Gumbo Saturday

is a tradition at the Horton house - it's just like Thanksgiving, but instead of Thursday, it's on Saturday and instead of turkey, we eat gumbo. This makes perfect sense, I guess... Anyway, when I was little, I guess you could say I grew up with the Horton cousins. I mean, we didn't see each other everyday like Hannah, Morgan and Avery, but I went to preschool with my cousin Brett and I totally remember being terrified when Brett and Darrell were together. I clearly remember being terrorized when they would look at me and ask, "Whatta ya lookin' at?". For some odd reason, this made me want to cry (probably because I was a ninny little girl). I also remember that they LOVED Star Wars. The only big screen movie I ever remember seeing as a child is Star Wars - with them - so clearly, the thought of R2D2 today makes me break out into hives. Lisa was older and WAY cool to me. Then four years after me came Ashley and then I guess about four years after that came Jenny. So my memories were really about Brett and Darrell (and so was my therapy!).

I GUESS you could say that we are all grown up now - or maybe I should just say that we are older. Lisa has four children, I have two and Ashley has one, so Darrell, Brett and Jenny are basically off the procreation hook. The 7 new little cousins are plenty loud enough!

Before I post the pictures of us "all grown up", I thought I could post a few pictures of us in our earlier years. This should be good for a few laughs!

This picture was taken at Christmas in 1979. My sister Ashley was one at the time and apparently, the only one smart enough to refuse to get into this picture! Does Brett still have that shirt?

I can only imagine that Grandma Ethel insisted that some of the "little ones" be in the wedding. How they picked me and Darrell, I'll never know. My mom reminds me that during the ceremony I took off my stockings because they were too itchy. I figured this out at 4 - so why are women still wearing them?

Ahhh, St. Ann preschool where Brett and I sat next to each other. Hopefully it was Halloween and our mothers just weren't playing a sick joke on us! After college, I walked into my first job and the secretary said, "Oh, I know you, you were in my preschool class and you came with your little cousin. You were so quiet and shy with straight blond hair and he was so loud!" Can you say mortified?

Here is Ashley's first birthday with all of us huddled around the cake, trying to appease the moms with one picture before diving in. Is Lisa's finger touching the cake?

So now that we have had this precious trip down memory lane, check out the shutterfly link to see the pictures from 2007. Enjoy and be sure to laugh out loud!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8DbN2TNy1Zlw&emid=sharshar&linkid=link5