Quick Takes Volume 22

~1~

I'm not cut out to go shopping amid crowds of people.  Target has been way to busy for me this past week and Sam's Club was simply insane today.  The worst part of it all is I know I'll have to go back out to the stores next week since I couldn't buy half of the things I needed to buy (all food items) when I was out today.

~2~

I'm trying to motivate myself to make cookies.  I want to have a nice variety of cookies to put out on Christmas day when my family comes for dinner, and I'd also like to be able to make up goodie bags for several people, but I really don't want to actually bake the cookies.  

~3~

I took five girls to see Santa this afternoon at a local garden center that has a great Santa set up complete with live reindeer.  I began to wonder what I was thinking about five minutes after we got there.  The two girls I brought with me were well behaved, but my older girls went into excited puppy dog mode and were showing off and generally irritating me.

~4~

Since we can't have a week without one of my kids mortifying me, Madeline stepped up to the plate and decided to ask Santa for approximately $1200 worth of items.  Really.  But to be fair she only asked for three things: iPhone 4S, iPad, and a Kindle.  [Honestly, what dream world is Madeline living in?]  Santa told her he thought the only item he might be able to swing is the Kindle but to not get her hopes up.  Thankfully, I didn't know what she asked him for until she got back in the car or I would have publicly chastised her for acting like a spoiled brat.  I usually remind my girls to only ask Santa for one small reasonably priced item.  At least Ellie was realistic and only asked for a Jessie doll from the Toy Story movie.

~5~

Royal Icing is incredibly easy to make.  For several years I operated under the assumption that it was a difficult icing to make and had opted to make buttercream icing when making gingerbread houses.  The pitfall with buttercream, of course, is it's not as good at holding gingerbread houses together.

~6~

Up! is the most depressing movie ever.  The kids just turned it on a few minutes ago and I'm already bawling.  How can such a sad movie be called "Up!"?  Even thinking about this movie upsets me.

~7~

I'm reading A Christmas Carol [on my iPad's Kindle app] for the first time ever and I'm amazed at how true Mickey's Christmas Carol, A Muppet Christmas Carol and the version Disney put out a couple years ago are to the book.  I am really enjoying the book.