Family Pictures

On top of all the Christmas stuff going on, we made some time to brave the cold and go out to take some pictures, now you HAVE to understand that I'm EXTREMELY far away from calling myself a photographer. I'm TERRIBLE at it and even when I like photography, photography DOES NOT like me back. I'll try to learn more next year but I honestly have no hopes for it. I still had to give it a shot this year since I'm cheap and didn't want to pay an expert to do it (maybe next year when I have lost some weight ;) ). Anyway, we went out and we had some fun taking pictures that will be good enough for our Christmas cards. I'll share them here but please DO NOT JUDGE, because that would not make you a nice person :P

Bahaha Darren looks SO uncomfortable!

Poor Darren, his hands were freezing :(

See? I told you I STINK, but my family is BEAUTIFUL and that's what matters in my book :D

Elf on the Shelf and Christmas stuff

Wow! I can't believe my last post was in September!! I'm hoping to catch up before the year is over, but for right now I'll just go right into the Christmas stuff.
Lately I've been busy trying to figure out how to decorate sugar cookies using royal icing and I've spent a little too much time at universityofcookie.com and other wonderful websites. I've experimented with some cookies and I've been pleased with the results so far.

                               

Darren kept asking over and over if he they were ready to eat. Patience child! 

Work in progress

Yes, you have to deal with a messy kitchen

I'll be making more of these cookies and other yummy treats for friends during this Holiday season, maybe I'll post some pictures of that :)

I have also had a little too much fun with the credit card going around Christmas shopping, especially during "Black Friday", I usually go by myself and I don't mind it because I can stay as late as I want and go around as many times as I feel like it. No pressure from anybody ;)

At school, Darren's teacher introduced the kids (at least to Darren) to the popular "Elf of the Shelf". I had seen it before but never knew what it was about and I LOVE IT! At first Darren had a lot of concerns about adopting an naughty elf that would destroy the house and of course go into his "holy, untouchable bathroom". After a few days of having experienced "Santa's little helper" and "Ginger" at school Darren was really excited about adopting an elf and we did!
We voted on names and we picked "Nicholas Mistletoe" we call him "Nick" for short and now that he got his magic he's been up to some fun things. Here's some pictures :)

Before "Nick" got his "magic".

On his first night at home, Darren placed him near Santa :)

 Looks like Nick was busy making snowflakes with the sheep.

Darren figured Nick might be hungry so he shared a fruit roll up with him, Nick decided to have a baking party with my Lalaloopsy, he even found my cookie cutters and the Capri Suns! Darren couldn't stand the mess for long so he cleaned it up after school.

AHOY MATEY!! This morning 12-07, we found him playing pirates with "Honey", looks like he made himself a pirate costume and brought some "pirate booty" from the North Pole.

On the downside, Darren has been waking up around 6- 6:30 AM everyday to go find Nick! I don't know we can do this until Christmas! :(


This post was made by the chronically tired