My Family Vacation!

Oh the faces you will see

One might think that having a photographer as a mother, wife, or being one yourself, would be the greatest thing. You would have all these marvelous pictures of your kids, family, etc. Even if these pictures are just of the kids playing around, or if they were set up as a little mini photo shoot. Maybe for some photogs and their family this might be the case, and good for them. This maybe shocking, but when I say "SMILE" that is the last thing I get. Here are a series of photos taken in probably 20 min...

And maybe you were thinking, well they are kids. Is that the problem?

Swimming in February feels so good!

Of course, it would have probably felt even better if it were far away from home on a tropical beach, but I am not picky! James had beach day at school last week. He wore his swim trunks over some sweats, a Hawaiian shirt, and some sun glasses in his collar. Ada was into the whole beach thing so we decided to continue it after school and head to a pool. I am not sure why we don't do this more often, besides that it is a little expensive. This pool is only a couple miles from our house and we had it all to our selves.

James was pretty much independent with his life jacket on, he has grown a lot less afraid in the past months. He loved it.

For some reason, we decided to go during Ada's nap time. Needless to say she wasn't the happiest camper on the trip. She also so desperately wanted to be able to do everything by herself like her big brother. She would get so mad and frustrated. Telling us she wants to do it herself. The poor little girl, you would let go of her and her life jacket was just stronger than she was and it would force her on her back. We had one irritated little girl.

I am not sure we have had that much exercise all winter. It drained us all to the max and you could definitely tell by the crabby, tired people we acted like the rest of the day. You bet your bottom dollar we slept long and hard that night.

...a very good place to start...

I guess we shall start at the very beginning! Get ready gang.

The week before Christmas James had a Holiday program at school. I just love these things and watching all of these kids. The boy and the two girls next to him are his best friends he says. :)

After the program, we all did a few crafts and left to start Christmas vacation!!

The next day we went to my family's Christmas celebration of Christmas Camp. Our family is huge, as you can see in the pic above, so we rent out a camp for the weekend. The kids had a blast.

Santa comes and everyone gets a gift. You can see the kids waiting for Santa below.

The week of Christmas we did a lot of hanging around and cuddling on the couch. My fav. We can't forget about Georgie!! Our little elf friends made a visit every night. The kids woke up on xmas eve morn to a present from Georgie. He gave them each new jammies to wear when Santa came. This has actually been a tradition since James was born.

Oh Christmas morning, how I love thee. Pretty sure I had a hard time sleeping because I was so excited. :)

They got some stuff they really wanted which is super fun to see them get so excited about.

Caleb made us a YUMMY breakfast...

My dad and Vicki came over and hung out the rest of the day. My dad made us some more delicious food and we all sat around with expanding waistlines.

We have had amazing weather for a Minnesota winter. Temps mostly in the 40s, when it should be well below zero. I am not complaining!

Ada turned TWO on the 5th!! Happy Birthday my sweet! She looks so old in these two pics. *tear*

We had a little shindig for her this last Sunday. She is in love with Dora right now, so appropriately we decked the house in Dora. It's funny though. I never thought I would fall into the kind of tacky licensed character birthday parties. I always thought I would have these super cute, crafty parties. I am not going to lie, I tried to pressure Ada into an owl party. She wasn't into it at all. But then realizing, who am I to deny her of her favorite things? She likes Dora? Damn it, I will give her Dora!

This is what we are up to these days...

Big girl undies!!