{olivia 1 year}

Happy birthday to my sweet baby girl.

baby.love

slobber.is.cute

Sometimes a little slobber on your chin can be completely adorable.

best.of.2010

My friend, Sarah, posted her year in pictures 2010.  I thought it was a fab idea, so I hopped right on board! 

January: sledding with Daddy

February: Meredith turns 5 

March: cookin' in the kitchen

April: girls' weekend at the lake with Eden

May: Claire turns 7

June: zoo time

July: memories at the lake with Eden 

August: memories at the lake with our other cousins

September: field trips are the best

 October: big buck in borrowed Accord...RIP black truck

November: my 3 favorite girls

December: obviously prego :)

Join in!  I'd love to see your year in pictures!

'tis.the.season

Well, I've had a few of you (my husband included) give me a bit of grief about not updating my blog lately...you know who you are! :)  The bottom line is this: we're always busy. It never changes. I'm NEVER bored...ever.

So, Thanksgiving looked a little something like this....

We spent a couple of days at Jill and Andrew's. It was fun...especially since Grandma bought the girls matching shirts. I think this is the first time all three of my kids have been dressed alike. I'm not the type of mom to dress my kids in the same outfit, but I humored my mom with these Christmas shirts! :)

And, she'll be happy to know that they received a compliment the other day. The cashier (who was my age and looked relatively normal) said, "That is so cute! I never dress my kids alike...I hated it when my mom did it to us. But they look adorable!" I laughed. I told her that this was the first time that they'd ever been dressed alike! They had gone carolling at co-op that day, and they were supposed to wear something Christmas-y if they had it. And so we did.

And then we have sweet little Eden...

And my 3 favorite girls in the whole wide world...

We were supposed to take Christmas pictures last Tuesday (when everyone was puking). Um...that didn't work out. So, a couple of days later, I was emptying the card on my camera. Low and behold...a fab picture of my girls! Family Christmas picture 2010? Totally crossed it off my list, uploaded these to Wal-Mart, printed 90 for our Christmas letters, and voila! pictures completed! Not quite a "family" picture like I like to do, but an adorable picture nonetheless...and it was effortless (definite plus!).

Other than that, the girls have been LOVING wrapping presents (which I love as well because I actually don't like wrapping presents). We're baking Christmas cookies this afternoon. The girls built a snowman over the weekend. Christmas music is on at our house about 24/7 these days, and we're getting ready to host a Christmas party as well as family on Christmas Eve.

This is my favorite time of the year! I have plenty more to say, but I'll save it for later. I've got some fun things coming this week, so maybe I'll have another blog post or two by Christmas! Much love to you all!!! Thanks for still reading if you're still with me! :)

f.family

Can I tell you how much fun this was??!!  This is Jessica, Amos, and their two kiddos.  Jess, Amos, and I all went to college together (Jess is one of my BFFs from my freshman year), so we got together recently to do some pics when they came to visit.  They are such a fabulous family, and it was a pleasure to photograph them!  Grace and Tyler were extremely cooperative during our session, and were rewarded with m&ms from Mom and Dad. :)

Here are a few of my favs:

Love you guys!

eden.3.months

Little Eden is 3 months old. We've spent a lot of time together this month, and it's been so much fun! We love you, Eden!

b.15days

b.2wks

m.5yrs

h.2yrs

k.3yrs

So, I know I said I wasn't going to blog this week...and I'm not! Right now, it's last week, and I'm blogging ahead. One of my goals this year was to get to know my camera really well and to take some pictures of my kids. Thankfully, a few of our friends have wanted a few pictures as well. So, I thought that this week, I'd show a few of the pics that I've been taking!

the.great.outdoors

This girl can't get enough of the great outdoors. She brings me her shoes at least 5 times a day to inform me that she would like to go outside. She doesn't like it when I tell her to put them back. And when we do go outside, she completely falls apart when it's time to come in....for a nap. She leads such a rough life.

little.eden

We went to my sister's over the weekend, and I got to snap pictures of little Eden all day! I'm such a bad sister because I didn't get any of Jill and Eden...next time for sure! She was sooooo sweet and so much fun to see for the day. I can't wait until we get to see her again at Easter (oh, and Jill and Andrew too!). :)

photo.shoot

(click on the collage to make it larger)

Meredith's photo shoot was a little cold, but she was a great sport. She loved it when I asked her to jump while I was taking her picture!

I think we're going to go with the upper left hand picture for her official age 5 picture, but I think my favorite is the one in the second column where she's jumping off the step! So much fun.

happy.holidays

We had a wonderful Christmas (which I'll post about later)! We're looking forward to the New Year! I'll get back to blogging in January once things slow down around here!