On Saturday December 7th at 11:21am, Willow came into our life weighing 7lbs 2 oz and 19 1/4 long. She was a surprise to us, but a welcomed one. When I saw Willow for the first time I was so full of emotions I was laughing and crying at the same time. What a joy she has been in our lives. She is so social and nice to others. She seems to know everything that is going on. I cant imagine our life without her. As much as I love celebrating her birthday and looking back as to how she has changed it also makes me sad to know she is growing so fast. Happy 7th Birthday Willow! We could not have asked for a more wonderful little girl.

Its that time of year

Its that time of year where everyone gets a warm fussy feeling inside. You have the urge to decorate and bake. To shop for friends and family, searching or making the perfect gift. The Christmas season really hasn't truly started for us until we do the annual Christmas card picture. To start off the pics we did yesterday I decided by showing last years Christmas pic. I have a hard time sometimes getting my kids to smile nicely for pics. You would think after working in The Picture People for a few years this wouldn't be hard or at least expected. I try not to be like the parents who would come in and not be pleased by any look their child would give. Usually after a few minutes into a photo session I give up and even though I tell my kids to smile and try to do things to get them to smile I just let them have their own look. So last years Caspen gave a nice smile, but Willow looks a little disgruntled.

Before doing the pictures, if I have decided to do them in front of the tree, we have to decorate it. So I dressed my kids up to get some cute shots of them decorating the tree. Caspen had a pile of 11 ornaments and Willow had a pile of 11 ornaments. This was to hopefully avoid any arguing, it worked. I put the glass ones up on top and the kids had the bottom to fill. Good thing no one sees the back since it has nothing on it but lights.

With decorating done it was time for one pic. This of course wouldn't be the card pic, but good for scrapbooking later on.

There it is in all its glory. This is my new tree. I call it my big girl tree since for the past couple years I have had a 4 ft tree. This one is 7 ft. I have to say its nice having a tree taller than me. I decided to put the tree downstairs this year due to past conflicts. The 4 ft tree isn't to big, but big enough to take up space during Willows party and still hard to keep little hands away from. So to avoid any space taking or stress of having the tree messed with its downstairs. Not to mention my son has decided its fun to poke holes in the presents to see whats inside.When we go downstairs, its the rec room, than they can go, but not alone since I scrapbook down there and now we have presents.

Next we changed clothes and started the card pics. Talk about crazy. Willow has a smile down pat, but sometimes it just looks forced. They both look nice in this one, but I needed horizontal, so this was just a full body shot. They look nice though.

Cute, but wasn't working for me. To me something doesn't look right. Although all the effort of trying to get the pic and getting them to smile, I was about to give up and just settle.

Here is a forced smile on Willow and for some reason Caspen thinks a smile means opening your eyes really wide and smirking. It cracks me up. I thought for sure wouldn't matter what I did this would be his look this year.

Than I had remembered in the studio some of us would do these pics where they are laying down. I decided to try it with them. After a couple this is what I chose. This is our Christmas card pic this year. Willow looks truly happy and Caspen has his normal look. He seems to be happy, yet disgruntled. Its him at 4. So I know by now I don't think I will catch my kids together with the looks I want, but when you look through all the pics, not all shown, I see my kids in there. I don't see something fake, I see them. That's what the pic is for right, to truly see the person who is being photographed? So even though I don't want them looking mad or upset at the time of the pic, sometimes they might and that's okay since when the pic was taken it was the mood they were in. So, if you do Christmas cards I hope you get what you want, but than find something else in another pic and realize that's what you truly wanted. Have a wonderful start to this busy yet wonderful season.

Frying Thanksgving

Thanksgiving a time for giving thanks and letting boys do dangerous things. For a few years we have been cooking the Thanksgiving dinner. We really enjoy having friends and family over to eat and visit. Since we started this tradition my husband has asked if he could fry the turkey. I have always said NO! This year he brought to my attention how he has a friend who has experience in the turkey frying game. I reluctantly said yes. So he eagerly went out to buy his new toy. He came home and took out the instructions. He doesn't always do that. It did say your suppose to fry a bird in the 14-17lb range. I could be a little off, but doesn't matter since our bird was a little over 20lbs. He put the turkey in for a dry run and it fit fine. He than proceeded to the computer where he watched some videos on deep frying a turkey. Soon it was the next day and we didn't have to get up early to start a turkey. That was a plus. We got up had breakfast, cleaned up and got ready. Soon our friends arrived and they set everything up to deep fry that bird. I don't like how our backyard looks, it literally looks horrible, but we do have a nice dirt spot where we put the pool and this worked out well for frying a turkey in a safe spot. As the oil warmed up Stephen got the turkey ready. Soon it was time. Its 3 minutes per pound so it would cook for a little over an hour. Perfect!. My friend and I went outside to video tape and take pictures of this festive event. We even had a onlooker. My husband later mentioned to me how next year he wants to fry the turkey in the front yard. I told him I would prefer to not be the neighborhood entertainment. He said," Everyone wants to see a turkey explode." It went well this year so I'm expecting it will go well next year so no fireworks for anyone. Back to the turkey day. So we went out and they slowly lowered the turkey into the pot. It sizzled, popped and smoked. It smelled so good. As the turkey cooked the boys stayed outside to watch it and my friend and I prepared the other sides while chatting. Soon it was time to see how golden brown the turkey had become.

Not only did it smell wonderful it looked wonderful. They were so proud of their accomplishment. Of surviving the frying of the turkey. I haven't seen anyone so proud except for holding their newborn child. So they did it, their child was a golden brown turkey.

I had decided on not making corn this year. We always have so much food. Even though I had mentioned this to my husband a few times it didn't really ring a bell until it was time to eat. So the three guys went to get corn. While gone we needed the turkey carved. My uncle has carved a few turkeys in his lifetime so we asked him too and he agreed. After carving the turkey he said it just fell off the bone. One of the easiest ones to carve. Now it looked even better. We couldn't wait to try this bird. We got everything set up and the guys got back. We all sat down, my uncle said a wonderful prayer and we took a bite. It tasted great. It was juicy. I don't think anyone found a dry piece of meat. It didn't seemed fried. It wasn't crunchy or greasy. It just plain tasted good. My husband now wants to fry a couple turkeys next year. I don't know why, we do fine with one. He thinks since it takes so little time we could cook a couple and send more home with ppl. My mom later told me how she has a friend who deep Fry's his neighbors turkeys. I don't think we will be doing that, but that is nice of him. Fried turkeys are really good.

Time for some pictures. My two kids with their cousins. We have a crazy house on Thanksgiving. The kids have so much fun together.

This year we got an extra child, our friends little girl who is 2. All the kids had a really good time together.

A nice family shot. I really don't think we have ever done one of these. Yeah, we could have been set up better, but I really like this picture just because everyone is in it.

Here is our group shot. The house was full. We all really enjoyed ourselves. One of the best ways to celebrate anything is to have friends and family celebrate with you. It was a little stressful at times and the next day I was exhausted, but it could not have been better.

I did it!

After reading friends blogs and some people I dont know. I decided to make one myself. There all the rage it seems for keeping in contact with friends and family with the exception of facebook, myspace, twitter and of course emails or snail mail. What a good way though to tell about your day, week or moment in your life as to what is going on. A place to put all your photos. I even have a friend who found a site to make your blog into a published book, for your personal library of course. What a great way to keep those memories. Im an avid scrapbooker, so who knows maybe someday Ill have a personal blog book too. I have many things to write about that I dont want to forget. With two kids in tow you can hear some crazy things. So here it is my own blog spot.