Christmas Photography 2012

Taking pictures is a bit of an obsession for me.  It’s all my Grandpa’s fault.  I swear.  I don’t remember a holiday, vacation or visit where he wasn’t taking pictures.  The still camera was in one hand, the video camera in his left.  

I don’t do a whole lot in the way of home videos.  But photography?  Yeah.  I do some of that.  Ahem. Understatement.  I wouldn’t call myself a photographer.  (Although I’m dreaming a bit in that direction.)  But I do love to take pictures.  Thanks to my hubby’s awesome gift of a DSLR last year and a basic photography class, I shoot in manual and have been experimenting with all kinds of pictures.

Last year I did some indoor shots using natural lighting and basic manual mode.  You can see them here.  Though looking back I’m not sure I want to link up to those.  Haha.  Anyway, this year I wanted something outside and this is what I came up with.  I hung a few ornaments in the tree, borrowed the awesome red chair from a friend and used the wreath that I put over my mantel for the set.  And viola!  I give you Christmas Photo Shoot 2012. 

Arnie helped me out and held the reflector which resulted in some good catch lights.  I think they’re good enough for a Christmas card and I might have a few prints done for the grandparents.  It was a lot of fun even though the boys cooperated for not quite 30 minutes.

My kids will certainly have tons of memories of the crazy things Mommy did to get the shot. 

Baking Up Traditions

We have been doing our activity advent calendar since December 1^st.  I have to say that its been a big hit so far.  But today was definitely the best day yet.  Today we made Christmas cookies.  Its my great grandma’s recipe, and she told me that she used to make them when she was a little girl.  There’s something incredibly sweet in Hayden making the same cookies that his great-great grandma used to make.  I took a bunch of pictures and am going to take them to her when we head up to Michigan for the holidays.  (Yes, my wonderful Gram is still alive- 92 years young!)

We make Christmas cookies every year.  But this year was extra fun.  For the first time Hayden could actually cut out the cookies, shake the shaped dough into his palm and hand it to me to put on the cookie sheet.  He helped me cut all 4 ½ dozen cookies.  Then we took a break for lunch and rest time.

The break in the activity was great, after that though, he was ready to get back at it.  I frosted while Hayden decorated.  He did a great job and actually decorated them all!  I couldn’t believe it, I thought that he’d get bored and I’d end up doing most of the decorating.  Nope.  He had a blast and told his Daddy every detail about it.  He even remembered decorating cookies last year in our Memphis home.  That time he only decorated four cookies, this year…over four dozen!

Mason was great too.  He sat contentedly in his high chair squishing up banana (occasionally eating some too.)  When he started to fuss I just cleaned him up and set him on the floor and he happily played at our feet and crawled all over the living room.   The afternoon followed the same pattern.

It was so wonderful to see something that I did with my Mom, and that I’ve done every year since moving out of the house become a family tradition that my own sweet boys can be part of.

Rolled dough, baked cookies, frosting, and a sprinkling of colored sugar equals a joyful day to be cherished forever.

I even set the camera up and took some pictures of myself with the boys.
The lighting leaves a lot to be desired, but I still love all the moments...

Mason loved exploring while we baked.

The finished product.  Yummy!

Happy Craftmas!

So yesterday I looked at my project list and suddenly grasped that, um, tomorrow (now today) is December 1^st and I had yet to finish Hayden’s Activity Advent Calendar!  YIKES!  So I worked on it until one am, realized that I had about three hours of work to go, wrote his first day’s activity down, put it in the incomplete calendar and went to bed.

Today Hayden happily pulled open the first box and didn’t seem to mind a bit that most of the rest were unfinished and (if he’d opened them up) empty.  But the partial advent calendar (and the date!) made me realize how much there is to do.

For Christmas I have several projects going.  Felt balls for Mason, a satchel (just like in Tangled) for Hayden.  Decorating our homemade Christmas tree- where we make almost all the ornaments for it. Qwillows for the nieces, hats & mittens for the boys.  Not the mention the Advent Calendar currently sitting on the table staring me in the face. 

Yes, much to do, along with the shopping, preparing holiday dinners, going to parties, wrapping (lots), sending out Christmas cards, Arnie traveling (lots), and then heading up to Michigan for the holiday itself.  Much to do indeed.

But honestly, I’m not overly worried about it.  If I were, you’d never read this post because I’d be too busy going crazy with projects.  I’m rather excited about all the fun things that I have to do.  And the deadline means that I might actually get them done.  I’ll finish the calendar tonight.  Then make a list for the rest, and start working on them tomorrow.  Now the state of my house while getting these projects done is, well, a whole ’nother blog post.

Time to get crafting!

Purposeful Moments

It only takes a moment to create memories that will last a lifetime.  The holidays always start me thinking about family, togetherness and traditions.  Its so easy to get caught up in the mayhem of the holidays, the buying gifts and forgetting that the whole point of a family dinner is the gathering itself.  Not the turkey on the table or the gifts under the tree.

I’ve been trying over the last few years to do things with Hayden (and now Mason) that will hopefully become lasting traditions throughout the year.  Some of those things are big things, such as Thanksgiving dinner.  Others are smaller, but still significant.

For the past two years, the day after Thanksgiving we go to a light festival of some sort to kick of the Christmas season.  The first year we went to the Memphis Zoo Lights.  Last year we went to the Shelby Farms Light Drive.  So this year I wanted to do the same, but being in a new place, plus the cost and distance made it hard to find an event that worked for us.  Eventually I found a wonderful neighborhood just 15 minutes up the road where 6-7 houses decorate elaborately and all the lights are timed to music.  It was small but beautiful.  It was so fun to see an everyday neighborhood transformed into a Christmas light show.  It really lifted our moods even higher and put us in the “Christmas Spirit” if you will.

But again, it made me think of all the things that create a sense of family.  The rest of the weekend was spent Christmas shopping and decorating.  It would have been easy to get busy and just want to get it done.  But instead, I let Hayden put ornaments on the tree anywhere he wanted… and I didn’t move them.  He helped Daddy put up lights outside while I fluffed trees inside and put up stockings.  We spent time saying, “Merry Christmas” over a cup of hot cocoa (even with it being 65 degrees out.)

Those tiny moments in between, the purposefulness of it all, creates traditions, connection and lasting memories that will tie us together for years to come.  They are what make us family.