Christmas & Halloween, in that order

This is what Christmas for 9 looks like.  10 if you count the furry girl on the bottom right.

Two weekends ago was our big Christmas celebration... and 24 hours later we were dressing up for Halloween.  The weekend was wonderful and perfect and I'm so, so, SO glad that everyone in my family chose to celebrate Christmas with us and be joyful at the change in plans this year.  Saturday was Christmas Eve and per our usual tradition, we ate dinner at IHOP and then all spent the night together.  This year, in tune with the chaos, we all stayed at Callie & Jeremy's house since my parents don't currently have a house, ha.  We all squeezed in and fit just right although Matt may or may not have slept in the hall. Karl & I stayed up late that night preparing the dough for some Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls that I've wanted to make for a long time... I'll say that they were time consuming and the 2am bedtime + 6:30am wakeup was a little unexpected, however, the rolls were excellent...like realllly good.  And I'm happy to report there is leftover dough in the freezer.  Christmas morning (Sunday) we woke up to find that Santa had in fact been here and he had come to spoil!  The morning was wonderful, Mr. & Mrs. Clause know how to show these 9 children a really good time.  Karl got me the most insane boots EVER that I have been eyeing ever since Rachel Zoe put them on my radar in a recent ZoeReport... thanks gurlie.  Annnnd Amy & Paul got me home things and clothes galore.  It was just great.

waiting in the hall to see if Santa came...

Excuse my mom's blurry pictures but yes, Santa came!!!

One of the funniest times of the morning: ever since I can remember my sisters & I have drawn names to dictate who we will give a Christmas gift to.  It's way easier on the wallet that way.  So, now that 3 brothers-in-law are involved we started the tradition of them drawing names to gift each other.  Well, obvi it is us girls that wrap the gifts that they give among themselves... so we planted something embarrassing in each bag so that it would look like Jeremy gave Matt Superman briefs, Karl gave Jeremy Batman briefs, and Matt gave Karl "Man of Steel" briefs.  The joke didn't last long but the look on Matt's face when he opened his gift that he knew was from Jeremy was priceless.  He had no idea what to say or do.  Verrrry funny.
After our Christmas morning we all went to church together.  It was wonderful to be led in worship by Matt.  He is so so so talented.  And obvi I cried.  I love worshipping next to Karl.  I will miss that more than anything else, literally anything.  If he could just appear alongside me in church every week for the next year that would be sufficient.
Sunday evening was spent cooking together in The Bailey's kitchen and then eating a wonderful Christmas/maybe Thanksgiving meal.  We had ham, turkey, and all of Karl's favorite sides.  It was DELICIOUS and fun and I can't imagine better company and conversation.

Proof that: Maddie's high school art project named Sarah (that also happens to be a creepy paper-mache dia de los muertos doll) somehow managed to find her way onto Callie's tree per the Cuppett Family tradition (although normally we sing "Feliz Navidad," while Maddie tops the tree with her) despite our family's vagabond status and proof that my dad is always looking to be in a photo.

annnnd I blame The Burton's prom-pose on the fact that I was the camera runner.  Ya know, the idiot running back and forth to start the timer on the camera?  That's me.

You can see more from Sarah the Calevera in a picture from a post a few years ago here... well you can really only see her legs but they are unmistakeable...

Last Monday was Halloween.  Karl wanted to be a T-Rex and I decided I would just dress normally and put a leash around his costume and he would be my pet dino.  Karl fashioned the most incredible costume... I mean, you can't really even call it a costume.  It was just insane.  He is so so so creative and can think so abstractly and is such an artist!  He sketched this on cardboard and then cut it out!  He only worked on it for about 3 hours.  He was a show.stopper.  at the church Halloween function we went to with my family at Park Springs last night.  The kids LOVED it- I mean, they really had a hard time understanding that he wasn't a real dinosaur.  One lady even asked if "it" was one of the rides.

early in the construction process

manning his tail... it had a life of it's own.

I wrote this last week so the tense of the language is not very accurate anymore but...The remainder of the week was spent enjoying more time with family, running some errands and packing things, and enjoying more time together.  I am definitely growing more anxious, nervous, and sad.  This is so surreal to me- that's really the best way to describe this.  Less than a week.  I hope the anticipation is worse than the actual experience will be.  Also feeling behind in life as I pretty much have neglected all my friends and responsibilities as of late as I spend all my time and energy on Karl and Korea.  I really feel like I have had no contact with my closest friends/have no clue what's going on in anyone's lives.  Also have late bills, emails that have been unanswered for weeks (sorry Jesse Mackenzie and Maddie's wedding vendors), and have basically checked out of adult life.  So, that's cool too.  That's not like me.  I'm so sorry.  And sorry that my apology is coming via cyberspace... what is becoming of me!?!?  Woof.
Thanks for thinking of us!  Still feeling like I have so much catching up to do!
Hannah K.C. Burton