Santa gave me sanity for Christmas.

Let me preface this by saying that 2008 saw The Kid giving uncertain looks at Santa just long enough for the photographer to snap a picture, then the screaming began. In 2009 the screaming began as we walked up to Santa in the Mall of America. Though in his defense it had been a long two weeks of mommy and daddy dragging him around a cruise ship and sticking him in a tuxedo repeatedly while they posed for endless pictures in fancy clothes he wasn't allowed to touch. (ah, weddings.) And then, instead of going home we had the audacity to drag him to visit weird people in a weird state when all he wanted to do was get on an airplane and GO HOME! And of course we can't forget the joy that was 2010. He was very excited to see Santa that year because he was just starting to get the idea that Santa gave him presents. He insisted on getting all dressed up, wearing slacks, a button up shirt, and a choo-choo sweater. He stood in line patiently and even drew Santa a picture while we were waiting. Then he hit Santa's lap. And the screaming started. As well as the kicking.

On to the promised tale of how my child became obsessed with Santa Claus. So a couple weeks before Christmas, the joy that is Facebook allowed me to see a video that my cousin's daughter received from Santa.

*SPOILER ALERT, Hide the children's eyes.*

A video from Santa that my cousin had created. This thing was completely customizable. You enter the kid's name, add a few pictures, tell them what he wants for Christmas, decide if he's naughty or nice and *POOF* The Portable North Pole sends a video to your kid featuring Santa talking directly to him and ends with the elves checking the machine to see which list the kid is on. If he's nice, Santa congratulates him. If he's naughty, Santa tells him he still has a chance, he just needs to watch his behavior.

So I made one for The Kid and stuck him on the naughty list. He's three and testing limits every chance he can get. I was about to pull out all of my hair and scream myself hoarse. When he saw Santa, and then heard Santa say his name The Kid flipped out. His eyes grew to the size of saucers and he was glued to my laptop. He was so excited to that Santa had a book all about him, complete with pictures and a knowledge of what we'd done this year. When the elves stuck his paper in the big machine, he held his breath until the light lit up to say which list he was on. When Santa told him he was on the naughty list, he deflated. But then Santa said he still had time to get on the nice list...

This video had just handed me a tool that I could whip the kid with repeatedly and never once hurt him physically or emotionally. All kids recover from the belief in Santa eventually and they never even need therapy. Woot! He quickly figured out that mommy and daddy have a direct line to Santa. So all we had to say was "I'm calling Santa." or "Santa's not going to like this behavior." or "You're never going to get to the Nice list acting like this." and he's stop and become a perfect child for a short time.

So Santa became an obsession. And when it came time to sit on Santa's lap for a picture, we got smiles and chatting instead of kicking and screaming. My life was wonderful. And then, on Christmas Eve, The Kid got a new video from Santa telling him made the Nice list. Which set off the desperate need to thank Santa with cookies and milk. And ultimately resulted in the biggest smile you've ever seen when he came out Christmas morning and saw the mountain of presents surrounding the much coveted KITCHEN.

Cookies for Santa.

The Kid was totally into Christmas this year. Like all-out into it. I had to have Christmas music playing in the car. He had to watch that claymation Rudolph movie over and over. He had to help me set up the tree. He Had to check the stockings every morning. Santa became an obsession. (All my fault, more on that tomorrow.)

And so Christmas Eve rolled around and he had to leave out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. He was very concerned about this. So we made cookies. I whipped out my stash of cookie cutters, and premade (the horror!) frosting. Then, as I was digging through my cupboard for sprinkles, I found INSPIRATION. A package of snowmen Peeps, just staring at me. Yeeeeah.

I whipped out a batch of my Grandma's Christmas cookies, The Kid manning the mixer. While I let the dough chill in the fridge, I searched my kitchen for a plain round shape. It took me at least three searches through my draw of baking/cooking utinsels, irratably shoving my stupid biscuit cutter out of my way as it repeatedly rolled into my way, before I realzed that my stupid biscuit cutter was, in fact, round. Duh.

So I roll out the dough, cut 9 circles and a ton of wreaths, trees, and stars and then bake. After the things cool I invite The Kid back into the kitchen to decorate.

These are The Kid's cookies.

While he went crazy with the frosting and a knife (That's sarcasm, folks. He used small amounts of frosting and very, very carefully spread it evenly with the ((dull!)) knife. His future therapists can thank me for his OCD later.) I was ripping the heads off of my Peep snowmen. Then, while he was getting angry at the sprinkles for not coming out evenly, I was smearing my cookies with white frosting. He finished before me, so he had some time to nibble on a tree while I stuck heads on the cookies.


I'm very glad I decided on green for the scarves instead of red.

I hope Santa liked his melted snowman cookie.


Grandma's Cookies
     1 cup softened butter
     1/2 cup sugar
     1 egg
     3 tsp flavoring (vanilla, almond, lemon, etc)
     3 cups flour (Grandma insisted on Gold Medal)
     1/2 tsp baking powder
Mix together thoroughly the butter, sugar, and egg. Stir in flavoring. Sift together flour and baking powder. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet.
Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it chill in the fridge for a while. Roll it out really thin (1/16th") and cut into desired shapes.
Optional glaze: brush tops of cookies with mixture of 1 egg yolk and 2 tsp water.
Bake until delicately browned. (425 for 5-7 minutes worked for me)


Did anyone else notice my use of parenthesis within parenthesis? I might have a problem.

Glittery Shoes. For almost free.

Two things converged in my world that changed my life.

1. I started trying to organize my shoes and I realized that I have too many ugly* shoes and they need to go away so that my pretty shoes can have room.
*please note my use of the word ugly here. I would never, ever, ever say that I have too many shoes. It's not possible.

2. Glitter covered shoes became the latest Must Have shoe of the season and I approve 100%. But, all the really great ones are too expensive for me. And all the affordable ones are either ugly, or sold out of my size. (Who knew part of me was normal??)

I'm a rather stubborn girl. When I want something I will move the world to get it. So, I went through the box of ugly shoes that I was going to drop off at Salvation Army and found a pair that I knew were comfortable. Their only real sin was their unfortunate coloring. Matte black body with shiny oak oak colored toes and heels. Not. Okay. I'm almost sorry I didn't grab a 'before' picture so that I could share the ugly. But I didn't know then that I'd be starting this blog. You win again, Hindsight.

So then I was staring at my bottle of Mod Podge, looking all lonely on my counter and I decided it needed a friend. Off to Michael's I went to procure a bottle of glitter. I got a really fine glitter in a kind of coppery, bronzy mix.  (yeah, I make up words) I also picked up a sponge brush. My total purchase was $6, and part of that was the overpriced M&M's The Kid demanded.

I laid out a sheet of aluminum foil. Wax paper would work too, but with foil you can turn up the edges in an attempt to contain the glitter herpes. Or you can be real daring and not protect your table/counter with anything. I'm not that daring. Anyway, I poured some Mod Podge into a small bowl and them dumped in some glitter. I didn't measure, I was in too big of a hurry. I stirred it up and then applied it to the shoes in a thin, even layer. I did this three times, letting the shoes dry in between coats.

The picture isn't the greatest. I took it with my phone at like 3 in the morning and uploaded it to Facebook. And since I'm too lazy to get it off my phone, I just downloaded it from Facebook.

Hi!!!

So I've had this blogger account for a few years but I've never bothered to get around to setting it up or posting anything. Until now. So here I am, setting it up, and I've just realized that I'm essentially talking to myself. I suppose I could look at it as speaking to the future when I'll have millions of readers and fans and money is pouring in because I'm a GENIUS!! But really, I have zero followers right now so I'm talking to myself.

So I've been busy the last few months making a ton of crafts. Which is a nice change since I haven't really had a chance to do anything since The Kid was born. The absolute JOY that is preschool has allowed me to start being creative again. I'm in heaven. But now I feel the need to show off what I've been doing. So I'm going to blog. Yay me!

It all started with my book purses. I named by little project Book Zombies. And it's been moderately successful. But then I started branching out. Jewelry, wreaths, crochet, quilts, shoes...it's always changing. I suppose that's a direct result of being ADD.

I write too. But I'm not published yet. Just you wait though, it'll happen. I'll get hugely famous writing totally awesome books and all of my loyal readers will come here and see that I'm not just a literary genius, but a crafty-housewife genius too.