on my way out of the church building this afternoon i almost had a near death experience. really. it's totally true. our parking lot was one big sheet of ice and in order to get to my car, i had to cross it. i had only made it about a third of the way with every step requiring the flailing arms of a high wire act in order to stay verticle. upon arriving at a section of ice that was completely hopeless, i stood still for a moment thinking to myself, "i am going to fall in front of all these people and break my neck. i hope when i'm dead someone will pull my skirt down and move me out of the middle of traffic." just then, a very nice gentleman appeard out of no where (how did he get to me so fast and why weren't his arms flailing?!) and said to me, "it looks like maybe you could use an arm", as he offered his elbow as a life line.at this point, i wish i could tell you that i held on to his elbow with only three fingers all scarlet o'hara kind of lady-like. but i can't, because it would be a lie. i grabbed on to his elbow with both hands and held on for dear life. i did laugh though, the kind of nervous giggle that says "i feel like an idiot". he ended up walking me all the way to car and even opened my door for me, asked how my family was doing, and then wished me a nice afternoon. i of course thanked him for helping me get across the ice without breaking my neck, i was so grateful.
so i'm going to make a batch of cookies for him tomorrow to really say thank you, but i wanted to say on this blog, for the public, that chivalry is not dead and i for one, am grateful.
she smiled big and wide for that. 
she got a princess blanket from grammy and i think she enjoyed opening the gift (squealing with excitement before she even knew what it was) as she did the blanket itself. 
she loves grammy. and we love her!
happy birthday laurel anne! i also have to say that today is my cute sister-in-law jen's birthday who i adore but don't have any photographs of her handy to post along with this. i should've grabbed a picture of her cute super-model self when she was here visiting last. she has been working really hard and has lost a lot of weight and looks so fantastic! her super model looks are not the only thing i love about her, she is full of all sorts of great stories and even yummier recipes AND she's the only person i know who knows her taste buds so well that she can tell you what color m&m she's eating without looking! what the hey? jen you're so cool! we're so lucky to have you in our family, the moore's "cool" meter went up when you joined the fam for sure!
We celebrated his birthday on Sunday at grammy's house with the best batch of her spaghetti and meatballs that she's ever made. 
Seriously, they were so good, I had to say to myself, "four is as good as ten" because ten is how many I wanted to eat, forget the noodles even, mmmmm good. The picture looks disgusting, you'll just have to trust me. 
And here is my nutty brother Brandon, who is not gay despite what you might think by looking at this picture! He wants me to make him a Christmas card with this picture to send out to his friends. Whatever! He wants the caption to say, "during the holidays you should show your best side, Merry Christmas, Love Brandon. What a nut. On that spiritual note, let's talk church...Our Sunday church service was so good that I ended up being especially gateful for Patsy's good mail package with the cute tissues in it! They came in handy, the spirit was so strong and it was one of the best meetings I've attended in a long time, just what I needed. Isn't that funny? How it always seems to be just what you need? No coincidence there I don't think. Happy Birthday Charlie!
Mmmmm, look at all that butter, no wonder I have so much junk in the trunk. This is how we all (except Rich) feel about mom's chicken soup... Rich likes it ok but is not big soup guy. 
And this is my cute mom who makes the chicken soup, seriously, don't I have the cutest mom?
She is growing her hair a little longer these days and I love it! The crossword nerds, Rich and April look like this every Sunday...
They are the only two in the family smart enough to do the crossword, with the occasional help from my dad. Later we had the real cake and ice cream since on his birthday we were all candied out from Halloween and so Ethan just got a cake wedge to himself. We sang to him again, and he blew out candles, again. And he loved it, again.
I included this picture, because it just makes me laugh, could these two look any more alike?
Sheesh, like father like son, same expression, same eyes, same lips, same EARS, oh my. No milk man's baby in this family. The only thing I didn't get a picture of is the dinner table itself with everyone sitting around talking too loudy and quoting movie lines and laughing, a lot. If I would've tried to get a picture of this, Jake would've flipped the camera the bird and Jason and Brandon would've made goofy faces. As it was, they were alreasy teasing me about the chicken noodle soup pictures. "are we going to see those on your blog on Monday?" No smart allecks, I didn't get around to blogging these pictures until Wednesday, so there. I love my loud obnoxious family and I love my mom's chicken soup. Good times.