santa claus is coming to town!

i'm a major christmas junkie. i love all things christmas. and i'm way excited about this particular year for my son. will is three this year and i'm just thinking that this is going to be a big year for santa around here. so i've found a few cool links that i thought i'd share.

obviously, i'm a spaz about elf yourself.
www.elfyourself.com

you can track santa from this one.
http://www.noradsanta.org/

this seems really cool. you can schedule a live phone call from santa. it costs about $15 and each call lasts 3-5 minutes. but you fill out a form that will give him all kinds of info like names of pets and siblings, how the kids are doing in school, the kid's wishlist, things to work on for the coming year, etc.
it would be priceless for some kids. maybe mine, who is insane about the phone.
http://www.santaspeaks.com/index.html

this is fun. the elf on the shelf. there's a (seemingly) stuffed elf that comes with a book. it also come wrapped and sent from the north pole with a custom message from santa. the elf sits around the house watching your kids throughout the day. then at night flies back to report to santa about how the day went. in the morning you have to find him as he usually ends up sitting somewhere else. nice behavior threat. only my child actually threatens our elf.
http://www.elfontheshelf.com/#/home

this never gets old!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

jen and shawn are having....

A GIRL!!!! shawn is so screwed. just get a second job now, buddy. the shopping is fierce from here on out!



aunt beth is so thrilled!!!

it's that time of year again

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

More hilarious out-takes

And now we'll continue with the out-takes from yesterday's shoot. These are just as fun as the real ones, but I so love out-takes. I'm going to have to blog the outtakes for every shoot.

Here's Britten harassing Daddy.

Here's Aunt Beth teaching the kids about bunny ears. That's comedy.

Here's Will stealing Stephen's cell phone

You're going to want to click on this one to see it bigger. It's flippin hilarious. I don't think it needs any explanation. If you've ever attempted a large family portrait with children, then you know what this is about. But it does remind me of this hysterical Barenaked Ladies Christmas song. It's such a funny song, but here's the lyrics if you don't have this album.

Turkeys are done

Reviews are mixed

When's mom going to get that hearing aid fixed?

Hold still, wait for the click

You're in this years Christmas pics

Brother, we don't agree

About the government or where to put the tree

Hold still, wait for the click

You're in this year's Christmas pics

Flash bulbs and wine
and "oh, that's mine"
Everyone's here
They've flown for miles
It looks like we've stood the test and
We're looking our best

Tears rolling down my nephew's face

Santa's house can be a scary place

Hold still

Wait for it

Hold still, wait for the click

You're in this year's Christmas pics

Funny Thoughts About Points

I've been on Weight Watchers for almost two months and I'm actually doing pretty decent. I'm down 13lbs since I started, but it's been a goofy couple of weeks and I've been mostly oblivious to my "points" intake. Sometimes I think I've eaten something horrible and starve all day thinking that I need to, and it turns out that it wasn't that bad. Sadly, that happens in reverse as well. But lately I've been avoiding the whole tracking of said points due to a thought that you should never have to count calories or points during any of the following:

• a particularly stressful or bad day
• a particularly happy celebratory day
• a party
• anything left on my kids plate
• anything being licked from a bowl
• anything on a holiday
• anything eaten with friends.

I think that's fair. Still it's odd that I'm not losing faster. hmmm.

Out-Takes Part I: Britten

Today we attempted a shoot with the Cupitt clan. I am using the really great shots for Christmas presents. So the deal is that no one can see the money shots. So, instead, I decided to post the out-takes. First up is Britten.

pics of the week

now these are just sort of boring pics. i am just documenting our life here. here is the abbigator on her 2 month birthday. i feel bad because i don't have very many pictures of her, but she's still sort of a lump, so they all look sort of the same. and this one is just a day in the life kind of shot. this is what we look like at 6 am. still in jammies and will is trying to entertain abby who is already thinking about going back to bed. me too, kid. me too.

Brandon's Party

Brandon's 30th Bday Party was ridiculously fun! That velcro wall was so sweet. Everyone had a blast. We were going strong until 1am. And very tired the next day. Apparently it's not a good idea to party that hard when you still have to get up very early to child rear.

Poop!

Will pooped on the potty this week! This is big, people!

So Jackie came over for dinner the other night and I just blurt out during a quietish moment, "Will pooped on the potty today!" As if everyone shall rejoice over such a triumph. With around 3,000 diapers under my belt at this point it's quite a big deal to have one terd that I do not have to deal with. It's just gone. Flushed away, and it's that simple. Anyway, imagine my surprise when he looked a little grossed out and said "...Really?"

I need to get out more.

*This particular post will not be accompanied by a photo. It's just better that way*