BENDING THE RULES..A USWNT FANFIC

Family Is Everything

It's been 2 days since we caught up with the Harris family. A lot has happened since December 22.

Grandma and Grampa arrived from California last night and Gramma Tammy arrived a few hours before that. Tammy met Noah, and they seemed to hit it off immediately. Tammy had him hysterically laughing in the first half an hour of talking. For Barb and Jack though, it's been a bit harder. Noah has been unintentionally distancing himself from them, just because he's kinda, sorta afraid of them.

At breakfast this morning, there was an open seat next to Barb, but Noah chose to sit at the end by himself. Barb was a bit hurt, and Whit could see that, so she decided to talk to him.

"Hey, you gotta a minute?" Whit asks as she enters the boy's room.

"Yea..." Noah says as he puts down his colored pencil.

"Okay, um...I want to talk to you about Grandma and Grampa." Whit says as she sits down next to her son.

"Alright..." Noah answers.

"Well, I think you should try a little harder in getting to know them. They wanna take you out to lunch, maybe you should take them up on the offer."

"Oh um..." Noah thinks.

"I'll have Gramma come up, maybe she can talk you into it," Whit says as she stands up and rubs the back of Noah's head.

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"Knock, knock." Noah hears from the doorway. He looks around and sees Grandma Barb with her holiday sweater on.

"Hi sweetie," Barb says. "...Grampa and I were thinking of going out for lunch. Know of any good restaurants?"

"Um, the pizza here is pretty good." Noah nervously chuckles.

Barb comes in. "Whatcha working on?" She asks. Noah looks down at the canvas in front of him.

"Oh...it's Taylor's Christmas gift, I'm her secret Santa."

"Oh Noah, it's beautiful. She'll absolutely love it."

Noah grins down at his piece of artwork. "...thanks."

Barb nods. "So do you want to go out to lunch? You can choose where we eat..."

Noah agrees, and the three go out to lunch.

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While Jack, Barb, and Noah are out, Tammy, along with Ashlyn and Whitney, start the preparations for Christmas dinner. Tonight on Christmas Eve, Barb is making her famous lasagna, but the turkey needs to be soaked for tomorrow.

Tammy and Ash are given the job of cleaning and "dismembering" the turkey.

Tammy washed the turkey and now it is time to pull out the insides.

Ash had the job of pulling out the neck, a.k.a the dick.

"That's probably the first one you've ever touched," Tammy says jokingly as Ash sticks her hand in the turkey.

Whitney chuckles from the counter, she honestly loves Ashlyn's mom so much.

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It's around 3:30 now, and all of the kids are doing their last minute shopping and wrapping. Dalton took one of the cars and took Jonah out for some ice cream. Taylor, as her good deed, is helping Brendan with last minute things for their yard. Even though he's being a total dictator...

After B and Taylor come in after about 2 hours of being out in the freezing cold, hoping to warm up.

Brendan meets Bryce in the kitchen.