Christmas photos anyone?

It has been a struggle. Ever since this summer, it has been on my list of things to do, and yet I can't seem to get it done.  We are too busy, too tired, not wearing the right thing...

But today, I finally did it!  I finally got Jeff to dress up, stand still, and take a nice photo with me LOL!


I sat down the last week of November and started putting together my christmas cards.  Picking out a design that works (its not as easy as you might think to find a format with the proper about of picture spaces) and filling them in with corresponding photos.   Thats when I really started to worry.  Jeff and I had NO pictures of the two of us.  NOT EVEN ONE! well ok, maybe a crazy one here or there that the kids have snapped, but NOTHING nice! Hardly any without our heads cropped off a little, or us as a big blur, or jrff makeing a face!, or some such problem.

see, he is always making a face!

The kiddos got their photos taken this fall by a new friend and they turned out LOVELY! Ever since then, I have been hoping, asking, nagging, begging, pleading.... for Jeff to have a moment long enough for us to get dressed up a little and take pictures together.  I wanted to go out in our pasture and let one of the kids take a few nice pictures of us, hoping that the background would be similar to the kids' so that they would look nice together, but it hasn't worked out.

Aren't they just adorable!

And now it is CHRISTMAS TIME!  AHHH!! I NEED a picture of us, like now!  As the weeks of Dec fly by, we still hadn't gotten a picture.

So today, I set my foot down.  We were going to take a picture if it killed us both! :)  Ok, it wasn't really that bad, I actually just asked him if he would be home most of the morning and if we could take pictures, and he agreed, but still ;)

Here is what we got:

  

  

Ah, here is one that is usable!

Now I just needed to fix it up a bit.

First: I cropped out all the mess in the background :)

Then, I got rid of the background color, and cut out our silhouettes so that I could layer us on a new background.

Next, I cropped out a section of the background from the kids' photo shoot

and lastly, placed us on the background!

Voila! Now we at least kind of look like we coordinate!

If there's a will, there's a way! ( it just took me until 5 days before Christmas!)

Oh well, the cards look nice, and that's all i wanted. ;)

Merry Christmas all, and blessing to you and your families!


 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....!

Usually, come Dec 1st, we pull out all the Christmas bins and put up the tree, lights, and everything else Christmas.

This year however, its been a bit more of a challenge.  You see, my wonderful hubby packed all of our Christmas items in the VERY BACK of the trailer we used for moving.  The trailer is still over half full of things that have not found homes yet.  That means my Christmas stuff was buried :(  BUT yesterday we had a bit of a reprieve from the wind, so my oldest and I were determined to find at least the tree.

Hubby took the middle 4 kiddos to church (matthew had been sick with the flu the night before, so I stayed home with him and the baby), and I wanted to surprise them when they got home with a Christmas tree.  As soon as they were out the door, we ran around tidying up the house, and trying to figure out were to put the tree.  If you hadn't noticed, we don't have a lot of extra room right now.  Ok, really we dont have any room for anything more, but that didn't deter us.  We WERE going to find a place for that tree!  After some thought, this was the brilliant idea.  We would put the tree where the treadmill was sitting.  Ok, then were does the treadmill go?  Its not like i can just stash it in a closet for a while.  It doesn't fit through any doors without tearing the whole thing apart, which I wasn't about to do (again!)  Well, then we would just have to get rid of the end table and put the treadmill in the corner between the couches.

All good there, but now, were to put the end table? (this is my life right now)  Like our solution?

We just stacked it on top of the other one, and are going to use it as an extra space for Christmas items.

Nice!  Now we just needed to un-bury the tree and such.   (Matthew informed me that the little tree in the picture would NOT be acceptable as our main tree ha!) So, I put Little Will down for a much needed nap, and Matthew and I headed out to the trailer.  

It only took us 30 min to un-bury the tree and two Christmas tubs.  That was good enough.  I wish i had told Matthew to take a picture of me climbing around in the trailer. I had one foot on this stack of boxes and the other on whatever appeared semi stable, and was reaching across and down to get these big tubs out.... on second thought, its probably better that no camera was involved. ;)

Whatever. I got them out!  So we quickly set up the tree, and put on the lights. Just as we were finishing, the rest of the family got home.   You should have seen their faces!  It was like Christmas morning!  They were so excited!  Instantly they had to find the ornaments, and put some on the tree. Next came the lights for the windows and walls.  Definitely worth every one of those minutes that I spent in the trailer to see and hear their excitement.

Yes, even the dog had to be decorated.

We spent the rest of the day getting lights on the outside of the house, and pulling out all the other Christmas stuff. I am still missing a few boxes though, most importantly their Nativity, so I will soon be back looking for the rest, but as i sit here tonight, with the tree lit up and the first gifts under the tree, I am reminded why Christmas is so important to our family.

Its not all about the gifts or the lights or the tree. It is about celebrating the birth of Christ. That tiny baby born so many years ago.  He came to save us, and it is for that reason we get excited for Christmas.  It is for that reason that we light up the tree and the house.  We want to celebrate the most wonderful birthday of all, Christ's birthday. Happy birthday baby Jesus, may we never forget the true meaning of CHRISTmas.

What are some of your favorite Christmas decorating stories?  I would love to hear!