Christmas with the Kingsleys

I know it's January, but you haven't yet heard of our Christmas with the Kingsley fam (that's my side of the family, in case you didn't know me then.) It was good to be home for Christmas, down there in the hot Louisiana weather, running around last minute buying gifts, falling asleep on the couch like us Kingsleys do, eating lots of candy and getting fruit in our stockings, and getting to laugh at things only my family laughs at.

It's funny how you grow up thinking every other family is just like your own. And then one day, maybe when you spend Christmas at someone else's house you realize that everyone does it a little different. Even if you still prefer your own.

Us Kingsleys we start in our rooms, all waiting around until we are all up, not dressed and ready, but in our pajamas and ready to run down the stairs like little kids. Yelling down the stairs to make sure it's okay before we come down to all the Christmas morning. Well... except this year, when apparently they ran down before me, lol.

We first get the candy. My mom always buys what I would call 'too much' candy, and then after I eat all of it I realize that I wish she would have bought more, lol. Used to the candy was in our stockings or spilling out of our stockings, but now it's usually in a big pile. Fun to rummage through.

And then there are the actual stockings. they are old, very old. I do believe they are made out of my grandmother or great grandmother's quilt. Once the quilt had too many holes they made them into stockings. I love them. Aren't they beautiful? They're always filled with fruit, some years someone forgets to eat the banana and then we have a mess, but most years we (or mom) gets the fruit out fast enough. Some people get actual large gifts in their stockings like giftcards and DVDs, I don't know about all that... seems sort of silly. I like a stocking with candy and fruit, and then the occasional socks or hairbrush or two.

Then there are the presents and the gift giving and the gift opening. Usually the tree is larger, but since Dad got his new recliner a few a years ago the big tree goes in the dining room, lol. So we used this one for the gift opening.

This was one of things I realized we did so differently. See we go one by one. Mom selects each gift from the tree in particular order and hands them out one at a time. Mom picks out a gift, hands it to the recipient, they open it (ripping the paper, or tearing each piece of tape like some of us), and they hold it up and we all ooo and aaahh and take pictures and then we move on to the next gift. It's fun to get to see everyone's faces. We don't do any of that all-at-once kind of thing, although I hear it works really well for some people...

This year seemed like extra fun buying Mom and Dad's gifts. You know, because us 'kids' are now old enough to sometimes figure out what they would like and buy them things without borrowing money from them to buy their gifts, lol. Christmas morning is just for gifts from them to us, from us to them, and then gifts for Grandma who's attended Christmas morning with us for a few years now... we love having her there!

So this year I saw my mom pointing out some LSU painted ornaments online. So I made her a few...

Breakfast is it's own deal entirely. We usually open gifts before breakfast, but some of us can't wait that long. So this year my brother Jared made some yummy pumpkin bread. Doesn't it look yummy?

This is my dad. In his recliner. Saying, "you aren't taking a picture of me are you?" I told him I was just trying out my new lens and his feet would only be in the picture that the rest of him would be 'fuzzy.' I like him.

Then for lunch we go with the cousins, the ones on my mom's side of the family. We've been doing it that way forever: Dad's side of the family for Christmas Eve, Mom's side for Christmas Day lunch. Lucky most all of the fam lives in the same town. Luckier for us, my mom's brother and his family live next door... like stepping stones between the two houses, no need to knock, next door.

So we headed over to their place for lunch. And my sister agreed to pose for me...

I like her too... sometimes we are the same...

So we had a great lunch, usually something out of the ordinary. Like gumbo or chowder or shrimp stroganoff this year. Usually something that's not turkey oddly enough, usually something with rise (we are in Louisiana), and always with my other aunt's homemade bread.

Then the gifts. The cousins draw names and exchange gifts. We've been doing this forever too. Kyle drew Jared's name... Jared asked for "wacky dress socks." This is Jared opening his socks...

They were super hero socks. Yep, socks with capes...

After all the hooting and hollering over the capes we did a few more gifts, like the annual gifts from Uncle Keith. He's gotten us some great stuff over the years, used to go to the Nike store and buy 8 of one thing in 8 increasing sizes and it fit us all perfectly. He's good like that. Now his gifts always have meaning to them, I like that too.

Then the games. Someone usually brings a new board game or card game and we spend the rest of the afternoon playing games and laughing at each other.  This year we broke out an older version of Phase Ten.

Retro cards, right? I'm not sure who ever won, we had to leave to come back to Texas before the tenth phase was ever reached.

Good times at Kingsley Christmas. Catching up, being lazy, running around, eating Christmas Eve lunch at Sam's Club because their pizza is sooo good and we were already out taking family pictures...

Merry late Christmas. I hope yours was wonderful too. Oh and that one was me jumping over a short brick wall of a fountain to get to the camera. Didn't know the timer was on for one more shot.  We'll have the final picture soon, don't worry.

Merry New Year. Yep, our tree's still up...

Weekend in BR and the Campus Photo Tour

After a day like last Saturday, I was excited to be in BR for a few more days last weekend. Usually I'm running out at noon on Sundays, but thanks to the three day weekend I was staying for the party Sunday night. By "party" I mean good times with the fam, not an actual  party, anyways...

Church, lunch at Drew's Aunts' house, and then rolling to the mall. The Baton Rouge mall is a bit bigger than ours here in Tyler, lol. And it made for some good outdoor shots.

We roamed the mall, I found a great candle on sale at Bath & Body Works and I want to tell you about it so bad, but I want to surprise Kyle with it first!

Headed to Texas Roadhouse (apparently the Kingsley restaurant of choice) and us four kids, Drew and Aphra had a good time. I really do love hanging out with my brothers and sister. Jared talked about how we were growing up, and I told him I bet Mom and Dad are pretty impressed that we're "grown-up" and still like hanging out with each other...

One James Bond movie later and we were all exhausted from a great weekend. I will say I recommend the James Bond movie, mostly because I was actually able to follow the plot without asking anyone questions about what was happening, but it wasn't too predictable either. And I think Daniel Craig plays a good James Bond, although I guess technically I haven't really seen anyone else play James Bond.

Finished up the weekend on Monday morning with a trip to campus to shoot a few pics, play around and experiment with the camera, and capture some of the places I spent quite a bit of time during my four years at LSU.

Stopped by to see my brother on campus and had the most embarrassing thing happen. I thought it only happened in movies... see it was really cold outside and then really hot inside and so I took my jacket off once I got inside...
Mean Girls moment! I realized I my shirt was stuck to my sweater. Praise Jesus I had decided to put on a camisole under my shirt that day. Really or my brother would have gotten a show...

I couldn't stop laughing. My brother was just fifty shades of red.

With that I was off, in my little car with my Pineapple Surf smoothie in the cup holder, Dave Ramsey CD in the stereo ready to roll back to Texas. Five hours later, home safe and sound.

And those pictures of campus. Here are just a few... nothing exciting like the stadium or anything. Just the places that aren't so often photographed but mean a whole lot to my heart.

I started off my little photo walk at the BCM (Baptist Collegiate Ministry). They kind of stole my heart in the spring of my freshman year and I never looked back. After stepping into that place and that community I was forever changed, learning to know and love the Lord in a completely different way.

Time for Monday Lunch, lol... seeing that sign made me laugh. Some things change, some things don't.

This next one's quite funny actually. It's what we knew as 'the chapel' and we had TNT there every Thursday night. Now they have it in the newer part of the building and this part gets used a little less often. The creepy part is that as I was taking the picture this door slowly opened. After I peed my pants, I went inside. It was like someone told me to come on in or something.

The new Tiger Room, all fancied up after the renovation.

Next Stop, oak trees... I love these. I absolutely love the LSU Oaks. 

I also like the "resurrection ferns" that grow in the trees. See them all green and bright? It rained that morning and so they popped out. See when were were on campus for game day, you wouldn't have even noticed them, because when it hasn't rained in a while they shrivel up and turn brown. They actually blend right in with the bark. But then it rains and they pop right back! Isn't that neat?

Busy campus. I was experimenting with the shutter speed getting the "swoosh" of the cars as they passed by. Unfortunately right after I got the camera setup right, there weren't many cars for a while...

Evangeline Hall. Most recently seen in the background of a scene in Pitch Perfect. You know when I yelled, "Kyle that's my dorm! Where was this movie filmed? That's where I LIVED!" right in the middle of the movie theater. No one told me ahead of time...

First home away from the parents. Where we weathered both Katrina and Rita, where we made blueberry cupcakes for our friends when their electricity was out, where we washed our dishes in the bathroom sink, where we studied to much and rehearsed theater and Spanish presentations, watched Grey's Anatomy and first joined Facebook.

Crazy thing is that our dining hall is gone. The place that we headed to at 4pm every day because we were "starving!" and ate way too much ice cream. It's now a parking garage, but it's a really pretty parking garage. But the dining hall was much more convenient for us :)

And it's not the only construction. Looked like there were gutting the inside of one of the other halls in the horseshoe and redoing the entire thing. Boys lived in that dorm, so it was probably stinky :)

And then Knapp Hall. Were me and my trusty assistant did what we called research. We had fancy equipment and everything. Spent a lot of hours there, reading way too many papers about macular pigment degeneration. But I loved every minute of it, yep, because I'm a nerd like that.

Then the On Campus Apartments... I'm not sure you could have picked four girls better suited to be on a TV show than what we had going on in here. We had a TV tower, a bird cage, a dead leg under the furniture until well after Halloween, we killed many dead fish, and made a whole lot of pancakes... and even got struck by lightning... 108 The Lightning Building.

I was a little nervous taking this next one. I just knew someone was going to walk out and say "what are you taking pictures of my apartment?" And then I would have to be shocked because that would mean they let someone move in there after us, oh the horror of seeing our 'replacements.' Luckily, that didn't happen, "we're still the only ones who've ever lived there, right?"

And then of course the condo. The place my parents so graciously bought for my brother and I and one of 

our many roommates. My sister and brother live there now so I got to stay there this weekend, but I lived there my last two years in college. IT was like our little home away from home. Jared, Me, and that tall girl from Wisconsin that seemed to be in Australia or Philadelphia every other semester ;)

I guess that last picture wasn't technically on campus... but I couldn't leave it out. It was neat to walk around campus and just be there. To remember when it was my home and how grateful I was to be there to be able to grow up to be able to have adventures and pretend to be poetic on occasion. To study in the Law School to feel grown up, and to listen to the high school band play to feel younger again. But to know that I don't wish every day that I was back there, but I'm thankful where that place has gotten me and the things I've learned that made me who I am now... but I guess if I could go back for just one day, maybe I would.

Anyways, Happy Picture Taking, Happy Cold Weather, Happy Remembering.

But just know that you have been warned, don't let Miss Norbury's sweater mishap happen to you too! Keep your shirts down and hearts thankful... it's almost Thanksgiving!

Three Day Weekend

Let me just give you a preview of my weekend... friends, fam, football...

Stories to tell, pictures to be shared.

Today I head to campus to take some pictures of my favorite stomping grounds with my new fancy camera (rather than my sister's iphone that I made her take pictures of me with on game day, lol. Got get some pics before they change things too much :)

Enjoying my day off more than you know, then back to Texas. Happy Monday.

BR

Kyle and I both had football filled weekends. As he headed up to Nebraska with his dad I headed down to Baton Rouge to see my fam, and of course, the Tigers play.

Death Valley. Tiger Victory.

Parking far enough away that you're not really sure if your car will still be in the yard you paid $10 to park in...

Love Dad!

Mom's Gumbo with Dad's Deer Sausage, Mom's Potato Salad, and cheering Nebraska on to victory in the living room after a crazy comeback and a lot of Corn Dancing...

Love the fam. But sadly didn't get any pictures of Mom, Jared, Logan, Aunt Pam, or Uncle Steve... oops.

And what could help me feel better as I returned back to Texas away from the fam... Well,  the gas prices when I returned home last night and paid 2.99 for gas. Yep 2.99!!!

Enjoy Columbus Day. I hope you get the day off too... or maybe you live in Louisiana and you'll end up getting Mardi Gras off later :)

Family, Snow Man Hats, and Shrimp Corn Chowder

Kyle and I are back home in Lindale, loading all the things into our house that we purchased/acquired this weekend. When I say acquired I mean the Christmas decorations that Kyle's mom was getting rid of and we so gladly accepted. Between the couple of ornaments from my Aunt Billie, the collection of stuff from Kyle's mom, and the things my mom has waiting for me... we'll have a full house! We may not even need to buy anything, but we'll see. This is our "make everything" decorating Christmas. So stay tuned for the process and results of the decorating to begin soon!

Also, I'm sure that many of you return from the Thanksgiving holidays dare I say 'tired' of your families... but I hope that many more of you return from the Thanksgiving loving and thankful that you, in fact, have a wonderful family.

I have a wonderful family.

And this post showcases the wonderful family I didn't get to see this Thanksgiving, and my pre-Thanksgiving trip down to Lake Charles to see them!

The Lake Charles Trip

The trip started with the ever so eventful rolling over to 100,000 miles on my Saturn! Are you kidding this is momentous... why do I not have a picture? Because I was looking forward to it for years/months/days, but in the everything of the trip I missed it! I looked down and oops, it's like 100124.

The women in my family are hilarious. Really. We love a sale, but we love to spend, we hate to go shopping, but love to 'run to the store' (for hours), we could care less about March Madness, but we will sure yell at a ref for a football game, we open our mouths for pictures, and need covers in the living room ALL the time.

This trip to the store we went looking for clear glass ornaments to paint... and somehow we got other things, spent more time, and never ended up with the clear glass ornaments? Let me let the pictures speak for themselves.

Confusing because they have Mardi Gras Decorations already out? ...yes.

This one we convinced my mom to open her
mouth for the pic! Don't you love those hats?

We could not help this. You would have done the same thing.

The real fun part of our family is that we have family right next door. Now I'm not talking about the way you call your neighbors your Uncles and Aunts because you're so close. I mean that my mom's brother and his family literally live next door, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I mean we have pavers that lead from one house to the other in case of mud.

So Saturday night we flipped on the LSU game (ULM, so it was a winning game) and all gathered around the TV, to like I said, yell and cheer and eat yummy food. But again on Sunday afternoon they were over again for Aunt Pam's famous shrimp corn chowder made by mom and of course family fun. Really you should visit us.

So here's the fam: Note Jared and Justin aren't pictured. Jared wouldn't be photographed at the moment, and Justin was sadly out of town.

Cousin Chelsey, Cousin Logan, and Sister Payton

Pay and Dad. Notice Payton is in camo,
she'd like to make sure you know it's because
she was hunting. Also note the amount of Ritz
crackers in her hand :)

Aunt Pam and Mom

Dad and Mom. this is where we realized
they were kind of matching.

This is why I love my mom. Well, one reason.

And of course all the Kingsley Ladies. :) Love.

I love my family.  And again, Happy Thanksgiving! Take time today and love your family, the ones you were born into, raised by, and even married into :)

...and get your craftiness ready for the Christmas decorating!