Christmas card photo shoot!

 I threw the kids in some coordinating outfits one afternoon and announced it was time to finally get our Christmas card photo done!  I did individual ones of the kids and about a million of the group together.  They had some goofy outtakes but overall, I was excited about how they ended up!

Not exactly the pose I was hoping for.....

Whoops....Garrett missed the countdown!

Well....no one was ready that time!

Finally!  A good one!

The card!

The back of our card  :)

Thanksgiving 2018!

 We spent Thanksgiving in Virginia Beach this year at Cousin Stephanie's house!  Gavin was excited to have 2 extra kids to play with and Alexandria was excited that we brought a teenage girl with us (Caroline) for her to hang out with ;)  We were in charge of bringing the juice boxes, pumpkin roll  cakes and I made butterscotch pudding cookies just for fun!  
The group had a great time running around the yard and playing with Kristen's new puppy, Olive.  We also played many, many rounds of card games like Spoons.  Then we stuffed ourselves silly and headed home at dark.  A busy but fun day!

The traditional "we fell asleep on the sofa" pic!

The pretty lights of the Hampton Coliseum on the way home!

Enchanted Book Fair!

 The theme for Scholastic's fall book fair was "Enchanted Forest".  So I ran with that and the first thing I made was this giant floating dragon!  It hung out on the ceiling for about a month and looked awesome.  We added more decorations as the fair drew closer, and it ended up being great advertisement for me!  We ended the week at $4200 in profit!

My "wishing well" made out of a side table!

Emily Turns 8!

 So even though Emily shared a party with Jason at the beginning of November, we had to recognize her on November 18th for turning 8!  I baked her a cake of her choice (Funfetti cake with lavender icing).  Since her actual birthday was on a Sunday, she chose for us to take her to McDonald's for breakfast!  Then we had cake after dinner.  

Fall pictures-- November 5, 2018

breakfast at McDonalds

Emily had her well child visit in December with Jason and she's 90th% for height and weight!  As she was waiting for her flu shot, I noticed that the look on her face was soooo similar to a picture I had taken on her 2 month visit almost 8 years earlier (I don't typically memorize all the photos I take--I just happen to love that picture!).  Here they are for comparison--those eyes, mouth, and nose haven't changed!