a gift card to Best Buy and my mom some Jennifer Anniston perfume.
Cooper was excited and ready to dig into some presents.
Candiace and Jeff got him a Leapfrog text messenger. It's supposed to help learn letters and the sounds and it has a couple built in games. They also got Cameron a Leapfrog game.
This was Cameron's gift from Hailey and Lexi, it's wrapped in Justin Bieber wrapping paper, awesome! He got a pull toy with farm animals.
They got Cooper a nerf gun.
Cameron kept whining at the tree and was distraught over something. By the way, check out that cool faux wood paneling in the back. Yup, this is where I grew up.
All the whining was over some Elvis ornament that played music. He was all smiles once we figured it out. We had went up there earlier in the day to drop off Emma and I had showed it to him them, kids don't forget anything.
My mom got Cooper a Cars Geo Tracks race track and a Toy Story Mr Potato Head.
She got Cameron a play camera and radio. That is Layne in the back, he got the same things Cooper did from my mom. Layne is 3, he's 10 months younger than Cooper. Janelle- I don't know if you will read this, Layne and Emma go to the same sitter as your kids.
This is our loot to take home. Steve got some clothes and I got some clothes, a new jacket, house shoes that are actually super cute and I would totally wear out, and make up.
I had to get one of Steve being Steve. I just love this man!
We got home and I was trying to get a head start on cleaning out the bedrooms and bagging up future yard sale items when I hear uncontrollable laughter. They broke out the nerf gun. I'm sure it's going to be a major hit for a few days. So is something we bought Cooper, I'll blog about it after Christmas. What fun is the surprise if I ruin it for you guys too.
1 comment:
It's great that you got to get together with (almost) everyone. I had to read the paragraphs about your family twice just to undersand it all. :)
I know this is a difficult time of year for you with things from the past. I'm glad you were able to be surrounded by family. Love ya!
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