a short gratitude list

A 2009 photobook now complete (ish) through September!
My family, with a special shout out to my sister Kelly. Darned grateful to have her.
Health
Good food
Blogging--and the new doors it is currently opening for me
Starbucks holiday flavored drinks :) Once Dave gets home I am heading there for a treat as I am stuck home with a pukey girl again.

a birthday celebration

I can finally reveal the gifts I made for my best girlfriends from High School.

Festive, Be Merry banners.

And here we are having a humongous, family style meal at Maggianos. Honestly, they bring out an embarassing amount of grub. And yes, we also enjoyed some tasty wine to go along with the feast.

Our tradition is to exchange birthday gifts just once during the year. The other gifts this time around were personalized stationary and address labels, Tervis Tumbler initial cups in a super large size, cute pumpkins for Halloween decor and Bath N Body snuggly socks and foot cream. Does it get any better....good friends, good food, good wine and we each come home with 4 gifts. Yea, us!

evolution of a smile

Lately I have been so aware of how Olivia's changing smile is such an indicator of how much more grown up she looks to me. I have had this idea in my head for awhile and although for some reason PhotoShop beat me up on this one and for the life of me, I could not get the drop shadows to work, I decided to call it perfectly imperfect and move on. It tells the story and down the road, even I will probably forget what what it was that entangled me. For products used, go HERE.

the photo shoot

One beautiful, grown up looking girl.

A sassy one up a little closer (and yes, I am wishing that shadow on her face was a bit less harsh).

And then, without giving away the whole surprise of receiving a Christmas card, the family picture. In my book, if everyone is present, and looking the same way, it's a keeper! The only mystery that remains is which card did I choose? I already uploaded to Kodak, and since I have never used them before, I got 50 prints free making the cost of my cards, including shipping, a mere $6. I also ordered each of these as an 8x10 (from Costco, my forever trusty source) to replace my existing photos in my large matted frames. All in all, a productive day, despite the fact I feel like crap-ola. I think I am fighting off a cold.

(Thanks to my neighbor for stepping in to shoot a few frames of all of us together. He got this one. Go Dave!)

I made the scarves from these directions. Super fast, easy and perfect for this occasion. I got the fleece at JoAnns.

creating the Christmas card

I have always loved making my cards. Once I had kids, it stepped up a notch, that is for sure. Then came the better camera, a little PhotoShop knowledge and I have been unstoppable!

This one is from 2005. Look at those little sweeties!

I think this was 2006. This one was very well received b/c there were so many pictures.

I had all intentions of coming up with something new and fantastic for this year. And then this week, I happened on these gems from Becky Higgins and I just kept coming back to them.

So instead of planning a card around a picture or idea, this year I am planning pictures to fit one of these cards! Tonight I made all of us girls some pink and green striped scarves to sport tomorrow for a little photo shoot. And because Skipper does not know any better, he might be wearing a version of it as well. Not sure who will appear in the final copy--just the girls, girls + dog, the whole family...we'll just have to see what we get tomorrow. I am excited. And I have already sufficiently threatened my children to comply. Yea, like that EVER works.