2015 Christmas Card Outtakes

The last half of the year blew by me and I forgot to schedule family pictures for our Christmas card, so we had to do it the old fashioned way.  This proved to be harder that it sounded as we were battling the frigid cold outside and the fact that my son rarely has a normal smile in his pictures.  Our Drew man is quite the class clown, which I find endearing, until you have to take family photos.  We must have taken over 100 and maybe 2 turned out okay.  Here are some outtakes:

November 2015

November had us up in Sun Valley two times - one for Thanksgiving and another time to visit Aunt Anna and help her prepare for Baby Girl Parker.

Before our trips we had some fun getting treats at the Co-op:

That boy loves his chocolate!  The first trip up to SV was just me and the kids as Ryan was "working" at a conference down in San Diego.  We got to stay at Anna's new house.  I think the kids enjoyed it:

We took the kids and dogs out for some fun in the snow:

And then it was on to Starbucks where these two played like angel's and let Anna and I visit for awhile:

We successfully wore both kids and dogs out that day:

 We headed up two weeks later for Thanksgiving and got to enjoy all the snow they got since we had last been up there:

The only picture I got on Thanksgiving was this family selfie:

Oh and a picture of Drew with "Windie" the Pooh eating his 100th apple of the day - this kid eats more apples than anyone I know:

After we headed home we got a visit from cousin Drew and his new puppy Grady.  We got to babysit him while cousin Drew went out to dinner.  Little Drew took his task very seriously:

Mack and Grady got along swimmingly:

Riley and Grady, not so much:

By the end of November all of us pretty much felt like this:

Bring on December!

Baby Shower for Baby Parker

Prior to Halloween, my cousin Krista and I hosted a baby shower for Anna and Baby Girl Parker.  Thankfully for my, Krista is unbelievably talented when it comes to decorations and all that stuff.  In hindsight I don't really feel like I added much to this shower, but it was fun to be a part of it.  Krista got a bunch of great pictures which you can find on her awesome blog the brass blossom.

So the only pictures I got were of the desserts, and more importantly the burnt carmel cake from Cristina's, which was tdf . . .

This little girl was a big help and had a permanent spot next to the desserts:

As this was Baby Girl Parker's only baby shower there were a ton of presents to get through:

You can already tell that this little lady is so loved . . .

Halloween 2015

Halloween was a laid back affair for us this year.  I'm always a little behind the times when it comes to decorating for this "holiday" (this one ranks right up there with Valentine's Day in my book). We didn't carve pumpkins until the day of Halloween:

The kids were excited to trick-or-treat around our neighborhood.  I decided to have a photo shoot to hold them off as long as we could before starting our rounds:

Then it was off to the races:

Luckily Drew is still young enough to want to call it quits after 45 minutes. The amount of candy that they got in those 45 minutes was astounding!  I'm still trying to get rid of it . .  

October 2015

Yay for fall! Our October started out with bouncy house fun and working out at the park:

And Isla wanting me to take pictures of her while she does weird stuff with her hair and pretends she is asleep:

We decided to venture to the Idaho Botanical Gardens Fall Festival and it seems as though the secret is out about this place.  We went on a Sunday afternoon and it was crazy.  The kids had fun painting pumpkins and getting their faces painted:

Not sure how I managed to get this picture while we were at the gardens, but it cracks me up every time I see it:

Isla's class got to go to the pumpkin patch this year:

Still sad I missed out, but there is always next year.