Meme Monday

A couple of housekeeping items before getting into the Meme today.

First of all, SEVEN (that's right, Ricky and Pam, not eight) years ago today, Drew and I became "The Bowers" in snazzy clothes with lots of music, pictures, family, and friends. Happy Anniversary to ME (and him)!!!

That also means (those of you who were AT the wedding probably remember) that today my precious little Tooter Booter turns TWELVE!!!!! My sweet little girl who was born when I was in COLLEGE, spent boo-coodles of time with me in Carrollton, was best friends with Stuart Little (and his wife, Tina), and used to ALWAYS reply with, "My name is NOT Tooter Booter" until I was pregnant with my own baby when I heard, "What are you going to use as HER nickname? 'Cause Tooter Booter is already taken. She can't have it," is turning TWELVE!!! She is a beautiful, vibrant, kind-hearted goober of a girl and I adore her. Happy Birthday, Tooter! (Oh, and by the way, yesterday at her birthday lunch with us, we got Tucker to start calling her Tooter! Hahaha!)

Ok, now on to the Meme. I thought I'd go all traditional and talk holiday memories. Drew and I were upstairs folding clothes (Yep, I finally got that Thanksgiving beach suitcase unpacked) and started talking about our favorite childhood memories and then our favorite memories since we were "on our own". What are some of your favorites - from childhood and/or adulthood?

Here are some of my favorites:

*Working on Grandaddy's Christmas tree farm - "helping" by carrying the measuring sticks out for everyone, talking up the mistletoe, "helping" bag the trees and tie them on cars, and most importantly, decorating the Charlie Brown Tree down in the farm so it would surprise people when they came upon it

*Decorating PawPaw's tree up the hill from Munner's (a little different perspective of PawPaw's decorations from yours, Unclewesty) - This always seemed the beginning of the real Christmas season for me. Everyone that could came. The men did the light throwing onto that HUGE tree while we kids played tag, held races, and did a million other things, I'm sure, to get in the way of the real task at hand. :)

*Singing in the choir for candlelight service at the Presbyterian Church on Christmas Eve, going to (and a couple of times our family providing music for) the candlelight service at our church (First Methodist) and occupying the two rows mid way down the lefthand side of the sanctuary (You're right, Unclewesty, God DOES live there. haha) with my Munner, and before that with my Munner and Grandad.

*There are a MILLION memories of the ENTIRE crew (for those of you who don't know, we're a BIIIIIIIIIG family - 6 original kids, all married with at least two kids, six of them married, two of them engaged, and 7 great-grandkids if I'm counting correctly) at Munner and Grandad's, but the most vivid is the year Grandad decided we all needed to watch this video (of unknown length) about the life of Jesus in its entirety before "Opening the tree". Great in theory, BAAAAAAD in practice. We were young and hopped-up on Christmas Eve energy and that was a LOOOOOONG video. I believe the final deal was that we could stop the video on the promise that everyone would take a copy home and watch it later as a family.

*Many small memories (without specific timing or years in my mind) at our own house like kneeling around the Advent wreath singing little hymns and taking turns reading scripture (and taking turns each year as to who got to light the "Mary candle" - the pink one); hiding my favorite ornaments in the back of the tree and hiding back there playing with them; finishing up Christmas decorations, turning out every light but the Christmas lights, and lying on the floor looking at their reflections in Mama's beveled mirror with Mama and sometimes Scott; making ornaments out of dough - sometimes with Mama, at least once with a babysitter; "Helping" Mama decorate the Christmas cookies

*As an adult, the year that Drew and I started dating stands out in the tiniest details to me - our first kiss, staying up all night talking about everything for the first time, him coming to MawMaw's Christmas (and our favorite Michelle line EVER while there), driving back to Carrollton to meet the delivery guys with my new couch (and Drew coming over to wait with me), going to see the Nutcracker at the Fox, talking on the phone at length between our Christmas activities - sweet, sweet memories

*Then the most obvious - my wedding and honeymoon. We had SUCH a blast in New York and our very first (and only) white Christmas! :)

Unclewesty beat me to this game of memories if you'd like to go check out some of his (and see that some of his are the same as mine, only from a different perspective).

What are yours? (Answer in my comments or do it on your own blog and give me a link to it in my comments so I'll know to go check it out.)

L&S,

Leslie