And the season begins

We love Thanksgiving around our house. And I do mean we. Steve loves cooking turkey and ham, and he loves using multiple grills at one time. Jack went to bed Wednesday night barely able to fall asleep. He kept telling us how excited he was for Thanksgiving and all of our guests who were coming over. Reid loves any chance he gets to follow Pepere around or to play with lots of kids, both opportunities were in abundance on Thanksgiving. I love my family and food, and this holiday nicely brings them both together.

It is also now a firmly entrenched tradition that the day after Thanksgiving is Christmas Tree day. Jack made sure we knew how excited he was about going to get a Christmas tree by asking us to get out the decorations first thing this morning, at 6:30 a.m. We finally left the house around 10:45. Despite the deep drop in temperature between yesterday and today, all four us made it out to cut down the tree this year. Jack had lots of fun helping pick out the tree (he even brought his binoculars to see the trees better) and running around with Nick. Reid really enjoyed the wagon ride but was a little disappointed in how difficult it was to walk out in the field. We all enjoyed the donuts and hot chocolate.

As we wrap up tonight, the house is decorated for Christmas. The boys are asleep. And Steve and I are breathing a sigh of relief as the heavy work is done and we can now enjoy the season.

Here are some pictures from yesterday and today.

Reid's First Birthday Party

While the big day is actually tomorrow, we celebrated Reid's first birthday with our family yesterday.

We had a ball!

That was the theme too. Reid loves to play ball, so we made a party out of it. We had ball pits, ball games, ball food, and ball presents. The biggest hit for the bigger kids was the laundry shoot. They much preferred to put the tin can telephone and other toys down the shoot rather than play with all of the toys in the basement or ball games we had set up. I'll have to remember that for next time. Maybe a laundry shoot party theme? Although I just asked Jack and his favorite part of the party was running on the deck outside of his room with his cousins.

Reid definitely enjoyed his party. He loved playing with his cousins and family. The ball pit was his favorite along with rides on the PowerWheels. He didn't quite understand what all of the singing was about, but he definitely liked it. Luckily Emmett blew out the candle; Reid wanted to touch it.

Since I was home this year, I had some fun making everything for the party from decorations to the cake. The cake pops were probably the most popular followed closely by the tomato mozzarella skewers.

Of course there are photos. So here they are are. Enjoy!

Baby Kira

Today was a fun day. I did my first newborn shoot, and it was with someone special. My cousin Eric and his wife Crystal had their first baby a little over a week ago, and they asked me to take her newborn pictures. I was a little nervous, but these guys are beautiful, so that made it pretty easy.

Kira was so sweet. She slept in my arms while we talked about what shots we wanted to take. Then she woke up and didn't want to go back to sleep until we were done. Or maybe she did want to sleep and the picture-taking was keeping her awake. Either way, she was pretty alert the entire time.

My cousin and his wife are pretty amazing parents. With both of my boys, I was a nervous wreck when they were newborns. Eric and Crystal were so calm and relaxed with Kira, even when she'd cry or fuss. It was pretty fun watching them cuddle and talk to her. Definitely made me excited to get back home and cuddle with my little guys.

Eric and Crystal gave me permission to share a few shots on the blog. And thank goodness, because I don't think I could keep all of these to myself. Kira is just too cute! I hope you enjoy her as much as I do.

My gorgeous husband and children

Steve needed a good headshot for work, so I got to take some pictures of him today. I love this happy Steve.





When I told him I wanted to buy new clothes :)


I also have some pretty cute pics of the boys to include here from recently. Jack was kind enough to watch shows on my phone while I set my camera settings for Steve's shoot. So far, Reid is two for two crying during halloween/fall pictures. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when we go trick or treating with the Nustras and Wednesday for actual Halloween. But really, who doesn't love a good crying baby photo? And then there's the ones of Reid figuring out how to play with toilet paper. Enjoy!

Photos, Photos, Photos

I've been taking so many pictures lately, and I'd love to write about all of them. But I'm slightly realistic at times, and this is going to be one of them. So instead of waiting to write about these, I'm just going to post so we can all enjoy them. For context, I'm posting them basically in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest, but there are a few exceptions).