A Preview of Family Pictures

During Christmas vacation we had family pictures taken when my mom had a friend take pictures of the entire clan (see previous post for just one said picture.) She had quite the job taking photos of 18 people, eight of which were young children ranging in age from 9 months-7 years. After the entire family picture when we were in the orchard we had her take a few more of our family. Luke wasn't too excited to be having more pictures taken, as you can tell in some of them. (Warning: most are not the full resolution pictures, I don't have that CD yet. But you get the general idea.)

The kids brightened up a bit when they discovered the apples on the trees in the orchard, and that they could pick them and throw them.

Somehow the grey shirt and snow and such somewhat hid my belly in these pics, I think I was about 32-33 weeks along in these pictures. I don't think anything can hide it now!

The inside shots, prior to tromping around outside in the snow and the kids were a little more agreeable to having pictures taken.

I'm not promising any more posts until after baby boy arrives. He's due Feb 13th; I was hoping for an early delivery but I am starting to get the feeling that this little guy wants to stay put for a while :( As my mom would say, "time will tell." We'll put the word out when he makes his grand entrance!

Christmas 2010

This post and the next go out to those of you who have been nagging me to update my blog...it's not that I don't think about it, I've just gotten so far behind that the task seems daunting. Tyler wisely advised me to pick one topic to talk about instead of trying to recap our whole Christmas vacation. I took his advice and have tried to dedicate this post to the lovely snow we enjoyed at Christmas.

This lovely group is who we spent the holidays with--my family, minus my little brother on a mission in Detroit. (Not the full resolution picture, beware if you try to make it bigger it might look fuzzy.) I flew home with the kiddos a little bit early to spend more time with my brother, his wife, and four boys from Houston, and my sister and her husband and two boys from Las Vegas. We don't get to see each other often so it was fabulous to get to be with them for a week. And of course, it was GREAT to see my parents and be at home in good ol' Fruitland, Idaho. The kids loved being with Grandma and Grandpa and playing with their cousins.

Tyler drove down on Sunday--since it was so snowy he ended up leaving early after delegating his Sunday meeting duties to another member of the bishopric and made the long, slow drive to Fruitland, but he made it safe and sound and decompressed after the long drive by building this totally awesome snowman with the mound of snow in the cul-de-sac outside my parents' house.

Of course, the best thing about the snow was that the kids got to enjoy it. Although in the above picture it looks like Lydia is not too sure about sledding down the hill, she really did love it--I just caught her mid-sentence in the picture, I swear. My parents had enough snow in the front yard for the kids to slide down, and then we drove to McCall, Idaho and spent several days there. It provided much more snow than Fruitland. Lydia's expression below says it all!

There were giant snow piles in the parking lot of the condominiums where we stayed, and the kids played forever out there in their Snow Castle. We had a great Christmas vacation with lots of food, fun, and most of all, being with family. We didn't take near enough pictures or video, and what we did take was with our cell phones. There is clearly a difference in the video capabilities of my iPhone vs. Tyler's latest and greatest iPhone, but it will give you an idea of how the kids feel about sledding. The end!

(Yikes! Please ignore the bossy mommy in the background. Seriously, who is that lady? And eventually he got the hang of it and was able to do it on his own on the first...okay, maybe second, try :)