Photoshoot for Christmas---New Year's Cards

Since my camera was on the fritz and I didn't get on the ball quick enough to schedule a photographer, I waited until today to take pictures for Christmas cards. (make that New Year's cards) with my amazing new camera!!!!! Canon 50D. Gotta learn how to use the thing now. SO, I caught my goofball daughters. Emma made me promise that I would only take 6 pictures. I had to take a few more. I love the lighting in my living room, but I had to put them on stools on a table to get them out of the direct sunlight. Funny, huh? Genuine laughing smiles. Love it.

What is it with sticking the tongue out? It's much cuter on a baby boy.

Then there's my little HB. He's such a character. He loves attention, and will sometimes initiate the interaction by smiling so hard that he squirms. It's so cute. He's also pretty content to watch what's going on. As you can imagine, there is plenty going on to watch.

This picture says, "I'm done smiling at you...you can't make me smile...in fact, I'm not even going to look at you."

Love the bubbles. He is always blowing bubbles with his drool.

And the tongue. He's always sticking his tongue out. Especially when he smiles.

Yes, I do have two other children who are now in school, and until they got their haircut on Tuesday night, they were looking pretty shaggy. Now is the challenge of capturing them in the daylight hours. Goal: Have the card ready for the printer before Saturday.

PS Got it done!!! As soon as we walked in the door from school, I had them change and fix their handsome, freshly cut hair, and of course that took 1/2 hour, but then we got some great ones. Unfortunately, I had to tell them to stick their tongues out. They were being too nice.

I love how chummy Clay is. The first thing he did was put his arm around Sam for the picture.

Then I have him put his arm down, and Sam leans away. He's more like me.

Christmas Time

The tree is up. We have listened to the Christmas Devotional. Most of my Nativities are in place. Some cookies are baked. Presents are wrapped and under the tree. Cards are coming in the mail. It must be Christmas Time.

More Fun From Thanksgiving

The day after Thanksgiving we opted out of early-morning shopping. Nate did get up and go with my parents to Murdochs after his parents called and told him that everything in the store was 25% off. Time to stock up on dog food. I took a trip to the office to get the tree and lights, but had to be back before dark in order to put them up. After Nate and I {mostly Nate} hung the lights across the front of the house, we had a camp fire. Our little scouts built the fire themselves as Nate and I supervised from the roof.
We made s'mores with these gigantic marshmallows that my mom found back in Ohio. It was really fun! It was Henry's first experience with a campfire. He just sat and stared and took it all in.

When we all got too cold, and the chocolate was gone, we headed back inside to watch Santa Buddies on our wall. We just may have started a new tradition.

On Saturday we went to the ranch to visit with Grandpa Bear. I talked them all into a picture.
We had a nice visit while the boys and girls played with Wyatt & McKayl. They LOVE their cousins. My pictures are a little few and far between. I didn't even get a picture of the kids playing with cousins, which they did for much of the weekend.

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Smile

"When you greet someone heartily, with a warm smile and a friendly salutation, all is well in that person's world - if only for a fleeting moment. The individual feels a sense of validation, that his existence in the cosmos has been acknowledged and recorded, that he is known."
~Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal

Laughter is Good for the Soul

Last night we went to see the Bar J Wranglers Christmas Concert at the high school. It was wonderful. We laughed and laughed and clapped and enjoyed some old country-western music. If anyone makes it this way in the summer months, we will take you to Jackson to see them perform live. Even if you are not a fan of old western music, you can't help but enjoy the group, laugh at the humor, and appreciate their talent. Click here or here for a sampling. I really enjoyed their Christmas renditions, but couldn't find anything online.

The founder of BarJ Wranglers, the dad of the two boys on the sides, was there last night. He was fun to listen to. Clay is just cluing me in: below we have Scott.

This fella can play some serious fiddle. He is amazing. {Tim}

This guy {I don't remember any of their names-sorry} has an amazing set of pipes. Bass pipes. Again, thank you Clay...this guy is Danny.And don't even tell me that this doesn't make you laugh. Our Crooner here is Brian. And Sam needs you to know that he is in disguise and doesn't really look like this. For a real-life look at Brian, see the top picture.
Henry seemed to enjoy it all from the comfort of my arms. Emma was snapping and clapping until she fell asleep too. Clay, Sam, and Amelia sat behind us with Grandma and Grandpa Lester and really enjoyed the show. They loved the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer rendition. It was hilarious. So, I'm thinking that it is kind of funny that I have just spent all this time posting pictures of people most of you don't really care about, and will probably never see in your life. But, I needed to laugh last night. It was therapeutic and enjoyable to be out of the house with my family, enjoying good, clean entertainment, and I wanted to remember that. So, take it for what it is. Take some time to laugh. It will make you feel good.

Some Great Pictures

It was wonderful to have so much family here for the Thanksgiving weekend. My parents and grandma came out and Nate's siblings, and one of mine, were all here on Sunday for Henry's blessing. It was a busy, but fun weekend with all the family. These are a couple of the pictures off one camera. There are more to come.

Four Generations

Amelia with her cousin, Jackson. (He loved the lasagna!!)

This has to go down as one of my all-time favorite pictures. Don't you love that crooked little smile? Just like his dad.

Henry is Smiling

Henry is starting to wake up and take notice of things around him...finally. He's so darling when he smiles, and when he does, he really means it. So, we cherish the smiles we get around here. I was lucky to have the camera close the other day when I got him engaged and smiling.

Played with this picture a little too. Cool effects, huh?