somewhat real life.



we are big fans of lifestyle photography, which just means that we like pictures that show us in a little more day to day type setting over posed, everyone smiling type pictures.  the picture at the tops should be a pretty good indicator of that.
anyway, we hadn't had pictures of our family, like this, taken since shilo was two months old.  but, as shilo has gotten healthier and healthier, I have really wanted some fun photos to document our family.
so, for our Christmas present to each other (ourselves) Jason and I held off buying each other anything, and instead invested in family photos.  I can't post them all, because there are just too many, but they turned out amazing.  they were taken buy kira childer's photogoraphy.  there are some sneak previews she posted on her facebook page, if you want to look through those as well, and i'll share some of our favorites.
a few fun facts about these pictures: 1) they are all taken at our home.  2)  the bugle that appears came from my grandfather's home, who had passed away a few weeks before these were taken.  3) Abigail lost her first tooth the day before pictures which made it even more awesome. 

*these are all copyrighted.  you may not take them from my blog.*

 

epiphany.

so our little family does things a bit differently for christmas.  i'll come back to this.  first let me explain what epiphany is.
some people celebrate the twelve days of christmas.  it doesn't begin until christmas day.  so day one is december 25, and the twelfth day is january 6 (something about the calendar, and i don't know why it's really 13 days though).  it is known as epiphany.  it is celebrated in lots of places as the day the wise men brought gifts to Jesus.
so we decided before we had kiddos that we would do gifts on epiphany as a family.  we also decided that we would only do three gifts a piece (since that is what Jesus got as well).  it's a fun little tradition that brings the budget way down, causes us to be creative, and helps us to stay focused on what we are celebrating.
we also fudge it to work out on a saturday so we can all be home for the whole day.  so even though it's a day early, we celebrated epiphany today, and opened presents as a family.  the girls each got a pair of pajamas, books (we count these as one even though there was more than one book), and a bike of sorts.
jason and i don't stick to the three for the two of us because we sometimes just choose one bigger gift.
so that's the long explanation of our holiday gift exchange.  and here are some pictures of us all celebrating. (just a fair warning, jason made me the best present ever.  if you are prone to jealousy then you shouldn't look through the pictures).

seriously. best. husband. ever.

stocking.

stocking.

stocking.

excited about books.

excited about books tissue paper.

sweet ride.

even has a basket and a bell.

i am waiting a few more days to see if anyone else comments on the last post, and then i will pick a winner from all of you awesomes.