Memorable Christmas

I hope your Christmas was enjoyable and full of memories.

Ours was. Here's a recap:

Spent Christmas Eve at my sisters and did the traditional open gifts containing

pajamas and games.

Once everyone got into their pajamas we played games.

Then drove home to grandpas in the snow.

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Christmas morning:

My kids woke up bright and early as usual ready to open their gifts.

The rest of the day was spent with my family (my sisters and their family).

My most memorable things about Christmas 09
1. Driving from my sisters to my dad's home. The roads had a layer of ice and then 5-6 inches of snow on the roads. We counted 20 cars in the ditches. My dad and husband pulled over a few times to help people stuck in the snow. A usually 25 minute drive was well over an hour.
2. My sister driving my van and her comment to her daughter. (Total inside joke)
3. Waking up the day after Christmas seeing my son attempting to disassemble his skateboard to make a snowboard. Sounded logical with all the snow outside.
4. My dad's response when I told him, my daughter wanted a pink toolbox, a real toolbox with tools like her dad's but only pink. My daughter's response once she opened the toolbox, "Where's some wood."
5. Returning home to find 2 -3 feet snow drifts in our driveway.

Grateful

I am so grateful for all the families that entrusted me this year with their family's/children's pictures. It has been an honor. I really love what I do!

Here is a year in review of some of my favorite pics.

I have been blessed! - Jen

Merry Christmas

Thankful for the many blessings this year.

Praying that everyone will see God's glory this Christmas.

If you missed the making of this card, check this out.

I'm going to be away spending time with my family.

I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas with loved ones.

Give your family a squeeze. - Jen

The princess cake

Confession: When it comes to most of my creative ideas,

it's usually a spoof off of someone else's idea.

Like this princess cake:

There is no way I would have been able to think of this on my own.
Plus I used the help of this YouTube tutorial for a princess cake.

The good:
1. Pampered chef's mixing bowl worked wonders for the top of the dress.
2. Cutting a hole in each cake was a brilliant idea before inserting the doll.
3. Purchasing a cheap plastic dressed Barbie helped immensely.
4. First time I ever did the "crumb" layer frosting thing. I'll do that again.
5. Doing the swirly things to the frosting helped when hit with the bad.....

The bad:
1. Since my daughter has an aversion to red dye, I tried frozen black berries to make the frosting pink and purple.
a. I used up 2 cups of blackberries to get the desired colors - that's a lot of mixing.
b. The "purple" icing became too runny. I didn't realize it until after I placed it in the bag to
pipe the designs. It leaked out of the decorating tip and onto my counter.
c. Placing powdered sugar in the runny bag of icing is a bad idea. I had clumps of powdered
sugar while I was trying to decorate the dress. Next time I will get a whole new bag and start all over.
d. The purple icing never got to the desire consistency to pipe the designs. Oh well.
2. I put the cake in the freezer with the "crumb" layer frosting and the wax paper. The wax paper was suppose to be taken out before to help eliminate the frosting mess. The wax paper stuck to the cake! Sigh.......


I believe the good prevailed.

Princess superhero birthday

My girl had a princess superhero birthday party filled with little girls in princess costumes, kingly boys sporting superhero capes ready to save the day. It was a dancing, balloon tossing, candle blowing, cake eating 4 year old birthday party. Love you my little princess- mom

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If interested I may tell the story behind this princess birthday cake.

brrrr

It's our first official snowfall with a school closing.

Actually not much snow, maybe an inch or two

But absolutely freezing!

Today's high 13 degrees, Tonight's low -4

My son is currently playing outside in the snow.

My girl and I decided the warm house was a much better choice after 5 minutes outdoors.

I like to be warm.

The scene behind my kids Christmas card photo shoot

This is how our last minute Christmas card photo shoot went since I decided I didn't want any of the gazillion pictures that I have of my kids this past year.
In order of events:

3:15 Pick up son from school. Realize my daughter is asleep. Deep sigh.
3:30 Arrive home. Tell son that I need a big favor and would like to do a photo shoot after he relaxes and eat a snack. Try to wake up daughter. No use.
4:00 Place props and camera in car.
4:10 Tell son to get on his photo shoot clothes. Realizing that he will grumble about the outfit, I immediately tell him that he can change his clothes after the photo shoot, and he will get something sweet for his modeling job.
4:12 Pick daughter up from her sleeping state and place her on the toilet. Hoping that she will go since I know she will need to in the near future. No such luck.
4:14 Dress, brush and curl daughter's hair while she is laying on her bed still wanting to sleep.
4:15 Load kids in the car.
4:25 Unload props at an uninhabited home.
4:26 Kids complain its too cold.
4:27 Daughter says she need to go the bathroom. Exhibit A:

4:28 Attempt to help daughter use the bathroom outside. Again no such luck.

4:30 Quickly take some pictures.

4:32 My heart races as a cop car siren goes off. I think I'm in trouble since I am trespassing on private property. The cop car races by. Whew.

4:33 Load up kids, props, and camera in car.

4:34 After driving 1/2 mile, daughter pipes up and says she is not buckled.

4:34 2 second later Pull over and buckle her car seat.

4:44 Pull into home, let daughter use the bathroom.

4:46 Arrive at gas station, fill up, and let kids choose a sweet of their choice.

4:50 Let kids eat a donut before dinner.

Let's see if I can make lemonade out of lemons. To be continued...........