Love, Erika

Santa Baby Rewind

Not much new to share, so I'll post some cute baby pics from when the boys were both 6ish months old. This was a cute age, but I'm soooooo glad we're well past that now. :) I love the fact that Parker wants me to tell him about Santa every night as I'm tucking him in, and he talks about him flying in the sky, and opening presents and about how we went to the mall today to see Santa, and Drew sat with him but Parker was scared and sad. He TOLD me this. Something about how Drew asked for a dinosaur and Parker wants a train. That kid is amazing.

Christmas Tree

We went to pick out our tree today. Forgoing the precut trees that we usually get at the little church down the road which are always brittle and dry by the time we get them (not to mention from Canada), we went to a local place (Berry Good Farm) and cut our own. Very enjoyable since the weather has been so nice! I think it would have been a completely different experience if there had been snow, so I'm glad it worked out favorably.

The kids were excited, running around. Drew kept wanting to get the15 foot trees. It was kind of funny, when we finally cut down the one we wanted, he was sort of quiet as Dave carried it back to the car. When I asked what was wrong, he said softly, "This tree is not so big." Poor guy! He had a hard time envisioning how big it would really be inside our house.

When we got it home he was very excited when he saw, that yes, it was plenty big. I LOVE this tree. I don't know what kind it is, but it has such a wonderful rustic shape to it rather than the big fluffball that we often end up with. Too bad I had to waste it on colored lights. :) Drew really wanted colored lights, so that's what I did.

Unfortunately my cold is so bad that I don't even know if it smells good. Dave says it does.

It's not even DECEMBER yet!

What is going on with Christmas this year? Was Thanksgiving early this year or something??  I can't even believe how far into the Christmas season we are already and it's not even December. Oh well. I guess we need something kind of special and magical to get us through these dark months of winter, so it must be a good thing.

I took advantage of a RARE moment today to take a picture of our "fireplace" with the stockings up. Believe me, it does NOT look like this normally. Our chimney and woodstove are being cleaned/inspected tomorrow, so all the crap around the woodstove has been removed and pulled out of the way for that. Normally it has a baby fence all around it, with all kinds of crap piled up on the inside around it. Classy. It's  been about two years since I've seen it so clean and nice, so I took a picture so it would last longer. :)

Christmas Eve Cookies

This year we decorated cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, and a good time was had by all. I bought one of those logs of sugar cookie dough and cooked it up, and also got one of those cans of icing and some sprinkles. It was a lot of fun, and I managed not to overbake the cookies too much, so they were actually edible. The icing kind of tasted like preservatives but it was okay. :)  We can't expect too much from a novelty convenience product.

 

 

 
 

Getting Ready for Christmas

December has come and gone so quickly, and I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve. We've done all the usual stuff like decorating the house with trees and garland, and put lights outside. I've been trying to talk to Drew a lot about Santa and what's going to happen on Christmas Eve, and he sort of gets it, but not really. He just knows there will be "toys from Santa" but that's about it.

 

Drew brought home the sweetest little ornaments from school which we were proud to hang on the tree:
 
 

Drew came to the car after school wearing these antlers and his nose painted red. So cute!!!
 

 
 

Our neighbors next door have a nice lighted scene that we enjoy looking at. This is yesterday's dusting of snow just before it got dark. 

A cute lil' gingerbread maple cupcake from The Black Forest Cafe.
 

We had a great time when my parents came to visit and they enjoyed seeing how much the kids have grown and what their personalities are like now.

 
 

 

 

And lastly, one of Parker that I liked, looking out the foggy front door.
 
 

2010 Christmas Card

I have to confess that I cheated on this year's Christmas card photo.  The thought of strangling my kids on the couch again as we wrestle them into submission during the 5 seconds before the self timer goes off feeling like 10 minutes for an ultimately uninteresting and forced photo, made me want to hurl so I thought of something else. Whatevs!!!! 

Back on October 3rd, we all took a lengthy road trip to Rindge, NH for a mini-session with Kate Preftakes Photography. And I gotta tell you, this was not all peaches & cream from my point of view.

As a photographer, I VALUE and UNDERSTAND the commitment to taking the time to make a great family portrait. My husband did not. From the moment he found out about the booking (in August), to the day of the session (in October), I heard unmitigated bitching and whining and anger. And he forgot about it several times in between August and October, so every time he re-remembered it, the bitching was renewed with added vigor.

So that morning we hopped in the car and began the long 1.5 hour drive to Rindge, which would have been a pleasant drive for just the two of us, but with two little kids that is agony. Parker is usually such a pleasant child, but that day he was off his game and he started howling precisely 10 minutes into our drive. He was PISSED by the time we got there.  Drew was agitated and annoyed.  Ironically, I had totally expected Drew to be our problem child for this activity since he usually IS the unpredictable one. But that day Parker was out of sorts and not happy about the long drive.

We arrived at Kate's gorgeous home and our mini-session went so quick! Kate was wonderful to work with and got some great family shots and individual ones of the kids. Less than 30 minutes later we packed it all up back in the car and headed back home for the repeat 1.5 hour drive back. LOL. Kids were NOT happy about that.

Fast forward two weeks later, and Kate let us know our proofing gallery was ready and we got to see our photos. They were gorgeous. And guess who LOVED THEM???  Dave. Well, all of us really, but Dave was made a believer that day and told me I was right to have those photos made. He even ordered several for his desk at work.

 
Photo by Kate Preftakes Photography

We ordered prints, and the grandmothers ordered prints, and those are well and good. But I'm a digital girl and that's how I use my photos, so I ordered my favorite as a digital file. I'm watching the sales to have it made into a lovely canvas.  But also, as Christmas card time rolled around and I started stressing about making yet another agonizing photo of my two kids, I remembered the beautiful family portrait that Kate made for us and I was like -OF COURSE!  it's the obvious choice for our Christmas card this year.

So -boom- done. It was the easiest card I've designed in many years, and definitely the easiest photo since I didn't have to take it. :) Love it!  As a result I had them designed, ordered, delivered, stamped and addressed before Thanksgiving. LOL.

 

So..... are you seeing a theme here? It seems my Christmas card photo each year always has a story behind it, like these stories from 2009 and 2007.

This Year's Christmas Tree

So we went and picked out our tree for this year, and survived another one.  Things have gotten MUCH easier in recent years since we got our Rav4 and the Swivel Tree Stand. We almost didn't get a tree at all since Dave didn't want one, but it's about the kids so I insisted. What a bummer to have nothing to put presents under!

We went to Deveriendt Farm Stand this year to get our tree instead of the church on Henry Bridge Rd like we'd been doing for years. Last year's tree was literally BROWN and crispy by Christmas Day so I was really distrustful about where they got their trees from and when they were cut. I thought a place that specializes in plants and produce would probably have better trees, so we went there instead. (As it turns out, the tag on the bottom of our tree said PRODUCT OF NOVA SCOTIA so clearly there is nowhere to get a LOCAL tree unless you go cut the dang thing out of the ground yourself!)

Which we very well may do next year just to ensure a really fresh tree. But I have been promised a prelit artificial tree. You heard it here, folks.

So here we are picking out a tree. Drew still didn't really have any idea of what we were doing. I have 3 mini trees set up in the living room, and he pretty much thought that was our Christmas tree.  Little did he know we were getting a big one too!

 

 

So we got it un-netted and set up in the living room, gave it a drink, and let the branches warm up and settle. I started on the lights yesterday in the early afternoon but had to take a break and go to Target for one more string. Finally finished in the evening and it still doesn't have as many lights as I would like but my arms were all red and stinging from all the tiny cuts and sap from the tree. ugh. It's good enough! Drew helped me decorated it last night and all these red ornaments I've been collecting over the years from Target day-after-Christmas-clearance have finally come into their own and it looks great (on the top half of course!).  Everything breakable is out of reach from the toddler and I don't really trust the 3 year old either. LOL. We're taking bets on who knocks it down first.

 

Holiday Baking

It was with sheer determination that I got a few things made this Christmas season. It really wasn't a great year to try this kind of thing to such an extent (as Dave repeatedly reminded me) but to me it just helps to make it all more special if you bake some yummy things. . . and what the heck, you just gotta go a little nuts and do things you wouldn't normally do.

For cookies, I hit up the Betty Crocker cookbook (aka interwebs) and did three different batches. It was a shame I could only do 3 since I had about 5 picked out.

First we have the Mint Chocolate Brownies. These were fantastic, but the absolute best thing about them was the mint layer..... it was beautiful, minty, creamy and just a dream. I could have eaten that alone. I now love peppermint extract. I hated to mess it up by covering it with chocolate. They were super hard to get out out of the pan, but with some careful dissecting with a hot clean knife for every cut, I finally wedged them all out. They are super-rich and fabulous.

Next came the Chai-Spiced Almond Cookies. I wanted a unique non-chocolate cookie, and this fit the bill. The reviews for this cookie said that the flavor was too mild, but I actually thought it was plenty strong, especially at first. This was a great cookie that lasted a really long time and didn't get too hard or too soft after several days. All in all, it was yummy and really did taste like chai.

And finally we have the Chocolate-Marshmallow Pillows.
 
I didn't really need another chocolate cookie, but it was so easy that I kind of was compelled to use this recipe since I was worried about time. I wasn't convinced about this one, but hey! It was good. It was so rich that it was actually the marshmallow that cut the richness. They looked fancy too.

Then for Christmas dinner I made a Snowball Cake from Kraft Foods. It's supposed to resemble those old pink Hostess snowballs that you get out of the vending machine, and I'm not afraid to admit I'm a HUGE fan. If you get their Food & Family magazine it was on the cover.  It was a little bit iffy for me.... I wasn't happy making it, not happy with the finished product and only mildly satisfied with the taste. It was edible, but tasted boring to me. Chocolate and vanilla----> ho-hum. I had a hard time getting a good picture of it too, so I'm a little hesitant posting this photo. But it at least shows the stuff in the middle. The "icing" on the outside was runny and never set up right but because it was 50% Cool Whip, in my opinion it was the yummiest part of the whole thing. :) Heh heh.

The Making of the 2009 Christmas Card

I think this year's card pretty much summed up the whole year of 2009: chaotic, frustrating, and in the end, left with a sense of exhaustion and dissatisfaction. Looking back on it, I'm thinking this would have been a great year to buy a box of soul-less pre-made cards from Target and be done with it.

Here's Dave waiting (cooperatively, would you say?) as I set up the tripod and fire off a couple of shots to get the exposure. I hate the lighting in our living room, ugh. I don't think I even bothered to put the boys in anything cute to wear because I just KNEW it wasn't' going to be worth it.

Family Pic #1 December 3rd,  5:50pm

I can already tell this is not going well. Drew had this stupid nail file he wouldn't put down, and did NOT want to sit there. I was thinking, "oh God, I'll have to photoshop that out of there."

 

Family Pic #2 5:50pm

Same old thing. This was the one I kept. It's a wonder.

Family Pic #3, 5:50pm

Finally, everybody is melting down (after FOUR WHOLE SECONDS!!!) and our photo shoot is over. Hope I got something worth saving. I just sit there smiling blithely. It's all I can do.

 

So that was it, 3 whole shots was all I could whip off in a matter of seconds with Drew throwing a fit and Dave ready to walk out.

Final result:  

 

This was the ONE picture that I actually did want on the card. But I couldn't put Parker on there, and not Drew, and since I can't get a decent picture of Drew I had to just forget the whole thing. Ugh. Grrr.

Getting the Christmas Tree

Wow, things are complicated these days. Everything is so much harder than it needs to be. We had planned to get our tree today,  because there's snow coming tomorrow. So we were going to leave when Drew got up from his nap today, which is normally 4:00. Drew has been sick for the past couple of days, but he took a good nap and I thought he was getting better. He woke up in a freaking FIT, it was unreal. We were wanting to leave, and here's Drew pitching the biggest fit of his life. He wouldn't even leave his room, just kept yelling and crying and throwing himself on the floor. We were really scared that he was really sick because he's never acted like that. 

So after confirming that he didn't have a fever or anything, we just got in the car and went. He did calm down after a couple of minutes.

We went to our usual place and were the only ones there. We have it down to an expedient process, since we've gone to this place for the past few years. We pick the tree (they always look smaller on the lot than they do when you get them home when you realize...... "ohhhhh crap that's much bigger than I thought it was....."), they cut it, net it, and we strap it on the car and off we go.

Here's the guy making a fresh cut off the bottom.

 

And Drew, looking pretty normal after pitching the biggest fit of his life.

Bagged and ready to go. Dave said whoever invented these nets and our swivel-straight tree stand ought to win the Nobel Peace Prize, not Obama. LOL.

Strapping the tree on the car, ready to head home....