As good as it gets... right?

Christmas photos this year were a FREAKING nightmare. Next year I just need to pony-up and spend the BIG BUCKS to get it professionally done. I felt like it was impossible to get my kids to take a decent picture. If one wasn't looking the other was, and vice-versa. For some reason, I felt like my kids instantly wanted to tick-me-off trying to get a decent picture of all of us. As soon as the camera came out, so did tears, naughtiness, and squirming. Can't I catch a break?!! The one we finally picked was...okay. We had to give AJ a sucker just to get him to stop screaming. In case you have had similar problems, I have so graciously posted part of our nightmare. Perhaps this will not make you feel so bad:

(Ha ha ha, so funny AJ. Mikko looks like he is constipated.)

(Yeah, I love the drool all over your shirt... classy)

(The only one who looks good in this picture is Aaron. But he always looks good. Mikko has a scary evil-looking smile on his face and of course AJ is trying to get down off the bench.)

(Seriously AJ... you can't just look at the camera? Come on man! Mikko is trying to stand on my lap.)

(I am yelling at my mom to just keep taking pictures... we are bound to get ONE good one out of 50 shots. Maybe. This one is just all-around bad. But this was what most of the shots looked like.)

Following are the ones we narrowed it down to:

And the winner is.......

This is as good as it gets folks. At least I got them out... right?

Santa's little helper?

Santa and I are not very good at hiding things. Apparently I have underestimated my child. I thought the closet would be a sufficient place to hide Santa's gift. I was wrong. I went downstairs and found this:

Oops! He found it! I thought it was so cute I just couldn't bare stealing it from him right away. He kept getting his leg stuck in the box trying to ride it. Eventually he gave up on that and decided to put some stuffed bears on it and PUSH/SLIDE it around the family room. Am I horrible that I let him play with it? When I did take it away, it was so sad. He only cried for a minute, but at least I know he'll like it. Lucky for me, I'm sure he'll forget all about it by Christmas and he will be just as excited to play with it.

Busy Christmas Season

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It has been SO BUSY this month!! We will be traveling for Christmas so I feel like I am on an extra short time table. We had our ward Christmas party last weekend and the boys got to sit on Santa's lap. Seriously... my kids don't have a clue. AJ was scared out of his mind (which I'm sure is typical of children his age, and Mikko just wanted to chew on everything). This picture was the best we could do. But at least we have one. I don't have a Santa picture of AJ his first Christmas (bad mom). But I've got one this year!!!

We thought it would be fun for AJ to take a little ride in a race car at the mall arcade. I was wrong. He screamed. But Mikko LOVED it! It was so cute. He was like a wild man trying to touch all the buttons and turn the steering wheel. My boys definitely have two completely different personalities. Mikko is MUCH MORE aggressive. And AJ is MUCH MORE passive. In other words- AJ is more of a boob, and Mikko is more a crazy man. I love them both and embrace how different their personalities are.

Christmas Cards... ugh

Oh Christmas Card, Oh Christmas Card. Why can't you buy yourself? Why can't you write a nice funny letter and print yourself on crispy clean beautiful purchased Christmas paper? Why can't you take an absolutely perfect picture of my family, where we are all looking at the camera smiling beautifully, develop yourself and paste nicely on your inside? Why can't you know all my friends and family and write a nice little personalized note to each of them and sign with love my families names? Why can't you address yourself, seal yourself, and place a nice stamp on yourself? And lastly, why can't you walk on down to the mail box so all my friends and family can receive you on the first of December and open you up and say... "wow, Brandi is so on top of things! Beautiful picture, great letter, and she even wrote us a little note. I wish I could be as organized as her."? Why, oh Why, can't you do me this little tiny favor my dear, sweet, yearly, Christmas Card?

Because it wants me to suffer.

I know Christmas cards are dwindling more each year. It is so easy to stay in contact with everyone with technology that sometimes it seems so silly sending the whole package (card, letter, photo, message). But I do it. I do it because one of my favorite things about Christmas is opening the mailbox and getting a nicely packaged message. Even if I regularly read your blog, or talk to you on the phone, I still love getting the letters and pictures. Something about it makes Christmas so wonderful. It reminds me how lucky I am that we have such great family and friends, and it reminds me how much I miss all of you who are far away. So I am going to DO it! I swore I was going to have them out by December 1st. Clearly, since I am complaining about them, I haven't even started. UGH!! I will spend two whole days doing everything at once. My house will be a mess, my children and husband will be neglected, and cereal will be served 3 times a day. But once its over, I will be so GLAD I did it!

By the way - in case any of you were wondering, the rest of our Thanksgiving trip went... okay. It was fun visiting family and friends, but very difficult with two sick babies (we had to take Mikko to urgent care). We ended up driving home in the middle of the night. The boys slept the WHOLE time. We are going to Utah for Christmas, and all driving WILL BE DONE through the night. And after this Christmas trip... we will not be taking long distance car trips as a family for a while. Here are some pictures from our trip. We did have fun - it was just really hard.

(This last one sums things up pretty well)