I love photographing in the snow

...it makes a wonderful reflector!

348 - 364

It's the home stretch! Almost there!

348 of 365: Pretty Lady
I took portraits of both girls this day, and this is the best portrait Olivia I have gotten to date. She's so pretty.


349 of 365: nudity
Yep, the girls no longer where clothes. You're more likely to see them naked than to see them clothed. Please don't judge us.


350 of 365: self portrait
Taken at work, in one of the Christmas balls I hung all over the place


351 of 365: Santa baby
Look! Both girls sitting happily on Santa! I never thought I'd see the day!


352 of 365: beat
taken after a long long afternoon of last minute Christmas shopping


353 of 365: magic
These are Olivia's ornaments (I buy her one from this set every year) and I was playing around with bokeh (the circles in the background)


354 of 365: let me sleep
Vash laid down in this baby bed I use as a prop for newborns. Olivia's the one that covered him with a blanket - so he wouldn't get cold during his nap.


355 of 365: pensive
perhaps worred about Santa?


356 of 365: sugar
the day I baked sugar cookies until I was buried in sugar


357 of 365: chocolate
the day I baked chocolate chip cookies until the package of chips ran out


358 of 365: Not a creature was stirring...
Christmas Eve, right after Santa had dropped by. I must have been on the computer and just missed him ;)


Lets break in the 365 to talk about Christmas. Firstly, I hope everyone enjoyed theirs. We certainly enjoyed ours. This year Olivia truly understood Christmas... she understood that she was going to get to unwrap a whole lot of presents. We'll work on a better message for her later ;) So for Olivia, every time she was done with a gift, she would point to a new wrapped present and say "Owivia open nother pwesent mommy??" She was always very polite about it. Claire wouldn't open her presents, but she would sit next to you while you opened it, screaming "WHAT IS IT!??????? WHAT! IS! IT!!!!!!!!!!!!" I just died laughing.

Christmas day we started at our own home, then we drove to Upper Sandusky. In upper, Tim and I quickly realized that we had forgotten sippy cups. Olivia can use a real cup, but Claire can't (though she can use a straw) To substitute, we gave Olivia her juice in a disposable coffee cup. Hilarious!


This image of Karen pretty much sums up all of the adults feelings of Christmas by the end...


From there, we came back to Columbus, and went to Tims parents house. We attempted a picture of all the grandkids together, but it didn't go so well...

359 of 365: presents


360 of 365: Generations
Three generations of men in Tims family. Oh and Claire. Because she manages to weasel herself into many pictures


361 of 365: snow now??
We had no snow over Christmas. It actually felt very Halloween/Thanksgiving-like in the weather department. Of course it snowed 2 days after Christmas. Thanks a lot Mother Nature!


Since it snowed, the next day we went over to my parents house to visit Haley and Aunt Sue, and play in the show. Got to love a bundled kid.






I asked Haley to throw snow, since it was such fluffy snow, and looked so cool when it was thrown.

362 of 365: SNOW!!!




And Haley tried so hard to teach the girls how to make snow angels. Claire was really the only cooperative one in that attempt, and even that probably had more to do with the fact that she could barely move in her snowsuit.




363 of 365: dropped
Claire has now stopped napping. In her crib. She has, however, taken up Olivia's method of just dropping to sleep where-ever she is. Only Olivia won't leave Claire alone. So here's Olivia sitting as close to Claire as possible, while watching tv and picking a wedge. Love that kid.


364 of 365: snuggie
I love all my presents that I got for Christmas, but it's the snuggie that gets the most attention. I love that thing. Probably because it's zebra print.

I can't imagine why no one will go outside and take photos with me

Come on people! It's totally double digits outside... thats practically warm compared to a couple weeks ago! Why won't anyone go out and take photos with me so I can practice?! ;)

It took an hour and a half to dig my car out of its parking spot, and then drive home from work today. And it has now snowed non-stop for the last four hours. Can't wait to see my call-off list tonight at work!

Our Azalea bush under ice

The random bush/tree up front

And a shot of the non-stop snow in front of our house

I'm always playing catch-up

Lets see...

Temptation

I gave up soda again, since I started working out... again. I have zero impulse control, so if it's in the house, I'm eating it. Tim won't give up soda. So I have to pretend it's not in the house. Some days are easier then others.

The Brief Thaw

It warmed up to almost 50 for a day, and melted a lot of the snow. Too bad it's cold again

The day we cleaned the kitchen

I am messy. To say the least, really. I'd love to say that my house is a mess because I have two toddlers. Or because I work third shift full time. Or even because I'm trying to start a business. But really, my house is a mess because I hate to clean. I can make the time, and have the ability... I just choose not to. Saturday you could barely walk through my kitchen. I was kinda distraught over it really... so I used getting rid of the youngests' high chair as an excuse to overhaul clean the room. Now, ignore my stove-top... there's only so much a girl can do in a day. My stepmom would like to point out that if I just cleaned a little bit every day, I wouldn't have to spend an entire day cleaning. Yes Karen, I hear you. LOOK no high chair!

My next step for the kitchen is hanging the yearly photos of the girls. I want to hang them so you can see them sitting at our kitchen table, but going down our basement stairs. I'll probably need to borrow my dads little giant ladder. Or better yet, convince him that it's his fatherly duty to do it for me LOL!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

Last year, the mer sight of snow would send Olivia into a panic that would have you carrying her to the car. Lucky for her, she had a teeny tiny little sister who very rarely went outside, so she didn't have to brave that snow often.

I caught Olivia standing at our window over the weekend, just enthralled with the snow. I decided then that I needed to take her outside and revisit those white fluffy flakes. Plus Claire had never been formally introduced.

Well Claire never moved from this spot. She eventually started smiling and laughing at Olivia and I, but I was working so hard to get her smiling and laughing that I didn't think to pick up the camera again.


I used this picture as my day 12 for the photo challenge. Olivia was just loving the snow!

Did you know that at the first snow, Target pulls their boots... putting them on clearance, and once their gone, their gone?? Well I didn't. Maybe they don't do that, but that's what the lady who worked there told me when I had attempted to buy boots the day before. Bad mommy that I am never bothered with boots (Hey, shoot me... my kid HATED snow last year... who knew!?) So Olivia went out in tennis shoes. She complained that her socks were "Awww WET!" when she got back in the house. (Claire had boots... sure they're boys boots that are a size too big... she won't notice, right?)