Holiday Madness

So I will be the first to admit I have a "love/hate" relationship with the Holidays...its seems to bring out the most of my insecurities, but also a lot of my joys!
Take today for example - I love having yearly Family Portraits done. This was a tradition that my family only did 2x - Once when my brother was still crawling, and again in my senior year when I had just gotten my braces - what fabulous timing!) I love seeing all us in one shot, looking fairly decent, and then there are always the "cute and fun shots", but to achieve this, is the hateful task of finding outfits, a time, a place, praying that everyone is healthy and well rested.... so with all of those to meet, today was the day, Anna was out of school and everyone is healthy... of course Paul had to wake up at 5am. I guess 4 out of 5 ain't bad - but it seems like it was so much work for 20 min of Picture taking. We were at JCPenny's so it will be 2 weeks until I have them to show off!
The other tradition that brings out my fears - Holiday cooking/baking! Again, not something that my family was big on - my Grandpa always put on the best Christmas spread and Turkey day was at either my Aunt Suzanne's or Uncle Kevin's. I am truly blessed that my husband will eat even my worst meals without complaining (and even keep the leftovers to eat later) but this is not one of my stronger skills. It use to be easy to deal with - leave the cooking to Richard, who a - loves to cook and b - is really good at it! Now, however, I have a 5 yr old who is trying to learn to read and wants to learn new things like "Mommy, lets make banana bread today". I don't want to discourage her from learning, but I hate the idea of it not coming out right and devastating her - so after reading the directions at least 4x before I even let her in the kitchen, we now have a loaf in the oven..... I had a great time working with her and seeing her learn, so I guess I have to learn how to relax and just enjoy these moments!
Let the Holidays begin!