Melissa this is for you......

Here is one of the family trees that I made as a gift for Christmas. Clearly the picture is not the best. I had every intention of taking better pictures in the day light.....but I forgot....and now they are wrapped.

But I do love the way they all turned out. It is the gift I am most excited about giving.....I hope my mother-in-law likes it. And as much as I would like to pretend I was the creative person who thought of this I cannot. My friend, Shauna, made these for her family a while ago and I decided to copy it. And it is really easy. I made it in Word using Word art to manipulate the "branches" . Actually Shauna made it in Word and just emailed me the one she made and I changed the info to our family.

It has the full names of everyone (maiden names for girls) along with their birth dates. I printed it on vellum paper and put a decorative paper behind it. Put it in a nice frame ($7.50 at Michael's 50% off) And Viola a neat gift.

I love Christmas. I love Christmas. I love Chritsmas...

I have to keep reminding myself that I DO LOVE Christmas. I was so excited when Thanksgiving was over. We immediately got our Christmas tree (it has to be real-love the smell) and decorated our house. Oh I loved it. And now 9 DAYS away from Christmas I am not sure why. For some reason I decided to make 15 presents by hand this year. What was I thinking....well I was not thinking at all. There are 3 different projects, pajama pants (even though I am not an experienced sewer), Snowman crayons ( I had to peel 168 covers off), and my favorite and by far the most attractive 2 family trees (super cool, I will have to take a picture and post it) and when I decided to make them I did not think "O maybe not a good idea since you are making so much already". NOPE. So here I am again 9 days away from Christmas and I have done nothing for the pajama pants except buy the flannel, and have not attempted to melt any crayons, the family trees I am actually almost done with but they were the easiest. And then the CHRISTMAS CARDS. Every year I HATE them and every year I do them. In a effort to look cute I got us all coordinating outfits. We got all done up and for 1 1/2 hours we took pictures (Brian has turned into the Nazi photographer...but that is for another time). None of which actually turned out well. The picture we are sending has to be in black and white because the color looks funny. So you cannot tell we have coordinating outfits on. And Brian and I are the only ones who look decent. And out of the 4 of us Ben and Austin are by far the cutest part of the family. So below are some of the pictures that will not be on the Christmas card because they would not fit. See the are pretty CUTE! But you won't be able to tell that from our card...o-well. So it is here and now that I have decided to stop stressing. So what if the cards are going out late? So what if I accidentally put the return address label where the stamp goes on all of the envelopes? So what if the family letter does not have anything to say about me because all I did this year was try to survive? Well I did and I am HAPPY it is Christmas time. REALLY.

TIRED....

....of genes that fit in the morning but by noon could fall off. Tired of pulling them up! Tired of cleaning up cutie peals (little oranges) because the boys can peel them themselves and they do anywhere and everywhere. Tired of my wedding ring flopping around on my finger because the cold has shrunk my finger. Tired of looking for my wedding ring because I have taken it off somewhere. Tired of being cold. 72 Degrees in the house should be warm enough right?

Don't get me wrong. Life is good. Just needed to get it out.