Breathe In, Laugh Out!: I'll Be Home For Christmas....

Christmas morning was supposed to go smoothly, and it did for the most part except, remember how Joe called me at 5:30am telling me He and Jamie were headed to the hospital??? Well, we got a little gift at around 7:30am. Eve Jolie Recio was welcomed into the world Christmas morning!!! Beautiful baby girl! She was named after our Grandma (Eva). Her middle name comes from Joe and Jamie's middle name which is Lee. Hence, Eva Jolie is the name they chose for my little Korean baby girl! I'll have more on this special little gift on another post. She deserves her very own entry!

Back to our day. The boys and I got dressed, rushed to Mom's to pick up her Tahoe and got on the road by 9am! I was a happy camper! So far, I'd seen family I hadn't seen in such a long time, celebrated birthdays, attended parties, ate like there would be no tomorrow and welcomed a baby girl into our family- on Christmas morning of all times! Life is good.

We get into Corpus around 11:30am, just in time for lunch- as planned. The dress code for the day: Ugly sweaters. No, I did not wear mine on the road. I couldn't even imagine wearing that ugly ass sweater, getting pulled over by a cop or worse, be in an accident, unconscious, not being able to explain my wardrobe! Hell no! I put that thing on when I got to Grandma's. Angela and Tia Bae were already there with Grandma. Angela wore a red tee with a handcrafted reindeer that sported pom poms on the ends of the antlers and nose, pipe cleaners that stuck out from the nose, google eyes and a chin that resembled that of a.... well, here's a pic of Angela and I:

It must have snowed a whole lot in Corpus! Grandma's tree is completely covered in snow!

Stephanie and Aaron showed up next, I believe. I was busy putting on the dreaded sweater in the other room. Stephanie also handmade her CUTE sweater, which by the way, was musical and Aaron's Dirk, the Jerk Nowitzki from the Dallas Mavericks sweater (he won ugly sweater contest- hands down already!). Little Aaron (AJ) and Johnny followed wearing regular clothes. Lucky boys!

Stephanie made these two sweaters! I thought they said ugly sweaters? Not musical and cute!!!

Next, the Laredo gang arrived. Danielle, Jorge, Alec and Little Jorge. Danielle sported a 'vintage' sweater, also handmade (Booooo) as did her hubby Jorge! Jorge's sweater had more of a 'business like look' to it, if you will. Ugly! Alec joined in with some sort of sweater with a Christmas tree (also vintage) and the baby wore normal, regular clothes. Lucky kid! Tammy showed up wearing a red sweater with stuffed animals attached to each shoulder! Who does that??? It was quite the sight!

Danielle and Jorge

Tammy and Danielle

Grandma adored each sweater, not knowing we chose to theme this year's Christmas with ugly sweaters! She thought it was just our regular Christmas spirit wear (bless her heart) and was so sweet to call each one "beyoooteeeful" (in her little Espanol sounding tone)! This is the 'ug-a-ly sweater' gang:

Tammy and her two friends, me, Angela, Alec, Stephanie, Aaron, Danielle and Jorge

Jacob chose not to participate and Austin spent half of Christmas sleeping in the Tahoe!

When we got to Grandma's house I woke him up, but since he had been up all night, he slept all the way to Corpus and all through lunch! I cracked the window, chill out! And,,,,I checked on him constantly except when I sat down to eat. The family took shifts every five minutes to check on him. All was good.

The tables were set with fine Red Solo china.

Each seating had a napkin with our names written on it. We quickly moved the names around and put them next to the people we really wanted to sit next to! Angela sat next to me, I sat next to Tia Bae, Danielle sat at the head of the table. She had some lame excuse about if little Jorge needed something she was able to get to him quickly. She's just bossy! lol Her husband, Jorge sat across from Tia Bae and Aaron (Stephanie's husband) sat across from me. Stephanie sat across from Angela and this is where the fun began!! I noticed Aaron scoping Angela's chest area out and finally realized he was studying her handcrafted reindeer. Tammy sat next to Angela with her stuffed animal shoulders and the rest of the family filled out the rest of the table. Anyway, we're all sitting around, laughing, making fun of the fact that Austin is literally sleeping in the Tahoe right outside the window where we all sat. It's a great time then the Aaron drops the bomb!!! He says to Angela, "your reindeer looks like it has balls instead of a chin!" Bam! Now, I'm not sure of his exact words but I do know for sure he was making fun of her handcrafted reindeer! lol Silence did not follow his comment! Laughter broke out, and that was that! A new memory was born! For years we all criticized Danielle for rolling a little, little round bristle brush in her bangs, which then got so tangled we came so close to having to cut her bangs at the roots! That would have been the most saddest, but funniest memory of all!! Instead, my sweet family each took turns removing each bristle, one by one, until the only thing left was a piece of wood and Danielle's bangs in tact! lol But this year, Angela's shirt was put on the pedestal! Reindeer pelotas! Once the eating was complete we all gathered, including Austin who had finally come out of his sleep coma, for our gift exchange. The opening of the gifts was nice but the real fun came when we had our fashion show! Stephanie brings in her Dance Central CD from her truck, Angela breaks out the boom box from the mid eighties and I'm thinking this is gonna be interesting! The last time I did a fashion show I was right out of high school! Scarrrry!

First up was me. I was totally excited about how good my hair came out in the picture!

The hair! Wow! Amazing! Too bad the judges didn't take that into consideration!
Next up was Tammy and Stephanie.

Tammy should have been disqualified! She took her stuffed animals off her shoulders! lol I'm soooo sure they wanted to be part of the show.
Stephanie walked in with a "I'm sexy and you know it" attitude! This may have been what won the judges over! Dammit! I should've done the same thing!
Oh boy, next was Angela and her pole dancing moves! She comes out shaking all of her 'ass'ets and could've easily accepted the one dollar bills being thrown at her. Ok, ok, I'm totally kidding about the money, but she did 'work it'!!!

"Yes, this is my reindeer! My design!"

"I'm working it!"

Check out her reindeer!!! The antlers are off, and the bottom of his chin is, well, weird looking!

After we all recollected ourselves from Angela's 30 minute pole dancing routine, Danielle was up.
Her cat walking was a little different. She figured kung fu fighting moves would win the judges over. Not'samuch!

Gotta give it too her, she threw some moves in there but still wasn't good enough to woo the judges!

The guys were up next. Jorge came out with his 'rico suave' walk. A little 'fixing of the tie', perhaps 'less is more' really must have had some influence on the judges.

The finale was left for Aaron! Who woulda guessed this shy guy would have really ended our show with a bang???

OMG! Really Aaron? lol
So, that was the end of our show, however, the music continued. There was one more little show that was completely unexpected. In fact, this child, who belongs to Stephanie and Aaron, never speaks a word in all his years of visiting us. He breaks out from behind the table and starts putting on his own dancing show! He didn't start out slow or unshy- at all! He broke out with full on hip thrusting!

AJ followed up his hip thrusting with some serious break dancing, spinning on the floor, and poses! His facial expressions showed he meant business and while all of us were in shock that this shy, unspoken child was letting all the bones fly out of his mouth he was relentless! I honestly don't know what was more memorable...AJ's hip hop dance routine or Angela's reindeer pelotas! This was some serious fun and although a Christmas baby being born that morning was a total high for me, this trip to Corpus was one of the best ever!
The judges finally made their decision. The room was filled with tension, tears, and hopes that the judges would find it in them to give all of us an "A" for effort and bragging rights. But nope. The winners were Aaron, Jorge, Stephanie and Angela! The rest of us were shocked! Ok, not really! It was well deserved for each of them. After all, I already knew Aaron would win with that terrible Dirk the jerk sweater and Stephanie, well, she added music to hers. I'm not sure why Jorge won...lol and Angela won Nastiest Wiener! haha Totally saw that coming!

This was so much fun! Next year, we've decided that we will do themed t-shirts. We will choose our favorite Christmas movie and design our tees based on that movie. Should be interesting. I've already started on mine, since Stephanie and her graphic design knowledge I'm sure will kick even the most highly crafty people in the family. Everyone except Angela! just kidding, Angela! You make fabulous reindeers!!! And you win too!
Here are a few more pics from that wonderful Christmas day in Corpus!