With every Christmas card I write...

I have been glued to my computer all day....

Watching how many views my new Etsy site has gotten, writing up invoices, and going through all of my new family photos in an attempt to put together this year's Christmas card!!  Here are just a couple favorites....

I would show you more, but I wouldn't want to spoil the Christmas card.  I know how ridiculous I am about to sound, but I look forward to THE CHRISTMAS CARD every year and every year it seriously stresses me out.  It's as if I am just going to die if my card isn't perfect.  (Seriously, that's why my Christmas cards kick ass, just saying)

Today I got all of my proofs back from Ashley Hawkes of Hawkeye Photography and I am in love.  She did an amazing job.  The package that I purchased includes ten edited photos.  Now imagine me, in pajamas, drinking coffee, "oohing" and "aahing" over 200+ pictures at my desk by myself ignoring my crying children trying to narrow it down to my favorite ten.

The choosing of the right card and the right pictures for the right card is a very serious process.  The combinations are endless.  Do I want a card with four photo spots?  Do I do one picture of the four of us and a couple of the girls? Or do I want some of the individual girl pictures? Does Clara look cuter in this one or this one? Is it too much if I do some in black and white and some in color?  I like this 5x7 card better, but is it really a better deal than the 4x8?  What's on Etsy?  That one is HOW MUCH?....

I go out of my mind for this image of perfection every year.

I never thought at 23, I would be a stay-at-home-mom who obsesses over Christmas cards. 

I have these moments often where I pause and try to see myself from the point of view of an outsider and I just think is this really me?  This is my life? Is this really happening?  A prime example would be last week when trying to leave the Y and trying to pay at the desk while I have Clara screaming in her stroller and Lucy is hanging off of me with pee running down her leg (and now mine) from her "accident".  A friend of mine told me the next day that I looked so calm and collected (a response I hear often) and I explain that really it's like I get tunnel vision.  I completely shut down and have a list in my head of the next step.  I must do A, B, C, and D to get into my car and get home.  And then I can lose it.  I swear sometimes I am like a ticking time bomb.

The Christmas card is like my little snippet of peace. It shows the world and reminds me, here are my three most prized possessions in the whole world, and look at how beautiful they are.  This is my life now and this is what I have been doing.  I couldn't be more proud.  I hope your Christmas is as magical as my everyday life.   

That is what the choosing of the Christmas card is all about for me.  Here are some pictures you will not be seeing in your mailbox this holiday season....

Me: "Really, Tony?"

 Clara mid-face-plant.

 Lucy about to poke Clara in the eye with a sucker she refuses to let go of.

 Tony's irate face.  Lucy is not sitting still, Clara is puking down the front of her dress, and I am trying to fake a smile.

 I really do wish one of these shots had turned out and we didn't all look terrible.  I liked the effect.

 Lucy crying about Clara not letting go of her finger.

 Lucy (once again) attacking Clara.

Clara pulling my hair out and eating it.  This is my "calm and collected" face that really wants to cry because this hurts!

Now that I have talked about how great my Christmas card will be, I feel like I have even higher expectations to live up to this year.....

Back to the drawing board.