Ok, so I'm weird. When I was really little my grandfather, Chesley Pruet (get it?), showed up at some family holiday, Thanksgiving or Christmas I have no clue, with animal noses. They were just those rubbery ones that smell kinda sweet when you put them on and have an elastic band that goes around your head to hold it on. He had pigs, elephants, cats, who knows what all. And somewhere out there at my parent's or my aunt and uncle's houses there is a picture of the entire family, (Alex, sorry your weren't born yet), in our pj's and robes ready to get in the bed wearing these silly looking animal noses. I have no idea why he did this, if you had known my grandfather it would make perfect sense to you bc nothing he did had to have a reason. He also used to give my dad and uncle hand me down neck ties they neither wanted nor needed but he would show up with a garbage bag full and then use them to hog tie his grandchildren and tickle us without mercy then toss them all tangled up back into the garbage bag for 'the boys'. We don't know why but with him you just didn't ask. So I was Christmas shopping in some random kids toys catalogue and saw these animal faces that make animal noises. They were like the new millenium version of Papa's 1980's animal noses. So I had to have them. I bought them and kept them hidden until Christmas Eve when I planned to show them to my family at which point they would all go, "Oh yeah, I remember those things! What a great idea Liz!" I'll get there, but let it be stated that that is not really how it went down.
Pruet turned two on December 9th. At his birthday party his uncle Perry, (Hillary's youngest brother), gave him a walking gorilla. It's about a foot tall and it walks with it's hands dragging the ground and it's knees bent and it's made from hard plastic--oh and it growls. It scared the ever living daylight out of the birthday boy! He couldn't get away from it fast enough. William was trying to crawl over his grandmother's head in an attempt to actually crawl inside her I think, he wanted away! Pruet just kept clinging to his daddy and saying No! to that stupid gorilla. Now keep in mind these boys are not sissies. They wrestle and rough house and run wild most of the time, but this growling creature walking towards them was not their idea of fun. Give them a football and they will throw it, a golf club and they will hit the ball like big bad boys-just don't send that gorilla their way. My child on the other hand, is oddly immune to strange noises and has so far exhibited no fear of small creatures, (she will probably bring me a possum or raccoon she wants as a pet one day if she can ever catch one). We have really talked about this before, she has no fear. She loved it. She went after it. She tried to show Pruet and William how fun it was, they said no thanks. It was pretty funny bc Uncle Perry just kept egging her on to pick it up and take it to Pruet, which she did, and which he did not care for. All of this is to say, I decided the animal noises coming out of my animal faces might be problematic on Christmas Eve. So when I was showing them to everyone I stressed how important it was to NOT press in on the noses. For the most part we succeeded in not scarring the small children for life and even got them to wear them for a second or two, (Chesley still puts them on at home on a regular basis and I have to take them off of her to feed her), but it kind of put a damper on my whole sentimental idea. When memories come with a warning label, they kind of lose some of their effect. But we had a great Christmas Eve, and I know Lindsey would have liked to have been able to see her family since she couldn't travel for Thanksgiving (she was 9 mos preggo) and Charlie was too young to go to Dallas for Christmas- it was really nice to have all the kiddos together. And my addition of random animal faces was odd but kinda fun I think, I hope! So here are the pictures-there's a ton of them but this is my blog so I don't have to edit myself! Merry Christmas!
Pruet turned two on December 9th. At his birthday party his uncle Perry, (Hillary's youngest brother), gave him a walking gorilla. It's about a foot tall and it walks with it's hands dragging the ground and it's knees bent and it's made from hard plastic--oh and it growls. It scared the ever living daylight out of the birthday boy! He couldn't get away from it fast enough. William was trying to crawl over his grandmother's head in an attempt to actually crawl inside her I think, he wanted away! Pruet just kept clinging to his daddy and saying No! to that stupid gorilla. Now keep in mind these boys are not sissies. They wrestle and rough house and run wild most of the time, but this growling creature walking towards them was not their idea of fun. Give them a football and they will throw it, a golf club and they will hit the ball like big bad boys-just don't send that gorilla their way. My child on the other hand, is oddly immune to strange noises and has so far exhibited no fear of small creatures, (she will probably bring me a possum or raccoon she wants as a pet one day if she can ever catch one). We have really talked about this before, she has no fear. She loved it. She went after it. She tried to show Pruet and William how fun it was, they said no thanks. It was pretty funny bc Uncle Perry just kept egging her on to pick it up and take it to Pruet, which she did, and which he did not care for. All of this is to say, I decided the animal noises coming out of my animal faces might be problematic on Christmas Eve. So when I was showing them to everyone I stressed how important it was to NOT press in on the noses. For the most part we succeeded in not scarring the small children for life and even got them to wear them for a second or two, (Chesley still puts them on at home on a regular basis and I have to take them off of her to feed her), but it kind of put a damper on my whole sentimental idea. When memories come with a warning label, they kind of lose some of their effect. But we had a great Christmas Eve, and I know Lindsey would have liked to have been able to see her family since she couldn't travel for Thanksgiving (she was 9 mos preggo) and Charlie was too young to go to Dallas for Christmas- it was really nice to have all the kiddos together. And my addition of random animal faces was odd but kinda fun I think, I hope! So here are the pictures-there's a ton of them but this is my blog so I don't have to edit myself! Merry Christmas!
Everyone was expected to participate!
