How to take a family photo:

Do you know how hard it is to get a family Christmas photo taken when you have two kids under two, who hate being in dress clothes, when you don"t have anyone else to take the photo for you? Very. It is very hard.

But we managed... ish.

Bryan kept asking me if this was absolutely necessary. "Yes!" I said, "We need a family photo for our Christmas cards."

And yes, our cards did turn out to be fairly cute. And yes, ok, we got some adorable pictures of the kids. 

Exhibit A:

But most of the pictures taken were more like this:

Saoirse scowling, Reuben falling over because Saoirse didn't want to hold him anymore... yikes. Our "photo shoot" comprised of one sweaty little boy (I mean, it's like 70 degrees and I'm making him wear nylon pants, a dress shirt and a vest.) And one very terrible two's, tantrum throwing, not-happy-to-be-wearing-a-dress, Saoirse.

Did we really need to do a Christmas photo shoot? No. We could have gotten by with the thousands of other pictures we have of the kids. Am I glad we managed to get one family photo taken? Definitely. It may have been painful, but someday, it will be a great memory and I'll be really glad I forced my family to do it. It will be fun to watch our little family change and evolve over the years... someday.Right now, S is probably just praying I never put her in that dress again.

Happy Christmas week everyone!

P.S. Isn't our little home so beautiful? I think it looks like a greeting card! It makes me so happy!

Prayers with Friends

I know there's the popular game, Words with Friends, which sounds like fun as long as you don't play with Alec Baldwin, but yesterday I experienced something much better.

Yesterday a sailor had a really rough day. One that most of us cannot even begin to imagine. Of course, I can't give the details of the situation, but I can definitively say that he was and will continue to be in desperate need of prayer.

The amazing thing was, I logged into facebook and said that prayers were needed. No more details, just to pray. And I got over a dozen responses of dear friends and family all over the world who stopped what they were doing to pray. They prayed without knowing what they were praying for, but they prayed nonetheless.

I'm often amazed at how loving people can be when you give them a chance. This situation is just another example of that. And I know more people prayed than commented. I can't stress to you enough how much those prayers meant to us, how they were felt, and how they will continue to help.

I love my friends and family so much. They are amazing. And our God is even more amazing. Hallelujah.

Too busy pinning!

So, it's been weeks since I've blogged and I realized there is one culprit. Pinterest. For those of you who pin, you understand. For those of you who don't, it's wonderful, but oh so addicting!

I love being able to go online and quickly find a game to play with the kids, a way to make cute hair bows without spending any money, a way to turn a milk jug into a super cute storage box. I mean, it's crazy the stuff that crafters can figure out!

But now I have a problem. I have like 40 projects going and no time to finish them because instead of working on them, I'm looking up more projects on Pinterest. Ugh!

I know, I'm crazy, but I'm okay with that.

On a completely different note, the kids are great. S is loving her soccer class and R rolled over both ways the other day and is starting the inchworm thing. He'll be crawling in no time!

Thanks for checking in, but I have to get going. There are thousands of crafts that can be made out of garbage that are begging to be made!