our christmas card

We took family pictures a week before Thanksgiving this year to get ahead of the cold snowy weather.  I take a friend's family pictures each year and drag my family along to jump in the same spot.  I love these pictures even if they aren't the perfect pictures in my head.  Perfect is everyone looking and smiling all at the same time, but 5 people is tough odds.

I also love these outfits, I am a sucker for color coordinated outfits and the twice a year we do it isn't enough for me.  It all started with those ridiculous yellow polka dot skinny cords on Emerson.  I just had to have them.  The lady at the Gap helped me put together Harper's outfit to go along with Emerson.  Jim already had his shirt so I ran to J.Crew to buy Brady the matching shirt.  And then it all came together when Brady requested a bow tie and I made a matching bow for Harper to wear in her hair.  So so perfectly fun and colorful.

This was our Christmas card for this year...

xmas card

View the entire collection of cards.

And here are the rest of the pictures from the shoot.  I am trying to find a frame for this family picture to get it up on the wall pronto.




There is too much of an audience during this session which is obvious since each kid is looking in a different direction.  Next year I am changing how we do this for sure.

school show

Harper had a Christmas show today at school and we were able to go watch.  They do a very informal show at this school as we learned with Brady last year. 





Why do Harper's legs look 12 feet long??


And a video of the performance. She has been singing these songs for weeks so it was nice to be able see the whole thing come together.


And a few from this afternoon...  Can you tell I am in love with those reindeer pants??  Emerson has been trying to roll over for a while now and she was laying on the floor working on it with Jim and Harper.

christmas dance show

Harper had her Christmas dance show today at class and it sealed the deal for me.... we don't have a future in dance.  Hahaha.  She loves going to dance but hardly follows along.

Here she is getting ready for the show


The ballet dance


The tap dance, my favorite part is near the end when she makes the angry faces in the mirror, haha. I also love how her one part of dancing looks like she is doing the thriller dance as opposed to a sweet tap dance.

snow day

I am so far behind on my pictures.  I just got to these ones tonight and they are from a week ago today.  Last Tuesday we got a bunch of snow and the kids had no school.  They spent most of the morning outside playing with the neighbors and I spent that time cleaning and making cookies.  So when they came in I had hot chocolate and cookies waiting for them, if there was a vote that day they surely would have voted me in as mother of the year.  I also had their gingerbread houses set up and ready to decorate.  I cheated this year and just hot glued the house together and it was so much easier than waiting for the frosting to stick.

Do you love Harper's hair??  She obviously put that head band on all by herself.


"Hey guys, try to look normal."  They nailed it.


















These are mostly bloopers, not sure why they weren't able to just smile and pose with their finished houses.  But definitely funny.


















And some pictures from outside in the snow.


This sweet baby cried the whole morning inside the house with me.  So I dressed her up and took her out and she immediately stopped crying.  Whatever kid.