A Celebration and a Meltdown

Part 1: Preparations
On the 1st day of Christmas my true love made 200 gingerbread men for me.
and you.
and you.
and you, and you, and you.

And while we're at it, how about 4 dozen sugar cookies!
I had some help from the kids with these.
Then after they were in bed, I realized all of my gingerbread men were homeless! Oh no! So that led to the not-so-brilliant idea to "whip up" a dozen graham cracker gingerbread houses.

Mistake.

FYI- making homemade royal icing after midnight calls for disaster...
...which I had. (FYI-don't try to reuse the Wilton Royal Icing containers for homemade icing unless the result you seek is concrete hard icing splattered all over your microwave.)

Icing batch #2 was usable and I constructed little shelters for my gingerhobos until 3am relatively disaster free.

I said "relative" because having let the kids help earlier in the day put us in a state of disaster throughout the entire kitchen.
As seen here.

and here.

aaaaaaaand here.(Mmmmm confetti cupcakes and sugar cookie snowmen)
The frosting explosion pushed me over the edge and I cried.
over frosting.
I've gotten so soft.
I also saw a hearse today and cried again.
I know. Sleep deprivation makes me weepy.

Eventually, I got everything put together and I crashed into bed.

Question. Was it worth it?
This morning when Reese woke up she was serenaded with a harmonious (harmony meaning I am in one key and Aaron is unknowingly in another), rendition of the Birthday Song. When she went into the kitchen for breakfast, she saw this:
and before I even made it out of my room, she had RUSHED back down the hall to tell me,
"MOM! The ELVES came to our house last night and they left us candy and GINGERBREAD HOUSES in the kitchen!!!"

Her excitement was priceless.
Absolutely, it was worth it.

"Can You Hear Me Major Tom? Can You Hear Me Major Tom? Can You Heeeeear"

Did you make it?
Did I do any of this right?
Is ANYone out there?

Ok well if you ARE here...welcome to the super awesome special invite-only club that is our new private blog. I promise I'll post something better than this lame message soon. Unfortunatly, your Google Reader will no longer post my blog updates automatically for you, so you'll just have to add the new blog address (yes, notice we are no longer http://aaronandmeg.blogspot.com) of http://cuzimkeepinitreal.blogspot.com to your links, and clickety every now and then to see if there's anything new. Pain. I know. Sorry. But you DID get invited, and not everyone did (ahem that means you, Mr. British FatWilly, and I'm also pretty sure that if anyone that actually DOES live in Clovis NM happens upon the old blog, they will not be requesting an invite to read the new one, since I did some pretty heavy slamming on their hood in recent posts before I realized I'm an idiot and was stalking myself.)

If you are a new reader to our blog, we welcome you too. Just remember I blog for me, and my family, and for fun. I publish typos because I type quickly and am often too lazy to go back and edit a post simply because I left out an apostrophe somewhere. I use poor grammar and break nearly all sentence structure rules here. If you haven't spoken to me in real life, or if it's just been awhile, please know that I AM educated and I am totally aware of HOW to construct a proper sentence...I just choose not to here. You will find grammar errors here and there and everywhere, even though they drive me crazy when I read them somewhere else. I will try not to judge you if you do the same. Forgive me for the tangent, but I feel like a new blog deserves a new introduction of sorts, just to remind everyone why I do this. I do have a life outside our blog, so also remember that what you read here is only a snippet of what goes down in our glamourous lives. With that in mind, try to give us the benefit of the doubt if I say something you find offensive. Or ask me about it, and run the risk of being offended more.

OH and also, I do post often...but NO. I don't just sit around at my laptop all day eating Girl Scout Cookies....

Sometimes I eat the cookies in my car, or at the park, at church, or in the library.
Anyway, welcome to our blog. Come back soon.

You are officially cool.

Leave a comment, Yo.

'Cuz When She Puts Them Cookies In The Oven, There's Fifteen Minutes For Some Kissin' And Some Lovin'..."

If you were to enter the house I grew up in during the holiday season, at least one of the following things would happen:

1) You wouldn't make it past the front door without being asked to help carry "a couple of boxes" of holiday decor in from the garage, or "plant" a few (meaning at least 50) poinsettia stems in the yard.

2) You would be eaten by Christmas.

3) You would at first ask why we all care so much about getting an ugly old cardboard box for Christmas, but would secretly want it for yourself by the time you left.

4) You would smell roast and homemade rolls

5) You would hear singing

6) You would notice 5 strands of delicious looking gingerbread cookies hanging against the sliding glass door. You would mention how yummy they look, but you would not be allowed to eat them. (unless you were one of the 5 owners of said cookies)

7) You would hear my dad cry out in pain as he gets hit by his own booby-trap, that he set up to guard his room, then forgot about during his rush to the the potty.

8) You would be offered pumpkin bread with curling ribbon and a star bow on it, and ask what Rugga-Rugga is.

9) You would ask why there aren't any presents yet under the tree(s)...and then ask why there are seven trees. You would not be allowed to touch the "pretty tree", but might be accused of losing the Victorian paper doll ornaments.

10)You would hear Amy and HolleeAnn's beautiful singing and ask us to come caroling on Christmas Eve, then hear my violin and leave us a fake address.

My helper. My other helper knocked my granite rolling pin (that I love) on the ground, causing the handle to crack and break off in the fall, then she took a handful of raw cookie dough and hid herself in Reese's room while she ate it.
I spy a bear. I made 25 gingerbread bears for my little Sugar Bear's birthday party.

Waiting...
In Q's hands....um yeah. She's heard a lot of talk about "a new baby" going on lately, and went rooting though the bathroom cabinets in an attempt to make sure that doesn't happen.
Too late, Sister Bear...you have a sibling on the way.

We made over 300 of these bad boys on Sunday night. Aren't they cute? "please don't eat us!"
I'll post pics of the advent calendars we made with them when my laptop can access the pictures that my camera it is currently holding hostage.