Christmas 2015

We did things a little differently this year...I didn't take any photos on my nice camera! It was actually pretty amazing to not feel like I needed to capture everything. I was able to just be in the moment and enjoy. Adam got a really nice Fuji this year and has been awesome about bringing it along to big events and being in charge of photos. I wanted to start the post out with this photo of our family on Christmas.



Now for actually starting at the beginning. :) Christmas Eve was relatively warm, so we went to the park so Daddy could test out a plane and the boys could play.



On the drive home, Daddy asked Ren to keep an eye on his transmitter case, and Ren never let go of it.:)



That evening we went to my parents' church for their Christmas Eve service. While we were getting ready, Ren found his stocking hat and put it on and walked around like a little elf for about 20 minutes.

We thought we should take a family photo at church while we all looked nice. I love this of us even though Ren is showing a little skin. :)

After church, we went to my parents' house for our traditional celebration with them. My brother and his family weren't able to make it this year from Colorado due to sickness, so it was just us and my parents. We had a good supper of ham, mashed potatoes, veggies, bean dip, chocolate chip cookies, and some other goodies. Then it was time for presents. Sutton had been waiting a long time for this part. He got a foos ball table that Daddy assembled so he could play a little.

We also played some ping pong on their new ping pong table and tried to teach Sutton to play (to no avail). Ren got hit with the paddles a couple times, poor thing. Ren got a fun barn that plays songs and has a silo that he loved. It's probably his favorite present that he got this year. He also insisted on trying on the socks I'd gotten my mom, and he wore them with no pants for awhile so it looked like he was in little baby leg warmers. He was tired out and it was after his bedtime when we left, so he quickly fell asleep on the way home.

When we got home, Ren had a second wind so we opened our stockings. Then Sutton and Daddy slept by the Christmas tree like they've started doing each year. Diesel was in the photo, but refused to stay there long, so he slept in bed with me.

In the morning, Ren slept til 5:50am, at which point I went into his room and told him it wasn't time to get up yet. He gave us another hour or so, and then we went out and woke up Daddy and Sutton. We made cinnamon rolls and orange rolls for breakfast and then it was time for presents. This year, Daddy and I had a hard time not buying Sutton EVERYTHING. He had the hugest pile of presents.

Ren is so hard to buy for because he just doesn't care about anything that much. He was still happy and excited though.

Sutton got a lot of Star Wars things. A towel, legos, a calendar, an x-wing, a darth vader gum ball machine, a remote control speeder, a notebook, some stickers. Star Wars was definitely the theme of his presents. Ren got a fun beanbag chair, a lion that roars, some wooden tools, a toy camera, and Sutton's old Lightning McQueen 4-wheeler.

Sutton got me some Jamberrys and some green earrings. This is when I was hugging him for my presents. :)

Ren understood the idea of ripping wrapping paper for the most part, but he still needed some help.

The downside of not being the one with the camera is that I get photos taken OF me instead of BY me. ;)

This was my I Carry Your Heart photo this week.

For lunch, my parents came over and then we all went to the Chinese buffet. It was so good.





When we got home, we took the 4-wheelers out. Sutton had gotten his current one on his birthday.

After Ren's nap, we went over to Adam's parents house for dinner and presents.

Baby Amos fell asleep on his Daddy's shoulder during dinner. So sweet.

We opened presents and took a few family photos. The nice one:



And the one that everyone likes better:

The grandkids (that were there...I think we're up to 15 total on this side).



Ren was enthralled by some water speakers someone got.



The babies lost their jammies because it was hot so we had to take a photo of the naked babies together.

The Daddys all took the babies so Bailey, me, Jessica, and Shay could go to the theater to see the movie Sisters. So much fun but we didn't get home til after midnight.

On the 26th, we went over to my grandparents house for supper and to visit. The boys both got in the toy tin my Grandma has.

                        

My other Grandma and my Uncle, Aunt, and two of my cousins were there too.

On the 27th, Daddy went with some of his family to see Star Wars again, and Jessica and I took Sutton and Breegan to the Palace Theater to see the Peanuts movie.

A couple random photos: on the 23rd, we did a Polar Express for all the cousins. Chili and cornbread for dinner, then they snuggled up in their PJs to watch the Polar Express movie. 

And yesterday I found Adam and Sutton watching TV like this:

Lastly...Adam in all his creativeness has devised a way to make a sort of 'moving time lapse' video. So he videoed our main celebrations and made this awesome video!

An Adventure {and Ren at 22 Months}

This morning, we went on an adventure at the campground we usually camp at for Thankscamping. Adam had a little cleaning up to do from Thanksgiving, and the boys will never pass up an opportunity to explore the great outdoors. We climbed, hiked, found sticks, found animal tracks, and got muddy. We even did the labyrinth (Sutton did it twice!). I decided to take some photos and turn this into Ren's 22 month post since today is his month birthday (2 months from 2 years old, how can it be?).

Ren, at 22 months:

*You have become QUITE the handful. No one else believes me, because you are so cute and sweet to everyone but ME. I guess in your defense, you can be cute and sweet to me too, but I'm around you more than anyone so I get to see the other side too. It's cliche to say, but I can't take my eyes off you for a second. One incident that comes to mind is this week, I got out of the shower (like a 5 minute long shower) and found you sitting on top of the dining room table, eating leftover bread crust from lunch.

*You copy everything Sutton does. You make the same noises. You have to go everywhere he goes. You even fall over when he falls over. You love him so much. You even climbed all the way up this hill to where Sutton is by yourself:

*You are SO independent and opinionated. You don't want us to feed you, you will turn your head away if we try.  You get mad if we try to give you a green squeezie (veggies) instead of red (fruit). You often inSIST that I hold you at all times, which means I can get nothing done. Usually it's at the most inopportune time (like when we are trying to get out of the house to go somewhere).

*You are funny. You like to make burping and tooting noise, and you have a ridiculous fake laugh. You also say "cheese" when I point a camera at you, which I don't remember teaching you.

*You love coffee, Christmas lights, birds in flying in the sky, snow, hot cocoa, crackers, music, dancing, and having raspberries blown on your belly. These are all things you have signed the word "more" for lately.

*You use the sign for "more" constantly. When you want more food, when you want to see something again, when you saw snow for one of the first times this week and then it went away.

One of my favorite photos from our time today:

*You have started trying to say more words. You will try to say anything we ask, but you've started using words more instead of whining lately. You will say "more" while you sign it. You can say "uh huh" the positive and "uh uh" the negative. You recently started saying "no." You say momma, dada, Sutton, please, cheese, and oh no. You have started getting really good at saying "thank you" when we give you things or do things for you, but it kinda sounds like "you're welcome" so.... I don't know.

*You wear size 18-24 clothes and size 4 diapers.

*You're still holding onto 2 naps a day. The 1 nap thing just doesn't fly. Sometimes I have to work a bit to get you down for the second one. But if I try to skip the morning one, you are done with life by 11am.

*You love being outside and playing with dirt, sticks, rocks, water. You love swinging.

*You don't eat anything still. You like dips, so you will eat ketchup and peanut butter and Ranch. You ate a whole bowl of oatmeal this morning which was exciting. You love squeezies still and crackers (sometimes). We found out that you like dehydrated strawberries that come in strawberry cereal. You rarely drink white milk anymore because if you see that I don't put any chocolate in it, you yell "CA-COW, CA-COW" which is how you say chocolate.

*You will sometimes ask for bed. Like I change you, and go to rock you and instead you point to your bed and say "beh." Sometimes you go right to sleep and other times you mess around...stand up, sit down, play with the window, play with the monitor.

*You LOVE to feed Diesel and yell at me if I do it without you. Your rate of getting all his food in his bowl is about 15%. :)

*Your favorite shows are Thomas the Train and Daniel Tiger. We haven't watched as much TV lately (which is a good thing!) because we have been so busy.

*You love to scare us by coming around a corner and saying "Boo!" So cute.

*You've started saying "it coe" for "it's cold." And you'll say brrr, cool, whoa, and wow.

*You have this trick of climbing up onto the ottoman under my desk while I'm working. From there, you can squeeze onto my lap. So sneaky.

My brain is fried and we've got a lot going on, so I will end things here. Enjoy the rest of the photos!

Fall Family Photos {2015}

Each fall, my friend/photographer/ex-2nd shooter Ginger schedule an afternoon to take each other's family photos. Well...Ginger moved to Atlanta earlier this year (hence the EX in ex-2nd shooter) but she came back to Kansas for Thanksgiving to be with her family. So we scheduled our photos to coincide with their visit.

Low and behold, the clothing she'd ordered for her family didn't come in the mail on time, and her dogs had to be taken to the vet for vomit-inducing after they got into something they shouldn't have. That coupled with the fact that their family photos should likely reflect the HUGE change in their life (i.e., be taken IN Atlanta) made Ginger decide their photos were a no go. But she so kindly agreed to still do ours. Good thing, because I'd been hard at work debating outfits for the past 2 weeks. :)

I absolutely love how these turned out. Thank you, thank you, thank you Ginger, for taking a few minutes to capture our family in 2015. (And for feeding my boys pizza afterwards!) You're the best!

I love the series of the two photos below...so funny!

The spot we were using had this cheesy giant chair, and Sutton insisted on a photo in it.

Tried to get a photo of Momma and Ren, but he wasn't having it.

This baby of ours is ORNERY. Just like his Daddy. :)

Most of the time, Ren would've rather been playing with sticks than taking photos. I don't blame him. This little walk he's doing with his hip popped out is something he does all the time right now.

These brothers are my favorite.

I like this photo of Adam and I, but the boys were done.

I was so proud of how well Sutton did with smiling and listening this year (finally!)...but Ren was our wild card and will most likely continue to be.

Thanks again Ginger. I appreciate your willingness to indulge my need for control and use my camera and let me edit these. :)