2 photo shoots, 1 girl

All of the boys have been away hunting, so my mom, Georgia Kate and I spent the weekend together!  We had some fun and did a couple of photo shoots with our baby girl.

We tried to copy some of the pictures we've seen on Pinterest.  If you are a photographer, cover your eyes. ;)  My friend Kim was so sweet to help me figure out what settings to put my camera on to achieve the look we were going for.  They are far from professional looking, but I am happy with what we got!

Yesterday we met up with some friends for lunch and decided we should take some pictures of our little peach in her bonnet and cape!

It sure is fun to have our own little baby doll! :)

Joy Journal

Now that 2014 is winding down, I wanted to share something that has made such a difference in my life this year!  We've been talking a lot about gratitude with Reid and how important it is to have a grateful heart.  Obviously this is a very abstract and difficult concept for a 3 year old, but it's just so important.  It's something I want to model for our kids every day.  I truly believe that joy and gratitude go hand in hand.  I started a Joy Journal on January 1st and have written in it every single night (with the exception of a couple of vacations when I forgot to bring it).  I end my night by remembering a moment that brought me joy that day or something that I felt thankful for that day.  Sometimes it's something really small and other times it's something bigger.  This Joy Journal habit has helped me notice our blessings and find moments of joy more than every before.  I find myself walking out of the grocery store and thinking how thankful I am that we are able to buy what we need to feed our family or giving my kids a bath and thinking how blessed we are to have an abundance of clean water.  I'm sharing this so that maybe someone reading will feel encouraged to start a Joy Journal of her own! I promise it will change you!   

I also love looking back and reading what I wrote throughout the year.  Here are just a few of my random entries… :)

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Here is our Christmas card for this year!  My mom took the pictures for us.  Thanks, Mom!

Here is the front:

This picture went on the back.  It is sooo hard to get Georgia Kate to smile for the camera.  We got about two pictures where she was smiling. :)

This picture was our runner up!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! 

Reid's Christmas Program

Reid had his very first school program on Thursday!  I had no idea how it would go because while he loves music, he does not love attention and people staring at him.  I tried to be really casual about the whole thing and not really talk about it a lot.  Well, he did great!  It's so funny to me to see all the different personalities.  There are the kids that are SO into it and were just born to be on stage and then there are the precious little statues that don't move and look terrified.  Reid seemed kind of neutral about the whole thing, but he did most of the motions and sang most of the words.  I definitely got a little teary during Silent Night.  There's just nothing sweeter than children singing.  

 Here's our handsome 3 year old before we left for school.  

Here's his class walking into the chapel.  He seemed so grown up walking in a line with his little class!

Sweetness...

Chris and I, Georgia Kate, Grandma, Mumsie and Poppies were all in attendance, but we only managed to get these two pictures.  

Reid was really sad when we had to leave, but his wonderful teacher texted me this picture 5 minutes later to let me know he was doing great! :) 

And then there was this picture.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Reid was not impressed. :)

Deck the Halls!

I love taking a peek into other people's homes at Christmas!  We did most of our decorating before Thanksgiving this year.  I just like to be able to enjoy it for as long as possible! :) 

I am looking forward to having Georgia Kate help us decorate the tree next year, but for this year, we did it after she went to bed one night.  Reid was SO excited about the tree.  I really try to notice and appreciate the kids' ages every year at Christmas time because next year at Christmas they will be an entire year older.

I love the ornaments we got for the kids this year for their personal collections!  For Georgia Kate I went with a peach because she's our little Peachy, obviously. :) 

I decided that Reid absolutely needed a drum ornament to represent his love of music!

I think themed trees are so neat and pretty, but ours is a random assortment of personal ornaments and I love that too!  Maybe one day I'll have enough energy to do a themed tree and a personal tree, but that time is not now. :) The finished product…  

I loved watching his face as we turned on the lights!

The next morning Georgia Kate enjoyed checking out the tree.  

Love this sweet picture of Reid telling her about it!

We have an entry table this year, so it was fun to add a little Christmas cheer there.  Our Christmas card box is already filling up!  I love having pictures of our friends and their beautiful, growing families!  

I am working on something to go between the stockings, but it's not quite finished yet.  Someone I taught with made Chris and I our stockings (and our tree skirt) as a wedding gift!  I thought that was such a unique and special wedding gift idea!  

My favorite part of our Christmas decor is always the snow village.  My mom gets us a new piece for Christmas each year.  I love imagining that we live in a magical, snowy place (instead of a place where we are wearing flip flops today)!

We started this "A Meaningful Christmas" advent tree two years ago.  You can check out the details here! http://www.ameaningfulfamily.com

My mom found these adorable door hangers for Reid and Georgia Kate's bedroom doors!

 I can't get enough of handprint and footprint art, so we made these little snow people!

Reid and I made snowflakes to hang from our kitchen light fixture.  He was so proud!

The outside and inside of the front door...

I didn't take any pictures of the outside of our house, but I love these pictures of Chris and Reid working on the lights.

Is there anything sweeter than babies in Christmas jammies?? I really don't think so.  I gave the kids their new pajamas on Thanksgiving night and I had to convince Reid to wear them because he really only wants to wear his firetruck pajamas these days.  This is Georgia Kate's first nightgown and I just think it's so sweet!!  I was ready to take a perfectly precious picture of the kids in their matching jammies and this is what we got… yep.

After the successful photo shoot, we went outside to show them the Christmas lights on our house!  We ended up walking around our street and looking at a few other houses too.

LOVE Reid's sweet face in this one...

As usual, Georgia Kate was not impressed… ;)

Fa La La La La!  Merry Christmas!

"Official" Santa Pictures

Last night we made our annual trip to Bass Pro to see Santa.  We will continue to go to the free Santa until all of our kids are no longer terrified of him!  Reid refused to wear his shirt that has Santa on it, so we were off to a great start! ;)  

Mumsie made this beautiful corduroy bonnet and vintage cape for Peachy.  I just adore it!  

Reid loved looking around and playing with some of the trucks and cars they had out, but wanted nothing to do with Santa.  I decided to not force the issue, so here is our official group "Santa" picture for 2014. :)

 Another bonnet picture because it's worthy of another picture.

Reid agreed to a reindeer picture instead of a Santa picture.  

And now I present to you… our actual official Santa picture of 2014!

Bless her heart.  As cute as I think the crying pictures are, I really do feel so bad that I did that to her!

Ho Ho Ho!