Christmas

Am I the only one who looks at pictures of myself and wonders if that's how I really look. It must be because I look the same in every picture I've seen of myself taken in the last year. Sad thing, I really don't like what I see. Not that I don't like myself, I just feel a lot prettier/self confident/ less frumpy/thinner/better hair/etc than pictures tend to portray. I just really hate pictures of myself.

So, I was really excited about posting a bunch of Christmas pictures... till I saw the pics of me and thought, "ugh". So when you see the pics of me... please just pretend I am much better looking. I would really appreciate your co-operation.

Starting off on Dec 20th we went up to cut our tree. We love cutting our own tree. Even though the trees are a bit, well okay, completely Charlie Brown, it is so much fun that we do it every year. I hope we NEVER get an artificial tree. What kind of memories can you have pulling a dusty old plastic tree out of the attic and "reshaping" it so it looks real, and plugging in a pine scented air freshener? The inventor of artificial Christmas trees should be taken out back and shot. Okay, maybe not. I'll probably get one eventually, but not till my kids have grown up, moved out, and have their own families.


We went up to Idaho City. It's a great little town about an hour from Boise. There had been a lot of snow so the first thing we decided to do was drive into a snow bank and get stuck. It was great fun till a kind hearted stranger came by and insisted on pulling us out. In the picture above Jennica is standing in one of the tire ruts. It doesn't look that deep, but you'll notice at the base of the picture, were the snow looks like it's kind of been brushed... that was were the van was bottomed out.


We started off on this road... It's tone one we tried to drive down with our van and got stuck. We walked about a 1/2 mile and decided the mountain side off to the right looked promising. At the edge of the road there was about a 5 ft decline and then uphill. We "assumed" there was a dry creek bed. I went first, and my boot went right through the ice (which was buried beneath about 7 inches of snow) into about 5 inches of water.



I thought that was going to be the end of it for me. My foot was completely soaked. Luckily, I have the best snow boots ever and in about 5 minutes my foot was actually warming up. My sock was sloshing about, but I was warm.


After about an hour we found our tree. It was beautiful. Noah helped me cut it down and carry it back to the van.


Afterwards I really wanted to go sledding, but Aaron was the only one who would go with me. We hiked up the steepest hill we could find and went for it. The snow was pure, in your face, powder, so one run was enough for Aaron. By the time we stopped moving we were covered in a thick blanket of snow.


Now are you ready? Time to start using your imagination... Think beautiful smile with full lips and sparkling white teeth. There. That's better.



On the way back from sledding the kids were taking pictures... in the dusk, through the windows, with the flash on most of the time. There were about 100 pictures of blurry glare, and then this one.

Amazing right?

I think Noah took it. I didn't enhance it at all. This is just how it came out. Beautiful. I think I'm going to make it my computer background image.


I should have taken a picture of our beautifully decorated tree, but I didn't get around to it. I did take a rather bad picture of my fireplace mantle.
On Chirstmas eve Noah and Aaron both insisted on having Mohawks. Normally I would have said no way, but I figured why not. Noah's hair is so long that his didn't stay in very well, but Aaron's was great. We put curlers in Jennica's hair and she looked fabulous!








This is my gorgeous sister Jill, and my grandma. Grandma is almost 91. When I was still in High school I bought my grandma a santa sweatshirt for Christmas. She wears it every Christmas eve with her red and green plaid Christmas pants. Me again, with my nephew Jonny. He looks great, but please picture me with a smaller nose, and fuller hair, and maybe a tan...


For Christmas My parents gave my sister and I, and our families, electronic concert piano's. I love it. So far, the only songs we know are Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Hot Cross Buns, but I love hearing the kids play on it, and I can't wait to get them into piano lessons. Noah seems like a natural.
I don't have many pictures of Kat and Justin, but I thought this one was cute. Cruz got a great big pillow soccor ball and he loved it!


And of course, Cruzer:
Here are my brother Pete, Jill's daughter Sariah, and Pete's wife Courtney. Courtney and Pete got married the same week we lost Vincent so I never ended up blogging about them or their wedding. It was beautiful and I couldn't have wished for a better wife for my brother. Courtney is awesome. She has such an amazing spirit and is a perfect match for Pete, and she's gorgeous! Their personalities are so perfect for one another. We all love her, well, except Aaron who is going threw an anti-girl phase and doesn't like ANYONE who has, or may one day have, estrogen... but I'm sure he'll come around.


Kind of an odd picture to end it on... Jennica and Johnny... but I'm done.

Tomorrow back to work. I am still working on kitting the final Reindeer Stables album. I'm hoping to have it finished by New Years and then I will be shipping all the rest of the kits out.

Here's the album count:

Album kit one - Santa's workshop - sold out
Album kit two - The home of Mr and Mrs. Claus - 2 left
Album kit three - The Cookie Cafe - 2 left
Album kit four - The North Pole Post - 3 left
Album kit five - The Reindeer Stables - 4 left.

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!

2008 Santa's Village - The Reindeer Stables

It's finished!!!!

I quite litereally have used every spare second I have on this album. As it is right now I need to pick up my children from school in 5 minutes to go to the mountains to cut out Christmas tree, and I haven't done a thing to prepare.

I promise a much more detained post, with tons more pictures probably late tonight.

Hope you love it!

Cam

Preorder now!

Album Count

Album Kit One:
Santa's Workshop -Sold OUT!

I have had several requests for this album, and so I am considering making more. If you would like one email me at camillemcc@gmail.com. The albums will not be available till Mid january.

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Album Two:

The Home of Mr. and Mrs. Claus - Only 2 left!

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Album Three :

The Cookie Cafe - Only 2 left!

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Album four:

The North Pole Post - Only 4 left!

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Album five - The Reindeer Stables - Not yet available (Watch for it this week!)

Jennica's Dance recital

Jennica has been taking dance lessons since September and Saturday was her first ever performance.

I don't have a video yet... I taped the dress rehearsal, but I don't know how to get video's from my video camera onto my computer.. then during the actual performance, our camera jammed so I didn't get that video at all. I thought for sure I had taken some pictures of her through the day, I was sure of it, but then when I downloaded the pictures I only have pics of her with Santa. I'm such a crappy mom. The scrapbooking industry should shun me.

The good news is that one of Jennica's friends was performing right next to her and her parents, are GOOD parents, and have the tape... already uploaded to facebook. I asked for the clip, so when I have it I'll post it.

Before posting it though, I think it's important to note that the class Jennica is in is a second year ballet class, Jennica was the only first year student in the class, some of the other girls are going on their third year. I also should note that Jennica's mom (we won't name names...) tried out for drill team once in high school... I was working 20 hours a week after school during tryouts so I thought I had the routine down and I was practicing it alone at home in the evenings. I thought I was doing pretty well till I went to tryouts.. and well let's just say I didn't make the team. My then boyfriend's upperclassman Friend was the videographer for the tryouts and she was laughing so hard the camera was shaking. I was turning the wrong direction and stepping the wrong direction... so let's just say Jennica couldn't get a whole lot of help at home. Andy was more helpful with her practices. On top of all that, Jennica had the stomach flu from Tuesday till Friday afternoon the week of the program so she didn't get to practice much at all that last week.

That said, she did FAN.TAS.TIC!!!!!!! A little slow on some of the moves, and not as well polished, but I am so proud of her!

Santa was at the program during intermission. Here's a peak at how Jennica looked.



And here's Noah with Santa. I should have known I needed to pick out clothes for the kids to wear... but i just didn't think of it. So we have Yoda for the dance recital, which is actually a far cry better than Aaron looked in a 2 yr old stained fourth of July t-shirt, with his elastic waist denim pants on backwards. I didn't notice till he was laying on the floor in the foyer and there was the stitched in faux fly on his back side...



Speaking of Aaron he was SO excited when I told him Santa was there! He could not WAIT to see him... until he actually saw him, and then he would not get anywhere near him. This was as close as we could get, and it he had known I was taking this picture with him AND Santa in the background he probably would not have allowed me to take it.

We were the Clampets of the Christmas recital.

Tonight we tried to make cookies to bring to our neighbors.

Make sure you a good look at Aaron. Fairly typical expression when it comes to helping bake sweets.
Noah did a fine job arranging the cookie sheet.


And here are my faux pax gingerbread men. Faux pax because clearly they are sugar cookies, and not gingerbread cookies.

Hum... This one looks like a ninja.


And this one looks like a ninja...


Ummm... Ninja...

Hi-Ya! This one just karate chopped you.


Ninja..
After I baked them they didn't look like ninjas anymore. They looked like fat, pudgy, wanna be ninjas.

Merry Christmas.

Tomorrow, back to kits. I am hoping to get the last album cut and started. I feel completely frazzled. The flu really put me behind schedule, now I am completely stressed about getting finished in time. Hopefully the last album will turn out well. The last one, the post office hasn't done so well. It looks amazing in person, easily one of my favorites, but on camera the front doesn't look right with the dark gray and cream. I guess you win some and loose some.

The last kit, I am anxious about. It's going to be Santa's Reindeer Stables. It's going to be either top notch, or no good at all. I'm shooting for top notch, but honestly a bit worried. I want reindeer, but... lets see.. I seem to have a complex about doing faces. They generally turn out looking like plastic surgery gone wrong. Pray... not for me, but for my reindeer.

:) Cam