The Making of a Christmas Card

Hey there! I know, its been a long time! You know that happens sometimes. Obviously, I'm behind in posting (what happened to Thanksgiving?) and I'll get there. But today I wanted to wish you good tidings and tell you a story. ('Cause nothing softens a grumpy blog reader's heart like a good story, right?)

So one day in November, the kids were out of school early. Or maybe they didn't have school that day, I don't remember. I do remember that the weather was perfectly wonderful for November. It occurred to me mid-afternoon that it would be a great day for family pics. I had already primed my friend, Angie, about my idea and she happened to be free that afternoon. I called Bill, who was at work, and begged him to please come home as soon as possible so we could get our pics taken. I then went from closet to closet, laying out clothes to coordinate without being all matchy. I enlisted my resident fashionista, who was supposed to help me put the outfits together but ended up raiding my closet for her outfit. Then I informed the boys that they were getting their pictures taken, which resulted in them groaning and flopping about. *sigh*

As fast as possible, we loaded three bikes in the trailer along with two sets of clothes and headed to our riding park, picking Angie up along the way. The sun was sinking fast and I really wanted one shot in particular so the boys changed into their riding clothes. Yay!, or so you would think but this just resulted in confusion. Why go to the motorcycle park with the bikes and riding gear and not ride? I mean, this was pretty much the ultimate torture- have to smile and look nice, while astride your bike with all your gear and NOT get to ride!

The sun was done. We loaded everything back up, except for Luke's bike stand, which didn't make it back into the trailer and is now lost forever (as Bill reminds me often). Luke, Mom owes you a bike stand.

Angie sent me the best ones and let me decide. I was leaning heavily towards this one. All the smiles are nice and Angie assured me she could fix the ones that weren't. (This one is edited already.) It was a hard decision I tell ya.

It was so tough I had to step away from the computer and go for a run. When I returned, I found this one in my inbox. WAAHH!!
This is from about five years ago. I'm now working on a time machine or something so they can go back to this size. 

As much as I wanted to stare at that picture all day, I had to choose one and this is what I went with. I love it!! I ended up getting my pictures printed through Minted.com and they turned out fabulous!

I think it needs to be stated that neither Audrey nor I wear these nice of clothes when we go to the park or to any races. I wanted this shot to be fun- a juxtaposition of my boys and us girls.

So from us

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!