Yesterday we baked. I thought it would go ok, that Addy would help. Turns out she goes into sugar convulsions if she sees the stuff and can’t dip both hands in and shove it all in her mouth. I think our cookies are all tainted with Addy-germs.

Check out this sugar-coated face:

We made some Snickerdoodles for Daddy:

But the real fun was the sugar cookie decorating. My kids are VERY SERIOUS about their cookie decorating.

I remember being totally anal about it as a kid but NOTHING like them. Or at least their talent surpasses mine. Their cookies are art down to the very last detail:

But Noah lovingly counteracted all that Cookie Perfection with his own sugar creations:

Seriously after an hour of decorating cookies I heard one of my kids say something about being on his fifth. Pan? I asked. No, cookie. Eeek. This is art, not baking. Don’t rush the artiste! By the end of the night, the boys were exhausted and silly:

If cookies are art, then candy is science. I am NOT looking forward to the candy making that still looms ahead. It is SURE to be a disaster. Also, forthcoming, is the REAL story behind the week before Christmas in the Bradley household as encouraged by my best friend D~. So stayed tuned for the bad and ugly!

Let the countdown begin!!!!

I made these paper stockings that each hold an activity leading up to Christmas. I love how they turned out, scrapbooking papers are so much fun!

12 Days Until Christmas!, originally uploaded by sixmonkeyjungle.

I didn’t pre-plan enough to write my rituals and favorite things before Tony’s birthday and then didn’t want to take time from his birthday to do it and, well, I fell off the wagon. Now I’m scrambling to get together the stuff for our own 12 Days Until Christmas *real life* rituals along with last minute online shopping (including Christmas cards) and last minute photo shoots (can you hear my kids groan from across the world?), deal with the endless customer service issues I have *every single year* and just trying to organize the holidays and I am beat. The thought of blogging is rough! Add to that that Tony is starting a new project that will require him to work outside the home starting next week which I’m sure will be a gigantic adjustment for all of us and I just want to crawl under a rock until the holidays are over.

We still have not even finished decorating the house. 3 of our 4 trees are decorated and we have lights on our roof. But its a project in the works.  Like usual, I refuse to post pictures until its done-done. That is supposed to be my motivation although I still haven’t finished the kids playhouse and I said the same thing about that.

I’m beat. I’m holiday’d out. I want to go sleep for a month. So if you don’t see anything but random picture and video posts, forgive me. I’ll do something more substantial when I have renewed energy. Its times like this when I wish caffeine had any effect on me at all.