Merry Christmas from Avon Lake

Since we have so much family to visit with Christmas is spread out over almost a week. We had the first family dinner with my mom's family last night up in Avon Lake. It was nice to get together and visit since everyone is living in different parts of the state. I think everyone had a good time playing with Cammy and Cooper. They were the stars of the evening!


Mark and Ashley's family picture.





We all tried on Cooper's puppy reindeer coat after he took it off.


Yay for a Kohl's card and a St. Jude bear!


Grams loved her present from Me, Cyan and Richie. The fur ball looked festive in the snow globe.


The Christmas picture is growing! I had been just the three of us for so long but now we all come in pairs.

Clean Fridge & Brownie Points

A box of frozen spinach + 2 days in the veggie drawer = messy fridge.

Thinking he was being pro-active Richie put the spinach in the fridge to thaw on Saturday since we were going to make Tortellini Soup on Monday. He was running late so I told him I would start with supper. I went to get the spinach out of the drawer to find it leaking lovely green water. Ewwwww. It started with the veggie drawer and ended with taking every thing out of whole refrigerator and lots of scrubbing.

I'm so proud I thought I would show off some photos of our super clean fridge.






It sure does look like a lot of food when you look at it like this, and I still say there is nothing to eat!


p.s: Don't these look yummy?!? The real meaning of "brownie points"

Christmas Cuties

I'm so excited! I was asked to do my first paid photo shoot last weekend (ok, so I was for some family members and I really didn't ask them to pay me but they wouldn't let me leave without taking something). But it made me happy to know that they liked my work enough to take some Christmas pictures for them. It was fun taking pictures of such a sweet family!












Sweet baby Lauren got that lovely scratch from the cat the day before our session.



It's so hard to get good pictures of boys! They never want to smile... must be some tough guy thing.

Something silly...

I thought this was silly, so I wasted my time filling it out:

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Spending my days at high school (wait... I still do that.)
2. Saxophone - ing it up in the band
3. Watching Friends every Thursday
4. Sporting my Omar Vizquel jersey
5. Hanging out with Meredith, Julie, Robin, Erin and Lindsey

5 Things on my "to do" list for today:
1. Go to Walmart
2. Take a shower
3. Make something to take to the Christmas lunch at work.
4. Grade papers
5. Watch The Office

5 things I would do if I had a million dollars:
1. Buy a house
2. Pay off my college loans
3. Take a vacation to Europe or Australia...
4. Buy a new fancier camera
5. Buy a truck for Richie

5 things I will never wear again:
1. Hot pink and hot green together
2. Sandals with socks
3. Jumpers
4. Acid wash jeans with splatter paint
5. Stirrup pants

5 favorite toys:
1. Camera
2. Computer
3. PS2
4. iPod
5. my car

Christmas Tree & Snowball Fights

The first one was my responsibility the second one I had nothing to do with (mainly because I had the camera)


We were supposed to ride to the field behind the tractor but it was too slippery and we had to get out and walk.



I'm kinda happy that I wasn't in the middle of this.




Since this was the result.






It kinda stinks when all of the boys gang up on you.



I finally found a tree. It took longer than it should have since I spent so much time taking pictures and not looking. It was my turn to pick the tree this year. I wanted to get a thin one that wasn't too skinny.



And of course sweet Richie was there to cut the tree down and carry it back to the car.

Happy Birthday Bryce!!

It's not really until the 22nd but we always celebrate early. Poor kid probably doesn't even realize when his birthday really is. Family + Crossroads pizza + birthday cake = an awesome way to spend a Friday night.


(I meant to wipe the pizza off his face but of course I forgot! I swear every picture I have of this kid he has food on his face.)








Anthony wouldn't stop playing with the geo-tracks long enough to let me take his picture. He probably thought he was in geo-track heaven when he walked into the family room!

Decorations

I braved the cold last night to take some pics of our Christmas lights. It was hard to hold still when I was shivering but I got one clear one.



Then I started playing with my manual focus to make the lights look blurry. Fun stuff!