Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving this year?  We had a wonderful time!  We alternate years between my mom & dad’s house and this year we were at my Dad’s.  It was a nice, intimate celebration for us and we got to spend some quality time with my step-mom and Dad.

Tyson had some Thanksgiving homework (writing down our menu, word puzzles, etc.) and he started off the day by getting that done.  The food was great (I LOVE Thanksgiving food!) and I was happy to bring the Green Bean Casserole, one of my personal faves.

We also sipped on some Chocolate Martinis, MAN were they good (as pictured below!)

I can’t believe it’s already Christmastime!  This year is SO much different with me being home and able to gradually decorate and bake.  I’m wrapping up another BUSY fall season with Ten Tiny Toes, but it’s been the best year yet!  Looking forward to taking some much needed time to slow down and enjoy this season.  I’m taking part in a “Picture the Holidays” Project where you take one photo each day (they send you a prompt) and I’m hoping this will refocus me on the little things about this time of year that I love.  If you’d like to join in (you do NOT need a DSLR or need to be a photographer to join in) you can find more info here: http://www.papercoterie.com/signup/picture-the-holidays/

Time to say Grace!

Well, here we are, a month already into the New Year.  And once again, I’m slacking on posting on here.  A few things that we have been up to so far this year…

We had a wonderful Christmas!  We have the greatest family and we are so blessed that we get to see them all at Christmas and spend time with them.  We hosted on Christmas Day and it was SO much easier in our new house to have everyone over.  I know I still need to share photos from Christmas, so I’ll try to get those up soon.

The first week of January I gave notice at my full time job!!!  :-)  I’ve been here for nearly 4 years and as many of you know, about a year and a half ago, I launched my photography business, which has taken off more quickly than I ever dreamed possible!  I have been contemplating staying at home with B and Ty for some time now, and we finally decided that now was the right time.

So, as of February 25th, I will be a full time photographer and stay at home mommy!  I’m SUPER excited for all of the time I’m going to be able to spend now with B and Ty.  Hopefully they don’t make me too crazy!  LOL  So, I also hope that I’ll have more time to snap photos and videos of them and share them here more.  I’ve really missed being able to do that while basically working 2 full time jobs for the last year and a half.

In January I went to Maui with my mom, sister, cousin and Aunt.  We had SO much fun and it was so relaxing to get away without any kids or husbands (although I did miss them terribly, but it’s true, absence does make the heart grow fonder!)

At the end of 2010, I decided to become an Independent Consultant for BeautiControl too!  I fell in love with their products last spring and have been contemplating doing this for sometime now, so I’m excited to have finally made the leap!  More on that later, but in the meantime, you can check out my website here: http://www.beautipage.com/amylemaniak/ I plan to try and feature different products and such to share them all with you because I love them so much!

So, that’s what we’ve been up to in a nutshell!  It’s hard to believe that a year ago we were packing up and getting ready to move!  Time sure does fly!

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!