christmas photoshoot, 2015.

We kept procrastinating on getting these photos taken. I mean, they're for our Christmas card. And to me, that means we should be wearing, oh, I don't know, winter clothes. But y'all, it's been hot. Way too warm for December. A couple of weeks ago when the weather finally cooled back down to the sixties (eye roll, for sure), we were ready to go! Except the day we planned on going was so. gray. And cloudy. And we were yearning for that gorgeous golden light.

We'd pretty much decided that we'd hold off until a weekday, and if that didn't work, we'd set up a shoot inside. Inside, our hearts weren't feeling an interior shoot. And thankfully, the sun broke through right as the golden hour was showing up. We rushed the boys (and ourselves) to get dressed. We even had to wake Graham up from a nap. I grabbed some candy (we are not above bribes here!) and headed out the door.

While I'd love to tell you that everything went perfectly, it didn't. Graham was grumpy – even with candy. The older two didn't want to listen. Funny faces were the only thing they wanted to do. But we still managed to mostly keep our cool and in the end, got a ton of photos that we're thrilled with!

santa, 2015.

Is it wrong to say that I'm disappointed that we didn't get a screaming photo of Graham? Because I slightly am. After all, we did get two years of screaming Sawyer. And a pretty decent one of Cayden. Maybe Graham's will just be delayed a year? Or maybe we did some excellent prep work on him? We showed him all the other photos of his brothers with Santa and have lovingly pointed out all the "ho, ho, ho's" around us.

Might I also add that examining all the Santa photos through the years gave Cayden reason to ask why the Santas weren't all the same. And Jeremy was a great daddy and just passed the question on to me. No worries! This mama had the perfect answer and both Cayden and Sawyer were happy with it, so we'll call it all good. At least for a little while. #wink #SantaEmoticonGoesHere

2014 (which just led me to realize I never shared last year's!) // 2013 // 2012 // 2011 // 2010 // 2009

testing light.

I asked our big boys to help me test out some lighting in our yard the other night. You know, that perfect hour of light right before sunset? Our yard has it. I had no idea it had it. And my children thought I was crazy running through the house between the front and back yard. But it was worth it. To know that if I needed to take any photos in our back yard, that I could and get some great light. I think this will only work for us in the fall/winter months – otherwise there will be too many leaves on the trees. It's tough to complain about that though; it'll keep the back yard cooler in those warmer months.

Originally I was testing all this out to see if we could take Christmas card photos in our back yard. And the answer? Yes! But we didn't. We went to a nearby trail. And the photos turned out awesome. I'll share more of those later this week!

Also, aren't Cayden and Sawyer just the most photogenic kids ever? Ha! At least they put up with their mama's antics. And mostly don't complain. Mostly.

cayden: first lost teeth.

The tooth fairy's been to our house. Twice now. A little over a week apart, maybe two? We didn't think Cayden was ever going to lose a tooth. About a month ago, he started complaining about his tooth hurting. At first Jeremy and I were a little concerned, then Jeremy had the brilliant idea to ask him if it was loose. And ta-da! Culprit for hurt tooth found! Not long after the first one started wiggling, it's neighbor decided to come loose too. Not surprising since those two little guys came in about the same exact time.

The first tooth came out on a Saturday morning. At 5:30. In the morning. Apparently Cayden and Sawyer thought it was the perfect time for a side-of-the-tub chat. Jeremy finally got up when they wouldn't quit talking to discover that Cayden's tooth was about to fall out. I think Cayden gave one good push with his tongue and it was out. Easy-peasy. Except that we weren't prepared for it to come out as fast as it did and Cayden swallowed some blood. Which then made him a little pukey...

... which led to the second tooth coming out a bit of a problem. The second little guy was ready to come out for a good few days, but we couldn't get Cayden to work on it. Even bribing him with money on top of what the tooth fairy would bring wasn't working. The problem? He was afraid of swallowing blood and getting sick again. After watching some videos of other boys pulling their teeth, Cayden decided he was ready. But we were going to do this one a little differently – tie a string around it, connect it to remote control car and yank it out! That's what the boys on the video did... But tying a string (floss) around an itty bitty tooth and hoping it would stay on was more of a problem than we thought it would be. I think we tried five or six times to get it to work when we finally gave up. Cayden worked on that tooth a little bit longer and it came out super-easy. And no sickies! So win!