As we all know it’s Valentine’s Day!  This is one of those holidays that I think is more fun for the kids than us old married folk  Tyson is having a fun Valentine’s party at school today and Bailey is spending the day with her “pop pop”.

Last weekend we had a little mini photo shoot to get some shots for Ty’s photo valentines I made for school.  I got these adorable matching outfits from here on Etsy.  They turned out so cute!

Hope you all have a wonderful valentine’s day!

Took these pics of the kids in their Christmas outfits a couple of weekends ago, because I knew I wouldn’t have time to do it on the actual holiday!  We have been SO incredibly blessed this year!  Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!  2011 is going to bring some big changes for our family, but they are all very good!  Will be sharing more in early January about those  :-)

Another favorite Christmas tradition we have is the Saturday after Thanksgiving we put up our Christmas tree and all of our decorations.  It was so strange though this year because we didn’t know where anything should go!  But it gave us a good opportunity to purge some of our older stuff and to decide what we really wanted to put up.

Of course there was also great debate about where to put the Christmas tree.  I wanted it in the Dining room by the piano, just thought it would look nice in there.  But I was very quickly vetoed by everyone else and we decided to put it in the family room so we could see it and enjoy it more. I have to say I am glad we put it there!  I love having it there and it adds so much coziness to the room.

If you’ve been following the blog for a few years now, you’ll know I’m kind of particular when it comes to my holiday decorations. I adore all white lights and decorations and we have a snowflake decorating theme.  I of course get pushback from the boys in th family, as they really want a tree with colored lights, but I told them they can have their own when we finish our basement someday.

But, I adore our tree.  Each year it just gets better and better as we add more ornaments to our collection.  Here are the kids decorating it!  Tyson did awesome this year!  Bailey of course had to get in on the action, but she had more fun throwing the balls I think…

Bailey picked out this new ball from Gerten’s.  It’s very “her” and blingy!

You might remember that last year we got new stockings for our mantle.  Well, Pottery Barn had the coordinating tree skirt on clearance last year after Christmas so I scored a GREAT deal on it and even got our name on it.  I just LOVE it, it sparkles so nicely!

I setup the tripod again to try to get a twinkly tree shot. I want to redo it because I realized my f-stop wasn’t high enough!  But, it’s still pretty decent.  Also got some fun Christmas light bokeh!

One of the best parts of being a photographer is being able to get great photos of your kids, right?  Well, that would require you to A.) actually have time to take photos of your kids; and B.) find even more time to cull, process and actually print them

Fortunately, this year I was smart about it and hooked up with fellow photographers/friends Kelly Klatt & Angie Keifer.  We met up at Kelly’s place one Saturday morning (despite my 103 fever I woke up with that morning) and we all took turns shooting each others families.  That sounds mean doesn’t it.  ;-)

I LOVE how they turned out.  The Christmas cards are actually already made, but I just couldn’t wait to put together a wall gallery of my favorites.  So, I did this arrangement in our upstairs hallway.  I’m loving it!

Here’s the birthday girl showing off her birthday dress and new chair from mom & dad.  I just LOVE this little chair, it’s so cute and I think I’ll get lots of use out of it as a prop too!

We’re getting better at standin now!  yay!

I love this one <3

Big hazel eyes   I think she’s looking a lot like Tyson in this one.