christmas cookie disaster

making Christmas cookies wasn't a tradition i remember doing as a kid so now that i'm all grown up i want to do it every year.

Matt and i picked out a recipe and got out our cool cookie cutters that haven't been used yet and got to baking!

the rolling out the dough and cookie cutting is obviously the best part.

we followed the instructions exactly but our cute little cookie night soon turned into a cookie disaster night.

the cut outs wouldn't come loose!

it was very sad.

somehow we were able to salvage a few though.

and some Matt just pieced together on his own so they have broken legs and stuff.

we ended up just making whatever we wanted with the dough since it wasn't working anyway.

here's the penguin Matt made for me!

and here's the candy cane i made for him!

obviously i'm the better cookie sculptor in the family.

so we had a pretty big cookie disaster night which could've been saved if the cookies were tasty but they were not.

instead of tasting like delicious sugar cookies they tasted like giant animal crackers.

oh well, better luck next time!

i actually made a different sugar cookie recipe a few days later without all the excitement of the cookie cutters and they were much much better!

we'll know to use that recipe for next year instead of the animal cracker one.

ugly christmas sweaters are my new favorite

so the rest of our seriously busy week went like this...

Sunday: Mason family dinner

Monday: Mason family talent show

Tuesday: Mason sibling dinner

Wednesday: ugly sweater party

pics and videos are definitely coming from the Mason family talent show.

we seriously blew everyone away with our talent this year!

but something that needs to be shown off even more right now are our ugly sweaters for our ugly sweater party.

we searched everywhere for those sweaters you see old ladies walking around with covered in lights and embroidery but that place must only appear when you turn age 60.

we went to the next best thing- thrift stores.

a special thank you to DI for not letting us down.

Matt's sweater was unbelievably ugsome!

ugly and awesome!

i think he looks like the cutest old man i've ever seen in this.

i went with the classic 90s puffy paint look myself.

scary santa made "pretty" with gold puffy paint drawn around everything!

LOVE IT!

i love it so much in fact i'm wearing it right now.

no joke.

it's quite cozy and obviously festive so why wouldn't i rock it every chance i get??

i think i'll be on the hunt for ugly Christmas sweaters every year now!

viva las vegas!

through most of my growing up years we had the most amazing star on the top of our Christmas tree.

most people have ones that just have one color or don't even light up at all which is sooooo boring.

our star was far from boring!

it was the most unique and crazy star you've ever seen and it had a bunch of settings which were all psycho and totally made it look like it belonged in Las Vegas.

so we called it the Las Vegas star. and we love it dearly.

everyone except Mom that is.

after all the years of loving this star one year it magically disappeared.

Mom said it broke but i think she secretly threw it away because she was sick of how tacky it was.

hello?! that's the beauty of the Las Vegas star Mom!!

so many invisible tears were shed over the loss of our beloved star and since then i've actually had several conversations with my siblings about how we wish we could find somewhere that sells a star just like it.

well last Saturday, i found that store and it is called Goodwill.

Matt and i were searching for ugly sweaters for an ugly sweater Christmas party and we were just walking through the clothes when i saw this star out of the corner of my eye.

i thought to myself "no way jose is this THE Las Vegas star."

so i carried it around with me until i found a plug and then Matt thought i went crazy because i got so excited!

IT'S THE STAR!!

in all it's wonderful, spazzy, seizure inducing glory!

check it out!

now i bet you're all wishing you had one.

too bad, so sad!

oh and the best part about my find is actually the price.

$1.00! that's right!

the Las Vegas star lives again and it only cost me a buck.

it's a Christmas miracle!

PRETZEL!

i don't think i've ever had a week as busy as this week.

for the past four days it has been one party after another and the partying will continue for another four days too.

apparently we need to stop being so popular so we can actually have some relaxing Christmas time.

this week went like this...

Wednesday: Sari's chorus singing at the temple

Thursday: work Christmas party

Friday: Steven's surprise graduation party

Saturday: Dad's surprise birthday party

i was especially excited for Dad's surprise birthday party.

his birthday is on December 24th so he never ever gets a proper party so we had the brilliant idea to throw him a surprise party since he would never expect it.

it worked like a charm.

sorry the video is so dark.

actually, sorry all the pictures are dark.

we're getting a new camera for Christmas because i can't stand this old piece of junk any longer!

so if you can't see the video here's how it went down...

Dad walks in, lights go on, Christy yells PRETZEL which was our code word so we knew when to yell SURPRISE, Dad was surprised and then Samuel gets excited and falls on the floor.

amazing!

the only problem was that we were hiding for a good 10 minutes before they got there.

Sari was supposed to text us when they were close but apparently "close" means different things to different people haha!

we had soup and bread bowls for din din because we thought Dad would love that.

i made a tasty minestrone soup and Christy made a delectable potato soup.

Amanda and her girls gave Dad the best present ever!

it's a pancake basket!

it's got spatulas and pancake mixes and peanut butter and syrup.

i'm seriously obsessed with this pancake basket!

i want one.

now.

this is the face Matt does when i'm trying to take his picture and my mom is poking him.

and this is what my cute little niece Sammy does to show me how strong she is!

this girl seriously has some muscles on her!

she can do real push ups and she's only 4!

and here's her baby sister Abby being just like big sister.

muscles! too cute!

then it's cake time!

Dad loves german chocolate cake so that's what he gets!

and this is the face Dad makes when my camera won't take his picture for a long time and he's sick of smiling.

like i said, new camera for Christmas.

actually the picture looks better this way.

over the hill people shouldn't be smiling about it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!

i hope you loved your par-tay!

cloudy smelly good day

here i am, awake at the crack of dawn to try to finish my work so i can finish sewing presents before i'm rushing away to another Christmas party.

we literally have a party every single night up through Christmas and even a couple after.

i feel stressed and exhausted and it really is true that there are not enough hours in the day.

but today, i woke up to this.

this picture obviously doesn't do this gorgeous cloudy sky justice but i took it with my phone so i'll blame it on that.

i super love cloudy/rainy days.

they make everything better.

waking up to see this makes me feel like i can make it through this day and actually get some things done.

i love that!

i also woke up this morning to the greatest smell in the world!

apparently Matt's new body wash is extra fragrant so now i wake up to the smell of MAN!

it's going to be a good day!

tree decorating

Matt and i are those people that really love Christmas decorations.

we love lights and Christmas trees and ornaments and santa plates and reindeer figurines and, of course, penguins!

we were dying to put our Christmas tree up this year and almost put it up in November because we just couldn't wait.

but then life happened and we got too busy so we ended up decorating our tree the first weekend of December like normal people do.

yuck.

this year we decided instead of moving everything around in our house to fit our big big tree we'd just put out the small one we had at our pottery store.

it fits much better and i love it even though it's wobbly and not as beautiful as our other tree.

and i love it even though it's not pre-lit and we had to deal with light trouble this year.

i got all dizzy stringing lights around this little tree and when i was finished we plugged them in and half of them didn't work.

gr.

so i found some other lights but the strand was way too small.

gr again.

so we had to run to Walgreens to get the right size. thank goodness for Walgreens right?

i made Matt get dizzy putting the lights on this time and he did such a spectacular job!

cute little tree with our ghetto fake snow type tree skirt since i haven't been able to find our nice tree skirt since our first Christmas together.

now on go the ornaments.

we like to decorate our tree the way everyone should, in our jammies.

don't judge.

my Grandma Wamsley is totally amazing and every year for Christmas she would send us a couple ornaments so i have boxes and boxes full!

this is my favorite one.

he's a little baker holding a trey of reindeer cookies that she gave me when i was 2.

isn't he just too cute?

Matt said this is his favorite ornament.

it's one i made at our pottery store and it's a chubby penguin in a santa suit.

Matt likes to imitate the chubby penguin.

so this is our little family Christmas 2010!

it's not Christmas without the tool man

now that it's december i want to do one thing and one thing only.

watch all the Home Improvement Christmas episodes.

i mean, it's not truly Christmas until you watch those right?

this is one of my faves!

(skip the first 40 seconds to get to the actual episode clip)

heart warming and funny.

classic Home Improvement.

and i gotta say every time i hear the song The First Noel i can only think

No Al No Al No Al No Al.

makes it even better.

can't wait to watch all the other episodes now!

went skiing, Brad