I made a feeble attempt at taking some pictures of Joseph to put on our Christmas cards yesterday. I bought him a new Christmas outfit and everything. As usual, it was extremely difficult...the one above is about as good as it got...even with a paint sponge and my pant leg in the picture. It has a striking similarity to last years' picture:

I'm gonna try again soon. I might just use a non-Christmas picture. I just don't do so well taking pictures inside. I hate the way a flash makes the picture look. My camera does ok without a flash but the target and the camera need to be pretty still....and my child is never still.

We went to Michael's work Christmas party this weekend. It was 20s themed this year. They encourage you to wear attire that goes with the theme, but I have never done that. I thought the 20s would be fun though. I had originally planned to use one of my black dresses and put fringe on the bottom and stuff to transform it into a flapper dress. Then I decided I didn't want to do that and that I would make my own dress. Well, I had trouble finding a pattern that suited me and the fabric I wanted was $10 and up a yard. Luckily the trim was 1/2 off when I went to buy it! I ended up deciding to use 2 tshirts to make the dress. The top was a large tshirt with the collar cut out and sleeves cut off. I kept putting it on a tweaking the neckline and arm holes. I ended up putting a couple of darts in the bust area. Then I used an XL tshirt (I've got sizeable hips and didn't want the dress to cling) cut just below the armpits straight across to make the bottom of the dress. I sewed the top to the bottom and used some sequined elastic to make a "belt" to cover the seam. I sewed fringe to the bottom and some pretty sequin embelishment to the the neckline. Add in a 20s style necklace, head band, and boa and here you go:


Well, tonight Michael and I are going to go to Lexington and draw a name off of the Angel Tree and shop for the kid that we draw. I'm pretty excited. I've wanted to do this for a long time. I don't have an excuse on why I never did. We actually drew another family off the Angel Tree at church yesterday. I went to do a little shopping for them while I was out this morning but Joseph was in a heck of a mood and kinda dampened the spirit. We will just shop for them tonight too. Michael and I just feel like we've been so blessed this year especially and hope to make the Angel Tree shopping trip a yearly tradition and get Joseph in on it in a couple of years when he understands what it means a little more.

I hope you are all having a great December so far! I know I haven't posted much lately and I doubt it will get any better until after the New Year! Hang in there with me!