Decorations.

I try to hand-make a lot of things for Christmas. 

I went with more neutral and natural elements and just had fun this year! 

This JOY is just paper over letters...and the birds. 

I have a problem with really cute, pudgy fun birdies! 

These have come to me through the years. Added another "Momma" bird this year.

I put teeny tiny lights and fun cute hand-made trees (from art group in the past) and little houses and snow in some glass I had around. Then got creative with a simple but pretty canvas. 

Had fun doing the silver lettering on it.

(Kind of a bad picture, sorry.)

The wooden carved and white-washed trees. 

Got some of them at Marshall's last year. AND they had more this year! 

Printed and framed a couple "Elf" movie quotes. 

Loved this one! 

Gotta love that movie.

Our tree. It is from our dear friends that went to Ecuador years back for mission work. 

Of course because they couldn't bring it with them! 

They gifted it to us and it's so special to us.

Wintery/Christmasy stuff

It was Miss Polly's birthday December 18th. 

We celebrate!

You can see she was so thrilled to celebrate! ha.

Alright people...Colorado is DRY on a normal day. 

Then put winter in. 

Our lips.

Our poor poor lips.

Clearly we have plenty of lipgloss, lipstick, lipgoop, lip moisture around the house!

Lauren rocks with nails.

Daddy got his toesies done! 

He PROUDLY showed them off to everyone that came to the house.

We discovered "adult" coloring pages. 

For meditation and relaxation and stress.

Yes, please.

Christmas gifts. 

My brother wanted to know what to get the girls for Christmas. 

This is what what they said when I asked them.

LOL.

Polly has a bit of a problem. 

Like, an obsession really. 

She needs therapy or meds or something.

This was her 2nd Olaf. She loves Olaf. 

Plays with him, drags him along, chews him to pieces, can't be without him.

Winter hiking!

Making chai tea!

Winter building...

and shoveling...

snuggling in front of a warm fire...

Winter is about cute hats!

...and snowshoeing on the hills next to us.

FREE Star Wars tickets.

Mama had a bit of a dizzy/neck problem being in the THIRD row, but....

Aweeeesooome.

Christmas cuties?

Josh wanted to get some pictures of his Christmas girls.

This is what he got.

Niiiiice.

Annual holiday picture

So there's an expectation. For the past...I dunno how many years...we have been somewhat creative with our Christmas card picture. We have gone "out of the box" original or fun or goofy or whatever. Most expect to receive something in the mail that is "Foster-style" now.

But we had trouble this year, ya'll.

First. We waited too long. I was thinking the card was going to be a New Year's card!

Second. We weren't quite feelin' it this year?

Third. Our kiddos are getting older and this isn't too cool to them anymore?

Here is what we started with:

Throwing way too glittery and sparkly ornaments up against the wall.

Nope.

Not feeling the vision.

Ouch. These ornaments hurt!

(Mind you...NONE of these pictures are edited, etc.)

We tried throwing them up the stairs.

Not working.

Still laughing here... a bit.

Okay, enough.

Like, ENOUGH.

Time to get the vacuum and suck up all this glitter everywhere now. (Uh.)

We went to a friends Christmas party and they had this adorable Christmas photo mock-up.

Sooooo I asked my pal (we were desperate at this point!) and I brought over the fam.

Let's try this? 

Nope.

Lighting not right.

Too blurry.

Everyone was too crabby pants.

I took what we had to work with,

and this is what I came up with.....

Of course I had to get a card that said "BE MERRY" because that IS what we needed to be through this years photo taking!