Christmas Pictures

I love taking pictures at Christmas time, of the tree, of my kids, of the pile of presents I've spent hours wrapping, even of the snow lol.

Ever since Mister M was born we've gone for professional picture around Christmas to send out with our cards. I love doing it because I can see how he's grown each year, and now with D-man the tradition can carry on. I'm not sure how much they'll want to do it when they're older but for now it's something I love doing and having.
This years pictures turned out wonderful (the family one is a little meh... but the one of just the boys is beautiful).

I never thought of how hard it would be to get everyone together, looking at the camera, smiling and looking pleasant. My parents used to do it with us (4 kids, the oldest and the youngest only 5 years apart) all the time and I never appreciated how hard it must have been. I know at the end of our little session I was exhausted, frustrated and sick of the whole idea... and it really didn't go badly at all.
No one was screaming, both boys were in a good mood, it was still hard. But totally worth it in the end for sure :)

I had to write an actual letter today, with pen and paper. It was so strange to do it, I think the last thing like that I ever had to write was a note in highschool to my best friend talking about boys we we're dating, or seeing lol. I wrote it to my mom's dad and his wife. My mom doesn't talk to her dad, long story but it's been that way for years. But when I was living in Toronto I got back into contact with them, and last Christmas we even went out for the day together and did some shopping. I never told them about D-man though and I haven't spoken to them since last Christmas season, since I'm terrible at keeping in touch with people, and they didn't really put all that much effort into it either. But I thought it would be considerate to write them and let them know about my newest addition, since the last time I saw them I had probably just gotten pregnant (or it happened shortly after) so they would have had no idea. And just sending them a card with pictures but no explanation would be a bit crass. So I've written a full page letter, we'll see how it goes.

On a side note, I need to stop baking all the time, I'm going to gain tons of weight if I keep making cookies and brownies and then eating them lol. I love baking, especially for the holidays but really, I've got to stop making things I really like so much lol, it's not good for my figure. I am using whole wheat flour this year though, I actually like baking with it, the finished products are tasty and have nice texture... the batter isn't all that great though with the grainy texture lol. I guess it will make me eat less batter as I'm baking though, which is good.