Finally...a full night's sleep.

Jake has been coming in our bed every night for what seems like forever. It's probably been 2 weeks. He will either call out to us or just walk in with his pillow under one arm and cozy under the other. He's determined. He's staying. This is some kind of cyclical thing with him. He'll do this for a few weeks, and then we'll have a few weeks of uninterrupted sleep. When Kate was little, we were a lot more strict about this. We would let her join us for about 10 minutes, then Dan would carry her back to her bed. We've chilled out a bit as we've aged. All we care about is sleep. So when Jake joins us, we all quickly fall back to sleep for the rest of the night. I'm not sure if we did the right thing then, if we are doing the right thing now, or if there is even a right or wrong with this. It just felt good to have a full night of sleep last night. I feel refreshed today!

Over the weekend we met Dan, Kathy, and the boys on Main Street. Kathy was hoping for a few pictures. Sam wasn't too interested, but we got some cute stuff anyway. Main Street in historic St. Charles is a magical place during the holiday season. The decorations are gorgeous, and there are people dressed as storybook characters, Santas from around the world, and Victorian carolers. When the kids approach these actors, they are presented with a collector's card from each one.

 I had to use my external flash on the bottom shot because we were losing our light quickly. I am happy with the results. It's my first time to use external flash on an outdoor shoot.

I've been promising a sneak peek of my preschool shots.  I spent two mornings at Jake's school taking these shots, and it really was so much fun. It really was funny to see which kids would willingly pose and which shots I had to take on the sly. I'll never tell. Let's just say that they kept me laughing and guessing. They are such a darling bunch!!

Decorating is done...

We always spend the Friday after Thanksgiving decorating. Wait...correction. I always spend the day after Thanksgiving decorating.  Dan does help by carrying the tree upstairs, and we were able to accomplish that this year without too much difficulty. That's because our tree is dinky. It's tiny. Kate laughs at it. We bought a new one last year...a 6 foot tree. It makes me feel old. We bought it because we figured it would be easy to handle. It is. I really miss having a tree that nearly hits the ceiling. We're stuck with this one until some of the lights start going out, then I'll have to try to talk Dan back into a big one. Maybe by then Jake will be old enough to help his parents drag the thing in and out of the basement storage.

The tree went up, and then Kate entertained her brother for most of the day while I decorated the rest of the house. The poor guy was so excited to do ornaments and waited pretty patiently while I did everything else first. It helped when the bin of Christmas movies made an appearance. That gave him something to do.

Then he found a container of sports themed Easter eggs in the storage room. This was the next diversion.

Oh...I forgot to mention that we spent the entire day in our jammies. I have a picture of Kate in her jammies, but she would kill me if I posted it.

I kept the poor boy waiting long enough and eventually brought up the ornaments. This is something we always did on Friday evening while eating pizza and watching Christmas vacation, but we're flexible. I let him have at it.

Of course, he had to pop a little bubble wrap as we were unwrapping my breakable ornaments. I must remember to buy new bubble wrap in January before the tree comes down.

Here's the thing about a Christmas tree. It's for the kids. That has always been my attitude. I've always let my children decorate their tree the way that they want. So...when a certain kid of mine hangs ornaments 4 and 5 thick on a single branch...so what. It's his tree.

Sometimes that certain kid might even add other toys that aren't officially ornaments. Who says sports themed plastic Easter eggs aren't ornaments?

I did have to put my foot down when that certain little man decided to wear my expensive Christmas stockings.

Dinner on decorating night was pretty laid back, too. Jake showered and changed his clothes after the decorating and then became an eating machine at the dinner table. It went something like this...carrot sticks, strawberries, piece of pizza, ice cream, piece of pizza, cookie, piece of pizza, one more cookie. I'm not kidding. I finally cut him off.

I'm really excited about a new collection that I started this year...with the help of my mom and sister. I had the Santa mug that was my mug at my grandma's house when I was little. It even has my name and the date, December 25, 1973, written on the bottom by my Mama. I decided that this year I would start collecting these vintage Santa mugs. This is what I have so far...a great start.

My childhood mug is the one directly above the silver tree on the shelf below.

I've been promising to share some pictures from the preschool project. I'll have those ready on Tuesday. See you then!

I did it!

I pulled off my first Thanksgiving. I will admit...it wasn't bad. Everyone brought food, and my Aunt Janie came over the day before to help with the turkey prep and table setting. Every year my aunt does her turkeys the day before, carves them, and refrigerates. Then about 1 1/2 hours before the dinner, she pours some turkey broth into pan of meat, covers it with foil, and steams it in the oven. The turkey was delicious...and I didn't have the pressure of baking and carving them the day of. Perfect!  I will even go on record to say that I'm ready to permanently take over Thanksgiving for both sides of the family.

We slept in until 9...thank you, Jake. Then we had a really relaxing day. I was so excited to see a little bit of snow. I LOVE snow. Just this little bit was a sign from above that it would be a great day.

I was happy with the way the tables looked. I really don't decorate for Thanksgiving. I had a few pumpkins left over from my Halloween decorations, but that was about it. My aunt sent flowers the day before that I used on the kitchen table, and then my mom brought flowers on Thanksgiving Day that went on the dining room table.

I do need to find a set of placemats that actually fit my table!

I told my family that we were to meet in the studio at 3pm...dressed and ready to smile. I needed a family shot for our Christmas card. I have a great shot of Jake and Kate for the front of the card and just needed an inside shot.

Here is the shot going on the front...

And here are the two shots I got of the family. I'm not sure which one I'm using yet.

I'm thinking the top one. I used a tripod to take the shots but realized that my remote didn't work with my new camera. I had to keep crawling over to the tripod to set the timer for each shot. It was a pain in the knees! So I didn't take as many as I would have liked. These two were the only ones of Jake actually looking at the camera with a nice look on his face.

Kate wanted to pose for me again. I love that!!

I got this one of the boys last week.

I really wanted some mom and Jake shots, too. I left the camera on the tripod and asked Kate to hit the shutter button. This is what she got.

I was happy. :)  I have to make a point of getting in front of the camera once in awhile. It's hard to give up control of it, but I'm always glad when I do.

I didn't take many pictures during Thanksgiving dinner because I was so busy getting the food ready and served. I did remember to grab the old camera during family prayer. I had to get video of this.

The only pictures I got of the meal were during dessert time. I was giggling at the line up at the island. They were watching me closely...checking out the dessert options...and making their decisions.

After dessert there was a lot of interest in the studio which totally excited me. If you are ever at my house, don't hesitate to ask me to take your picture in the studio! It's what I love to do!

Since I didn't get Grandma Sally in the studio, I grabbed this shot with all of her girls but one.

I decided not to do a December Daily album this year. I LOVE the album I made last year, but keeping up was so stressful. Instead I'm going to make an effort to post here every other day.

We decorated today. I have some cute pictures to share by Sunday! :)