Christmas Card Photos

I've told you how HARD it was.

But are you wondering which pictures I used for our Christmas Card this year?

All's well that ends well.

I had to cut the Holiday Wishes part of the card off for privacy reasons.

You understand.

Holiday Baking

I love to bake......year round.

But during the holidays, I just can't get enough.

I started stocking up on sale items that I would use in my holiday baking arsenal.

This is just the non-refrigerated, non-frozen, non-boxed, etc. etc. etc....items.

I think you get the picture.

I am obsessed.

I have an obsessive personality.

But I don't want to change.

Gifts for Book Club

I am in a book club. We meet the second Wednesday of the month at noon for discussion and a potluck lunch. I look forward to this day all month!

Our December meeting is enhanced with a game of Dirty Santa (or some call it white elephant). Each person brings a wrapped book (new or lovingly read) and the stealing begins. Here was my book:

We're you wondering what the book was? It was We Thought You'd be Prettier, True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive by Laurie Notaro. The Keeper ended up with it.

I also had a little gift for each book club member. I found the idea for this simple, homemade gift from Little Birdie Secrets.

Of course, I waited until the night before to do it and couldn't get my printer to print out the directions, so I added a dot to the top with 3T written on it. That's to remind my friends to add 3 T. of mix to hot water or milk.

It also reminds them that Laurie Notaro cannot be the dorkiest girl alive.

I've been a busy little elf...........

Like just about everyone else out there in America, we are feeling the crunch this holiday season. So this year, most of my gifts will be homemade. I always do some homemade items, but this year I've done more than any other year I can remember. At least as an adult; as a kid I always made homemade gifts for everyone.

I have a Holiday folder. I keep a list of for whom and what I buy each year. And how much I spent. I keep my card list from year to year. I keep my menus. I'm sure there's more, but you get the picture.

This year I made a list of who I could make gifts for and ideas for said gifts. This became my Project List.

I marked the first category off of my Project List last weekend:

I made 6 name pillows.

However, I remembered to take a picture AFTER I boxed two of them up to be shipped out! They were pink and green also.

Same great background...not!......Note to self: Bed doesn't work well as a backdrop.

I bought the instructions for these pillows from YouCanMakeThis.com I have been happy with every purchase I've made from there. And I love looking through the picture galleries, too.

I should be finishing up with Project #2 today. I'll be posting with those pics soon!


Have you made any gifts this year????

Two days in a row?

I know, can you believe it? I've now posted two days in a row ~ three times in less than a week.

And. it. wasn't. even. a. holiday.

Anyway, after one of my friends saw the pillow I made for the birthday party favor, she asked me to make some pillows for Hanukkah gifts for her. I hesitantly agreed, being sure to make a full disclosure that I'm still learning to sew and am not PERFECT by any stretch. She brought over two beautiful bolster covers and three Pottery Barn pillow forms. Ummmm, the pillows I've made were shaped according to the letters in the name and then filled with stuffing. Like Ann would be wayyyy shorter than say, Annamaria. And if the seams weren't straight, well it just looked "homemade" (hopefully in a good way). But that wasn't gonna be the case here. I thought, "Ok, I can figure out the pillow forms". But the bolster covers made me nervous. I was afraid of sewing directly onto them and messing them up. But I agreed nonetheless. We went shopping and choose fabric together. Once I got sewing I was liking how they were coming together. But I refused to applique each letter directly onto the bolster covers. I came up with tacking a separate fabric on top of the cover, therefore if it turned out horrible it would be easier to remove and do something else with it.

And low and behold, I was happier with the end result than I imagined. It's not perfect, but they will do.

Here, look for yourself:



Sorry about the blinding white background, but I just wanted to get a picture done to force me to post. And it worked.

I'll be back soon to show what Santa's little elf has been up to...........stay tuned!

How hard can it be?

Seriously, how hard can it be to take a picture to send holiday cards???

My family is obviously photographically challenged. Can we get disability for that?

I realize that I have made it exponentially harder each time I add another baby.....but I'm done now, I swear! I accept that I am not photogenic and therefore will hate any picture including me. But I failed to realize I could pass this gene on.

I shopped for coordinating outfits for all 6 of us, avoiding anything too matchy-matchy. Then I find a day when our schedule is fairly open. This is MUCH harder than it seems, as it is basketball season. A few things I didn't count on when trying to organize: the windy, overcast weather, My Man losing a game the night before, and as previously mentioned, the un-photogenic gene.

Throw those three challenges together with a willful toddler, two kids in braces who don't like to smile, and a hyperactive child who either smirks or has the widest fake smile, and can't seem to look at the camera unless he's blinking. Oh what a very, merry Christmas time, this year!

We haven't taken a family picture in about 4 years and Bunny boo has since joined our family so we thought we'd try to get one of these.

Here's a few examples of how it worked for us:

This was our first shot and bunny boo was still cooperative. The wind, however was not.

We switch sides of the gazebo trying to avoid the ONLY ray of sunlight, but the wind is still crazy.
Bunnyboo is getting fussy. Let's go to the boardwalk and see if the wind is blocked a bit. Nope.
Let's go back to our friend's house (she is the photographer for the day). But all Bunny boo wants to do is swim!
Bunny boo is done at this point. My Man is over it. Let's just go with what we got and try to make something work.



I played with photoshop for a few days but just couldn't get anything I was happy enough with to make 100 cards out of. I'm new to photoshop and it shows! I told My Man we would choose one of the family ones and just make a few 5X7's to give to grandparents, but I thought our best shot was a card with picture of the kids.


So yesterday, I decided to take the kids out back individually and shoot a few pics. The weather wasn't a problem, it was a bright, sunny day with just a bit of wind. My Man wasn't AS stressed. And I didn't have to be in the pic. What else could go wrong? Genetics, baby!




I know you have braces, but could you please smile????

I guess not.

I sound like a broken record, but: I know you have braces, but could you please smile??

OOOHHH, maybe not.

Hey, I'm over here!

Have you been into the benedryl again???

All that's left is the baby. Should be a piece of cake! I mean babies look cute all the time, right? Ummm, not so much.

Nice drool!

Don't tell Mommy no! I promise not to take anymore pictures.

No need to hit the camera. I swear that was the last one.

By some miraculous feat, I managed to get at least one decent shot of the three older kids and the baby's just shows her personality. It's just this year's card. I can do better next year. Maybe I should start working on this in May..............

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has this affliction. PLEASE!

Thanksgiving ala' Chickie Poo

It looks like I'm only able to hit the holidays, blogwise. I am pathetic, I know. Wanna hear what's worse? Chickie Poo actually took these pics and told me they were for my blog. So now I must post!

I've mentioned before that I am married to a college coach. He coaches basketball which is currently in season. They practice Thanksgiving morning and play in a tournament the following two days. Athletes that have family living within two hours usually go there for dinner. But many live too far for it to be practical to go home. So they come here. That means I never know until about 2 hours before I'm serving my meal how many people I will be feeding. This year we had the least; 14. I'd guess the most we've had was 30 or so. It always makes trying to plan fun! Yeah, right!

My husband also let's each player shoot ONE half court shot after Thanksgiving practice. If they make it, they get a homemade pie of mine. This year two players came close but no one won. Last year, two kids won. I was told that one of the current players who came close this year complained because he is a senior and won't get another shot!

Chickie Poo wanted to take pictures of our rustic holiday table decor. I was too busy getting food out and resetting the tables each time the phone rang adding and subtracting guests! But I promised I'd post them so here they are........





Our Adult table set for dinner.



I made a dollar tree run the night before and picked up these candle holders and candles.



Then I used stickers and made tags spelling out THANKFUL. I used twine to tie them on.



For the Kids table: I clustered votives, tied them with a ribbon, and put them on a glass salad plate. Then I turned a glass bowl upside down, put a pine cone inside and placed the plated candles on top. Looked cute, but we lit them too soon and then melted before we sat down to dinner.



This was our dessert table. We had four types of pie, ice cream, whipped cream, cool whip, as well as caramel and chocolate sauces.



This was our Thanksgiving Tree. I'm pretty sure Chickie Poo made some of the players add leaves of what they were thankful for. Can you see the football game on?



Of course, Chickie Poo made a sign for the tree, in case anyone didn't know what it was. And then she had to take a picture, because.......If you give a mouse a cookie...then.....


She took more pictures, but I'll save you. I'll try to be more consistent about blogging and if not, there's always Christmas and New Year's coming soon :)