I really had to give up on the idea of having my house in perfect condition before my family arrived. Let’s face it, there isn’t much you can do when you have no electricity for nine days. I couldn’t vacuum, couldn’t do laundry, I had to wash dishes by hand… hell, I couldn’t even charge up the drill so I could hang the curtains in the guest room. (Although technically that would’ve been Dave’s job, because I don’t drill.)

So I thought to myself: you know, my parents’ house is often cluttered (not dirty, they just have lots of stuff), my brother probably wouldn’t notice any degree of messiness, and the only reason my sister would ever go nine days without power in Manhattan would be in the event of some sort of nuclear disaster, so she couldn’t really judge me either. (Not that she would.) So what the hell. I did what I could with the house, and let the rest of it go. It wasn’t easy for me, since I tend to be a little OCD-ish about those types of things, but I tried to just relax and be happy that they were all able to fly here for the holidays.

Once I got to that point, I had a pretty awesome time.

You can see the rest of the photos from Christmas here.

Oh, and speaking of photos, since I’m able to use the scanner now (ah, the simple joys of electricity!), here’s my favorite photo from the ultrasound last week.

Have you ever seen such a perfect little profile? I think not. And those lips! I cannot wait to meet this kid in person.

Oh, and just to complete this very visually-oriented post, here’s my first experience at uploading a video on YouTube.

(If that embedding trick doesn’t work, you can see it here.) Some background: we were cooking Christmas Eve dinner, and my sister and I were trying to find some uptempo, dance-y music to keep us energized while we were working. So yes, that is in fact “Bootylicious” and the N’Trance remix of “Stayin’ Alive” that you hear. Our iPods might be a bit dated, but they’re fun. And it’s proof that at any of our family gatherings, all of the action really does happen in the kitchen.

And if nothing else, when Baby Girl decides in fifteen years or so that she wants to sue her parents for emancipation because we are certifiably insane, this ought to help her case in court. I mean for heaven’s sake, just look at how her parents were behaving only weeks before her birth. Atrocious.