Christmas morning

Just a few pictures from Christmas morning.

White Christmas

I meant to post this a few days ago.

The other morning I woke up & the sky was thick with fog.  I thought, 'This might be the closest we get to a white Christmas this year'.  So I headed outdoors, camera in hand.

More Christmas pictures to come soon...

Wilkins family pictures

This year everyone was home for Christmas.  Probably won't happen again for awhile.  So, we took some family pictures.

I won't lie, it was absolutely crazy & I wonder if I ever should take my family's pictures again. Most turned out like this-

 Everyone was complaining, we had to take them at the worst time of day in a slim piece of shade, there was a screaming baby, a stubborn dog that insisted on being in all our pictures, & coordinating outfits is a hopeless cause.  We literally had ONE picture "turn out" if you can call it that.

For family night yesterday, Chad & I wrote short autobiographies in our journals.  As I reflected on my life thus far I felt like the poor, little olive tree planted in the poorest spot of ground (Jacob 5).  We had some rough times growing up.  We've never had real stability.  There's been lots of moves & drafty houses, financial set backs, car accidents & illness.

But that poor little olive tree had to sink it's roots deep.  Despite it all, we always loved each other, had a lot of fun & my parents always stayed firmly rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As I wrote I felt nothing but pride & gratitude for all the chaos & challenges.  It's shaped me.  And although I admit, there's been times when I've resented all the craziness, I also have to admit that I wouldn't have had things any other way.  I wouldn't want another family.  I love them.

Here's some pictures of the individual families.
The Adams-

The Reisners-

The Cooks-

The Bitters-

The Guerras-

Christmas Tree

I'm on a role with the blogging thing this week!  I'll tell ya, blogging for me is sort of how my dating trends were in a past life- feast or famine!
Well, here's a visual "feast" of pictures that I took this afternoon playing around with different settings on my camera :)  Can you tell what I did?

(hint- 1st pic using a flash, 2nd manual focus (or should i say, unfocus), & 3rd looong shutter speed with a tripod)

Santa Claus

This past week we had a lot of fun as Chad's dad came through town for a few days.  He's moving my mother in law back from Utah to Florida.  As part of the moving process, we received boxes & boxes of Chad's things.  We've managed to go through about four of them so far.  Thirteen more to go.

The process has been bittersweet.  Bitter- I'm not a pack rat in the least bit! And I'm running across all the pictures & letters from all Chad's ex-girlfriends (haha, just kidding- it's actually kinda fun.  Do I have a twisted personality because of that?).

The sweet- I feel like I'm learning more about Chad as we weed through everything his mom kept and I occasionally come across priceless pictures, like the one below of Chad on Santa's lap (wasn't he the cutest little boy?).

Then I got an idea.  I found my youngest picture sitting on Santa's lap (yes, I'm the one sticking out my tongue) & paired it with Liam's most recent Santa picture.

I think Santa now days looks a lot more genuine & friendly.  What do you think?

Christmas traditions

When I think of holiday traditions, one comes to mind.  A tradition that began with my grandma Freestone & continued with my mom.  We always had to drink a large glass of juice before we could go in to see our Christmas presents.

For some reason, the glass of juice seemed insurmountable.  Always a struggle to guzzle down.  One year the juice selection was V8 juice.  That year was especially tough.

Now I have my own little family.  We're deciding which traditions we want to carry on & start.  One we've adopted from Chad's family is the baking & decorating of sugar cookies. My third time with the tradition.   Here's how things looked this year.

November randomness

November randomness...a lame, completely uncreative blog post title.  But really, what sort of cohesive title exists concerning some pictures regarding a naked baby boy & a dessert.  Ya, I couldn't think of one either.

Soooo...onto the pictures.

I'll tell you straight up, Liam takes showers with me.  It started out as a convenient way for me to get a shower when he was younger.  Now he insists.  He LOVES the shower!

And we have our routine.  We shower.  I bundle him up & flip on the disney channel.  He sits all adorable mesmorized by Mickey Mouse or the trains of Chuggington.  I fix my hair & make-up.  I finish.  I chase him, diaper in hand.

I never wanna forget any of it!

On another note, have you heard of pinterest?  You probably have.  Chad and me have taken an interest into baking a new dessert from there together every week.  Below is our favorite dessert we've made to date.  Cheesecake Brownies.  (their brownies turned out a lot more "photogenic").