Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We had a wonderful Christmas with some of our family at our house this year. Santa was really good to us all! The kids received a swingset (courtesy of LOTS of help from a couple of elves!), a firetruck for Jacob, and a play kitchen for Taylor. Of course, Taylor woke up before dawn so she had to wait a couple of hours to see what Santa had left outside. She was pretty surprised when she finally was able to see it and I was thrilled that Santa managed to get it here and assembled in time for Christmas and without the kids knowing!

After the excitement of Santa and unwrapping gifts, Eric's grandparents, mom, brother and sister in law, niece, and aunt and uncle came over. We all got to spend some good time together visiting and had a big dinner that night. I decided to try a new recipe and made 9 Cornish hens from the Southern Living 2010 Christmas book. They turned out great as did everything else that was made and brought by everyone!

I'm looking forward to more picture taking and editing this year, too! I now have a new 60 mm macro lens and the newest version of photoshop to work with!! I'm also learning to use my Bamboo Fun tablet which should be a big help with PS5 and I'm loving the new camera bag/purse that Eric gave me.

One of the more exciting things to look forward to for us is that we are upgrading our internet service next week. We didn't realize just how slow ours was until we started shopping around. That's one of the reasons I'm so slow to post on the blog. The pictures take forever to upload! So, with our new faster service, I should be able to share more with you:)

I hope you all have a Happy New Year!



Taylor climbing on the new playground from Santa.




"Junior", our elf, keeping watch. I'm sad to see him go, and can't wait for his return next year!


Boo Bear in his new firetruck from Santa. (He's also wearing Jaxon's fireman's hat!) He loves anything with wheels and buttons!

Pumpkin Patch

We had a great visit to the pumpkin patch with my sister and her kiddos last weekend. They had so many different kinds of pumpkins and gourds there! The kids had a lot of fun finding unusual looking ones and we managed to pick out a very large one to take home to carve. Here are some pictures of our trip...

Austin & Jacob liked riding in the wagon!

Boo Bear!

The cousins


Drawing the face


Getting out the gooshy


Our Jack - o- lantern!

Sweet Tea Enhancements - Professional Photo Editing

Today I am launching my new business, Sweet Tea Enhancements! I'm very excited and a little nervous about making the public announcement. You can't have a business without customers though, so I'm working on getting over the nervousness part and spreading the word.

Sweet Tea Enhancements offers custom photo editing and professional print products to fit your needs. Simply upload a photo on Sweet Tea and pick your enhancement level, then leave the rest to me. You will appreciate your enhanced photo in a whole new way. This is perfect for those vacation pictures, birthday parties, children's milestones and more that end up on your computer and not on your walls. With custom enhancing you will want to display these memories in your home, on cards, and as gifts.

Check out my website and send me a comment if you get a chance! Thanks!!
http://www.sweetteapics.com

Family Self Portrait

Yes, you read that right...self portrait. I didn't realize how sweaty you get trying to run back and forth between the tripod/camera setup and your "spot" in the picture! Many thanks to my beautiful family for their patience this morning. For the last week it has been refreshingly cool in the mornings here, but not today!! I would pick the one day that the humidity returned to the Houston area. We did manage to capture a few good ones though. And the kids seemed happy enough to play with the apples! (and as a little bit of trivia for you - this picture did not really happen. it is the result of the two best pictures combined. I LOVE photoshop!)

Three more...

Okay, I think I'm officially addicted to Photoshop. Kinda like how some people are addicted to Botox. But I'm having so much fun, and I can't resist staring at my kids' faces as I work on their photos.

My Model

Taylor helped me out yesterday by posing on my new bench. I made the bench this week and the paint was barely dry when we decided it would be a good idea to take it out for a test drive! So, into the field we went and I loved every part!






Do you like my distressing??






My model would only participate if I also took silly pictures of her :)

Quick trip to visit cousins

We had a quick trip to visit my sister and her family this weekend. I packed up the kids in record time and we (barely) made it to the pool party Friday night. That was a blast, even with the water temp being around 50 degrees!! Kids don't seem to notice that kinda thing though :)

Then we got to see my nephew's first t-ball game in the morning before we headed home. Here are a few pics.

Sliiiide

I've been having fun playing with photos lately. Here's one of Taylor going down the slide at the park.

Playing with Jacob

I found this neat storyboard on MCPactions today and thought I would share some pictures of Jacob in the playroom. He loves to play with his sister, but when she is sleeping he gets all the toys to himself! Including the doll house! Enjoy some sweet pics of our little cutie...




(**and as a side note I'm just now seeing that I need to make sure I fit the pics in the storyboard a little better next time...oh well!!)

Little Ballerina

Our little Taylor started ballet lessons last week. Here's some pictures from her first day. I was trying so hard just to get her there and into her class, dressed appropriately that I forgot my camera in the car. Luckily I took one picture of her on my phone and then took some more at home in her ballet clothes. After her class she came out with a balloon, a bracelet, and a sticker, but when I asked what she did in class all I got was, "I don't remember." Ugh! When we got home she conveniently "remembered" and told Daddy all about it!

Alarid Cousins

Since we had all 6 of the Alarid cousins together at once, we had to take some pictures! Here they all are...

Jacob at 13 months

Here are some pics Jess of Frugal Fotography took the other day. They turned out great and we had a wonderful time!

At 13 months Jacob is still crawling, though he likes to walk if you hold his hands. He is starting to try to say some words like banana, Tay Tay, night night, and bye bye. We are all having such a wonderful time with him. He is a real joy to have in our lives!

Cousins!

The kids' cousins are in town this week and we had lots of fun in the pool last night. Here's a pic of them enjoying their popsicles after wearing out Uncle Eric. (btw, popsicles are a great way to lure kids out of the pool! Thanks Christina D. for that trick!!)

A couple of cuties

It is so miserably hot in Texas right now. Probably in other places, too. So, what did I decide to do yesterday? Take my kids out into the hot, late afternoon sun and take pictures of them! To be honest, we spent exactly 20 minutes outside. I know this because I was cooking dinner at the same time and that's how much time I had on the timer for our Chicken Spaghetti. When I walked back into the house the time had less than a minute left, so I think I managed the time well :) Anyway, we've let the grass grow high in our "field" (approx. 1/2 acre of our lot that we don't use). This makes for a good backdrop for some photos and I've been dying to try it. So here are a couple from that session:

Happy Birthday Jacob!!!!!

Jacob celebrated his 1st birthday on the 22nd, while we were at the lake! He's getting to be such a big boy. We had his party at the lake house with a lot of our family. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures, but here are a few of him with his cake and new four wheeler (courtesy of his super excited daddy!)

At a year old Jacob is standing up on his own, cruising around while holding onto furniture or hands, and loves to play with his sister. He has three teeth (one on top and two on bottom), he's 21 lbs (25%) and 30 inches(50%). Jacob is drinking out of a cup now and loves to eat...anything...and lots of it!

He is such a sweet boy and we are all having so much fun with him!

Photo fun with Karrington

Our newest niece, Karrington Kate, was born on the fourth of July.  We went to visit this past week and I got to have some fun behind the camera. Taking pictures of sleepy newborns is so much fun! Her mommy and I had a lot of fun dressing her up, posing her, and finding fun backdrops. **Thanks Lauren for letting me play and practice my skills with your sweet angel! **