Not another project...

The normal pre-Christmas festivities...tree-decorating. gingerbread house assembling, sugar cookie baking...shopping, stressing, cooking, organizing...

My husband keeps reminding me, ahem, appealing me to not take on so many projects. I can't help it, I have to do multiple things at one time I guess...but just for those of you who have called, left messages and wondered why "I couldn't come out to play," these were some of the additional projects I finished right before Christmas....This year I was asked to paint a board for the ward Christmas party. They were having the theme of "Christmas in America" which was probably the best ward party that I've been to. They had everyone come dressed in proper Lamanite attire and had booths like face painting, picture taking, and some games, jewelry making, (all purchased by wooden coins they handed to us at the beginning of the evening.) They served tender barbecue chicken tacos in warmed tortillas, chips and salsa in the middle of the tables. They had a shadow puppet presentation about the History in the Book of Mormon leading up to the "first Christmas" where all of a sudden Nephi comes out, staff in hand, and announces that it is time to feast, the signs have been given, the Lord has been born. (I write these details to remember this amazing night for future references.)
(If you look closely to the bottom left, there's a nod to Samuel the Lamanite in the painting.)For 4 out of the last 5 years, I've also painted some windows for a store that sells Sees candy as a fundraiser over the holiday break. This year, I didn't go with too much creativity, much to Aubrey's shagrin, and just painted a holiday scene. I let the kids help paint this year too!

Some of my favorite windows in the past however: Snowmen playing golf, a caricature of Forrest Gump eating chocolate on a bench with the slogan: "Life is like a box of chocolates, except in here you know what you're gonna get."
And the Reindeer Yearbook Photos including "Most likely to succeed: Rudolph. Biggest partier: Blitzen. Biggest Flirt: Vixen, and Most likely to eat other reindeers over a cold mountain pass: Donner. (The cartoons gave me a chuckle to paint.) You can probably see why Aubby was sad that I kept it boring this year....
I'll have to find the pictures of those somewhere...