Traditions! Traditions!

So, for Christmas Eve we performed our traditions:

Playing Clue and then getting ADD in .3 seconds and giving up.



(Miss Scarlet with the knife in the kitchen. Lee was closest.)

The theme of the evening. Apparently Daniel already knew because we found this in the box.


One of our new traditions - happy birthday Jesus cake!!

Delia being possessed by the devil/taking her cupcake eating very seriously.

Julia taking part in my least favorite Christmas tradition. Wrapping parents' presents at midnight Christmas eve that they chose not to deal with until then. Seriously, Reidster.

Christmas came early for me. De-meating another turkey at 11:00 at night.


And now I give you: When Hannah Montana Exploded on Annie.


And more..
There's more, but I'll spare you the monotony. p.s. My new favorite music may be the Hannah Montana cds. All 4 of them that she got. And she gets to go to the concert in Vegas. Jealous.

Julia and her head of many colors.

My Christmas present to myself: I don't have to get ready on Christmas or get out of my pajamas. Even to go to the movies. Twice. I now own the best movie ever only second to Napoleon Dynamite..

Lee and Eden having questionable mustache growth on Christmas morning..


And our newest holiday tradition: Seeing a really crappy family-friendly movie (National Treasure) and then Julia, me, and the Fletchers sneaking away to see true movie geniusness (Juno).

"You better pay for that pee-stick when you're done with it. Don't think it's yours just because you marked it with your urine!" Go and see it. It will change your life. Or be TMI and fear for Julia's innocence...

Jones Par-tay!!

Spoils from the Jones White Elephant Christmas Party:

Gifts given : Alcoholics Anonymous Bible (with a picture of Meredith attached), white hand statue reminiscent of Buster's hand chair on Arrested Development (with a picture of Buster attached), Office and Beatles and High School Musical calendars, Ralph Moody book, doctor's model of an ear, electric toilet scrubber.

Gifts received: Cattitude book, concert choir dress from Taylor Jr. High, bathroom spa treatment thing, silver frame, High School Musical calendar (we ended up giving it to Annie so she wouldn't cry), Gold Medal Gardening sweatshirt (my uncle Neil's company), ear model (Reidster actually stole it from someone else), handheld recorder with said choir's concert recorded onto it.

What now sits with pride on the mantle next to the Christmas stuff:

Not for long, Reidster. Not for long..

Babes in Rapeland

So Laura and I ventured over to the terrifying side of AZ. That would be the west side aka Avondale. We had heard of an amazing place called Hobby Lobby or as I call it, Hoberto Loberto. So after chucking my spanish final at my teacher, we went to find it. Google maps lead us to the wrong place. If you look up Hobby Lobby, it will give you this as one of the locations:


Here's a close-up of the terrifyingness that is Gordon's Hobbies aka the first stop on Rape Lane.


Check out the ominous clouds in the background. Damn you google maps to hell. We could have had children with anonymous fathers thanks to you, jerks.

So we loved Hobby Lobby so much and were busy throwing huge rolls of wrapping paper that we may have not needed into the cart, we forgot to take pictures. Because you need to see this amazing place yourself. Not that my loyalty is wavering from Scrapbooks Etc. Hobby Lobby's scrapbooking section was pretty lame, but Michaels should maybe be scared. Like the felt section. They have every single color of felt you can imagine. And did I even need felt or soap crystals? No.

We rewarded our amazingness with Panda Express afterwards.

This is Laura before she passed out in a salt-induced coma. Please see evidence of her salt addiction below. She is the president of Salt Lovers Anonymous.

She may have asked the lady for another packet. Laura takes her sodium intake very seriously. Maybe a salt lick for Christmas would be an appropriate gift..

Me having anger at Panda's because I chose beef & broccoli for my other entree and I totally should have picked chicken with mushrooms. Idiot!!


In conclusion, we will be traveling back to this mecca on Friday aka payday for Laura. I think her husband hates Hoberto Loberto.

So Julia and I saw this picture on the back of Entertainment Weekly and we put it on the fridge. Because it is amazing and encapsulates all things awesome - Mean Girls + Arrested Development.

No Shave November..

So I am going to pretend to be Julia because she won't blog about this. So apparently at Mesa High, a new tradition has formed since I stopped going there. It's called No Shave November. It's the "coolest" thing to do apparently. So Julia and her friends decided to do it. And I was so glad when it was over because then Julia wouldn't make me feel her nasty curly leg hair legs anymore. No worries, armpits were excluded in No Shave November. I guess I've been cool forever because I had the No Shave Nineties and the Twice a Month Two Thousands. Evidence of the hideousness:


And she has alerted me that there is Don't Shave December and Mustache March. Classy, MHS, classy. No wonder Mountain View always made fun of us.
p.s. No I don't abuse my kid - who knows how she got the nasty scars on her legs.

T Giving

So Julia and I were just complaining that no one has been updating their blogs. Then we realized we were the main culprits. Oopsies. So, here is T giving in a nutshell.

Us playing Scattergories before the amazing meal. Note: do not ever play this game with Devin. Here's a classic example of how he beat the crap out of us. "Things made out of metal." Ozzy Osbourne. Who would think of that? Seriously?



Secret shame: I, Emily, love touching raw meat. Really. Pretty much I should have been a serial killer/butcher/surgeon/Sweeney Todd. So if you need steaks marinated or raw meat palpitated, just let me know. Me getting the turkey ready=heaven. p.s. Even worse? I love de-meating the turkeys after we are done with T giving. And I got to do two this year and loved every minute.



Us being stoked to eat amazingness. Please note Annie's mound of mashed potatoes.



The Fletchies who assisted us in creating this magnificent meal.


How Genevieve the dog spent her Thanksgiving. Wishing she was human.

Hotness

Preview of the Jones family Christmas card. Be excited for the hotness of this card, people. It only took two different locations, two appointments, 250 pictures, and two different photographers to get a photo where we are all looking at the freaking camera with eyes open.

Spew-tah

Okay, so the amazing Utah Trip.

First, Utah greeted me with this. That's harsh, Utah. Way harsh. When I left AZ, it was the opposite of this temperature. Naughty.


First, Sarah's mom Rebecca and I had to make sure the SLC temple would be the perfect place for me to get married. It is. Now to find my destiny.

Then, we went to Sarah's house. Or maybe the house Sarah is working on for her job. I wanted to mess around and take hilarious pictures, but Sarah was serious business face. p.s. Erica, I found your future's laundry room. It's here in Park City.



"Hi. We are Justin, Amanda, Curtis, and baby Xander. We are ticked that Emily made us watch a movie about awkward bee/human love instead of graphic violence in American Gangster."
Baby Xander - "Thanks for saving my soul from eternal damnation, Emily."



The highlight of my trip. Cafe Rio Perfection. Those Mesa people need to take lessons from the Utah workers.



I now give you the segment entitled: Things We Did in Utah that I Do in AZ All the Time.

1. Having a party at the F 21. I must go to all of them in the world. Me, Sarah, Rebecca, and Aunty Kate. Love her more than life.

2. Going to Ikea. See #1 as to why we had to go.

Segment 2: Paris and Nicole choosing and putting together a dresser.

First, choosing the dresser..

Paris had an awfully hard time choosing which brown/black dresser to get from Ikea. Clearly, Mom Hilton in the background couldn't decide either. This was Mom Hilton's first Ikea experience. She was a little overwhelmed.

Then, Paris and Nicole opened the boxes.


See Paris having a hard time with the instructions aka picture lessons. Clearly this was not a challenge on Simple Life:Interns.


Nicole had to be picture taker seeing as she is having Good Charlotte's baby soon.

Paris getting stressed with the picture instructions. No words were on the book of instructions AT ALL.


Sunday we had Thanksgiving dinner with these awesome people. We all had to say what we were grateful for. The best part? Dad Sykes pretending to be Michael Scott while saying what he was thankful for.

Once again, my boobs were trying to be the center of the picture. Will they ever learn?

The rest of the Sykes, my new bff Stacey, and my not so much favorite Sykes, Otto the dog.

Warning: the following picture contains graphic violence and hate. Parental disgression is advised.


Love life that Bugman Casey is coming on Thursday. I told him I'd throw in some brownies if he would spray our house with pure acid. None of that bugman potion that takes multiple times to work. p.s. This is what greeted me when brushing my teeth this morning. But alive.

Okay, so I'm waiting for my funny to come back to post about the SLC trip. Instead, I give you
Things Heard in Biology 181

1. "So I was planning on cheating off this girl in my chemistry class, but my friend made me move over a seat because she didn't like sitting by this creep next to her. So I totally failed the test because I couldn't see the smart girl's answers."
2. "We have a quiz today? Sh**, I'm totally going to put the answers in my cell phone so I can look on it."
3. Boy saying this to girl: "What does I heart AX mean?"
Girl: "AX is a brand."
Boy: "So you really love that deodorant Axe?"
Girl: "No. It stands for the store Armani Exchange."