Starting Early!

But not really, because Thanksgiving is already past for us. I'm really not FEELING the Christmas thing yet (though I must say that yesterday DID feel like Thanksgiving, which is so cool!), but James has had the Christmas music going, Katie is wearing the Christmas sweater that she bought at the thrift store a few weeks ago, and it's only a matter of time before the boxes of decorations start piling up in my living room waiting for me to get to work. So I thought I'd go ahead and beat everybody else at putting up a Christmas template. But when I looked for one there really wasn't a lot of new stuff and nothing was really jumping out at me. So I made this one and I love it! :-)

These are the new pictures we had taken last week. If you need family pictures taken and have a Portait Innovations near you, DO IT! They have a $9.95 special and that package is tons better than what you get at Sears and the other places like that. They're fast and professional (our photographer took 148 pictures, I think--in no time!) and when you're done you sort through them (it goes way faster than you'd think), pick out what you want and *ba-da-bing* in 20 minutes your pictures are READY TO TAKE HOME! Right then! No waiting for three weeks and trying to find a day to go back and stand in line to pick them up or paying for them to be mailed to you and all of that stuff. You get dolled up, go down, pose for pictures, pick out what you want, and TAKE THEM HOME WITH YOU! (That's the part that really sold me on this place--it's FANTASTIC!!!)

We usually alternate each year; a family picture one year, a picture of just the kids the next. This was the year for the kid picture, but our family picture last year was kind of dippy because the lady at Sears (where we used to go--but no more!) botched 'em up and Katie was sort of lost in the shadows. So we had a family picture taken as well and it turned out great. LOVE this place! Anybody that can get Joe and Sam both being still and smiling a the same time and not punching each other in the nose (that only happened a time or two in between shots--HA!) over and over again is a GREAT photographer. One of my favorite poses (which we didn't order, of course) was when the lady asked Joe what his girlfriend's name was. It was a clenched fists shaking in the air, eyes closed and lips pursed saying "Ooooooooohhh! STOP THAT!!!" sort of reaction that was truly hilarious--and the full impact was captured by the camera. HA! :-)

That's all for now. Gotta hand the computer over to Katie for school. But let me be the first to say MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! (Even though I don't really feel it yet...)