Yeah, I know it's the second half of January. I never claimed I was punctual.
I'm finally getting around to looking through my holiday photos. I actually was going to include this in my introductory post, but it got so long I had to split it in two! I have such lucky readers.
The Imp in front of the Christmas tree.
About 3 seconds later, she had had enough of taking pictures.
Good thing I got this shot...otherwise Christmas would've been RUINED.
Here's Dagny on Christmas Day. I need to get a full-length shot with this dress she's wearing. It's gorgeous and hand wash only so you better believe it needs to be preserved forever in photograph. No one should have to hand wash anything without some major payoff. And a good photo counts as major payoff to me.
My little gingerbread house. Screw whole wheat flour. Unhealthy works better.
Not so major payoff? These miniature gingerbread houses. The whole idea and instructions came from here. We made the dough using whole wheat flour, which took FOREVER to sift. Probably because it's not as fine as regular flour? Larger particles seemed to just get stuck in the sifter. I didn't have a couple of the pre-ground spices. I mashed them up with my mortar and pestle, including fresh ginger. A bad and time-consuming idea. I won't try to save money on that step next time. I also think we baked them too long, so they were preeeetty crispy and dark. Finally, the rims of my mugs are thick, so they didn't end up fitting until I altered the pattern. And putting these together was a nightmare. But totally check out the link to the creator. Hers look way better and her photos are better lit. Yeah, everything about hers is better. I gotta work on my baking presentation and food photography skills. Let's try this again next Christmas, shall we?
Look! I made pretty wrapping paper on my own!
The miniature gingerbread houses were part of an initiative of mine to be more crafty and get into the holiday spirit. At least that much seems to have worked, even if the final product was meh. Here's another example of me trying to do a good job at being a festive mom around the holidays. These two gifts are for the first and second nights of Hanukkah. Each Hanukkah gift was decorated with a number corresponding to the night it was to be opened. If you look carefully, you can see that the number 2 is cut into the golden snowflake on the larger present. It ended up looking like hearts since the 2 is reflected across the vertical axis. Dagny liked tearing into the presents. These two were crayons and a sketchbook.
Aww...
Hipstamatic...instant art! I deemed my messy bedroom and closet unworthy of my good camera. And the Hipstamatic app's filters hide ugliness without an ounce of effort.
Oh! I almost forgot the crowning achievement of my festiveness. I made this Christmas tree out of ornaments and wire. The idea and instructions came from the same blogger as the mini gingerbread houses. Unlike the mini gingerbread houses, this was a rousing success. It was wayy easier than it looks and it looks fantastic in person. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a hanging fail. We tried drilling into the ceiling and turns out it's concrete. So this bad boy is hanging in our closet, kind of like we're ashamed of Christmas. But we're not! I imagine if anyone ever came over and peeked into our closet, they'd think that we were persecuted Christians trying to celebrate despite imminent bodily peril. I assure you, that's not the case. We're just incompetent at buying proper concrete anchors and scheduling the building maintenance to come do it for us so we don't crack the foundation of the upper unit or something stupid like that.
*****
So there's my holiday crap. Guys, I really feel like we're really getting to know each other. You've seen my ugly miniature gingerbread house fail and the inside of my closet on our second date. This may be moving a bit too quickly for me. I, uh, gotta go.
Until next time!
