Christmas Time Is Here

I have to be honest, I really stressed myself out for Christmas this year. I'm pretty much a procrastinator anyway, and don't start buying Christmas presents until sometime in December (if I bought them earlier, I would TOTALLY forget about them. Proof: I bought these nerf guns to give to the kids in NOVEMBER--thats one month ago--and forgot to give them to the kids. See!). So anyway, usually if I have a little pressure on me, it motivates me to get things done and all ends up fine. This year it was like the pressure was so high that instead of motivating me, I shut down. I could do nothing. I sat around in a daze being overwhelmed. I'd do a little here, I'd do a little there. But thats about it. Finally four days before Christmas Dave and I went out and got the majority of presents, and I finished up the next night. I had tried to do homemade gifts for our families, they didn't get all the way put together until Saturday (yes, I know thats the day before Christmas!). I would like to say that I have learned my lesson and vow to never procrastinate Christmas like this again, but I just don't think thats a promise I can make. I'm just being honest. :)

This is what took up so much of my time:

My cousin's wife Megan, has these drawings on her wall that her brother did of their family. They KILL me, I just loved them so much! When I was taking pictures for them for Christmas cards, I snapped a couple pictures of what her brother did to give me some inspiration. I didn't do them just like his (we have different drawing styles anyway) and I didn't want to totally rip him off ;) but I just thought it was such a great idea! So begins the stress... I started out writing everybody's name down, what their interests are, how to make the picture personal and give everyone some personality, then I drew a few rough drafts, drew the main copy, water colored it, went over it with a fine tip pen, scanned it into the computer (it was too big, so I had to scan one half and then the other; seam the two halves together in photoshop and then edit out the seam line--sheesh), then had copies printed off for each family. Phew!

I also stressed about if people would hate it, think I made them ugly, or didn't get enough personality into them, blah blah blah! :) I think when you do art, it makes you really self conscious, like you're really putting yourself out there, so yeah. I was feeling a little stupid. BUT everyone said they loved them and even if they were lying I don't care anymore! ;)

So that was the big thing for Christmas, of course, everything turned out great, we had a great time with family for Christmas Eve (went to dinner at Joeseppi's) and played games afterward, and Sunday was great too. We went to my in-laws ward because they started at 11 (ours is at 9) and I'm so glad we did because it would have been so hard to do presents and get ready and everything before our ward, plus it was really nice to spend some extra time with family. We went to my parents for dinner and opened presents with them and next door at my grandma's, all very nice, all very fun. Here's some pictures of all our adventures:

First up is our Christmas letter and accompanying picture:




This was our back up picture:



Here's Christmas Eve with David's family:



























And Christmas morning, yup, naked baby:




















Christmas at my parents:













Bethany made this at school for Dave:


Sam with his etch-a-sketch:


Surrounded by toys at the end of a great Christmas day!