Answering some questions:
- The bag is from Pottery Barn – we purchased it a few years ago. We “mail” it back to Santa each year.
- The kids each get one big thing from Santa – so Harper’s present is the dollhouse, obviously, and Cole’s present (inside the bag) is a race track. They also get smaller presents from Santa, like books or wooden toys. This year Santa provided a little chart with wrapping paper patterns so the Cole would know whose presents were whose.
- It was fairly dark out yet (around 7:30 am so not too early) but mainly it looks dark because the curtains on that side of the house were closed.
- yes, Cole’s pj shirt is on backwards. He’s big into backwards lately. He writes his name backwards, he taught Harper how to walk up the stairs backwards, he frequently wears his pants backwards, etc.

We were back at Gaither this past Friday for the wedding of Rachael and Sean.

While Rachael got ready in one of the classrooms above the church Sean was preparing to smile…a lot!

The ringbearer & flower girl were so cute!

Here Sarah Grace is getting some last-minute advice from her parents, Marc & Melissa. Rachael was actually a flower girl at Marc & Melissa’s wedding so I think it was extra special for them to have Sarah Grace be the flower girl for this wedding! In addition, Marc & Melissa run The Red Radish catering company, and they provided the food for this wedding. (They make the best food ever(!!), and we were very fortunate to have them cater our own wedding, though they don’t do weddings anymore.)

Rachael’s father (who happened to be one of Mark’s professors when Mark attended Montreat) served double-duty as dad and pastor for the service.

I love how the church was decorated for Christmas!

Loved this one of this little girl trying to get a better view of the ceremony.

After some portraits we headed to the fellowship hall for dining & dancing.

Thank you, Rachael & Sean, for allowing us to be a part of your exciting day! We hope you’re having a wonderful (warm) honeymoon. Merry Christmas!

We received this canvas and card from Aaron & Shannon recently. Not only did they use an image we took of baby Maisy as their Christmas card (they had it printed at modern postcard, who did a really nice job) but they also sent us a beautiful painting by Aaron.

We are soo thankful for all of our wedding & portrait clients this year and we wanted all of you to know that we sincerely appreciate your happy emails and handwritten notes (and messages from your family members, and recommendations, and gifts!) We really enjoyed working with each of you this past year and thank you for your business as well as brightening our Saturdays, occasional Fridays & Sundays, and for sharing your sweet babies and children with us. Your words and trust mean a great deal to us and are the best thank you we could receive.

We wanted to extend our thanks to those 2008 clients who have booked us already as well — we are wholeheartedly looking forward to working with each of you this coming year!

Merry Christmas!

Our drive to Cole’s school in the morning is around 15 minutes each day. Some drives are passed pleasantly, but most are sort of loud and screechy. Today, while following a car that had “honk 4 world peace” written on its back windshield, Cole and Harper were arguing about whether or not Harper had seen a puppy dog. Exasperated, I decreed that they couldn’t speak to each other anymore. Shortly thereafter, almost spontaneously, it seemed, they both started singing to themselves. Harper was, of course, singing about the mythical puppy dog, while Cole was singing a song about how Harper couldn’t possibly have seen a puppy dog and Mommy and Daddy and Cole thought she was crazy. But at least they weren’t yelling. Lesson learned: if you’re going to argue pleasantly, do it in song.

You can view the course description here. The class will start in early January, and, best of all, it’s free. You don’t even have to sign up for the class. The information will be available each week for download, and then, if you want, you can participate on the photography message board thread that we’ll start each week to discuss that particular week’s topic or post a photo that corresponds with the weekly challenge.

Thank you so much for your questions and thoughts! Keep ‘em coming!

From the convenience of our living room…

Mark & Harper

Mom with the kids

My mom & sister

A fun idea I thought I’d share with you. I can’t claim it as my own, as one of the Garden Girls shared the idea with me originally. What I have done for our cards is modified the design so that Santa’s hat is actually hanging off of the card itself. The cards we made are 6×6, which worked well for a Harper-size handprint but was a little small for Cole’s handprints (hence the reason Santa’s hat is off the card.)
We used green, pink, white, red & black cardstock, white paint, a regular hole punch, a slightly-smaller sized hole punch and an oval punch (but you could hand cut the circles/ovals as desired.) The plastic noses came from some game Cole has lost most of the pieces to, so we decided to put the leftovers to use. (You could also use googly eyes instead of white & black punches.) We wrote on the inside of each thank you note with white pen.

Cole & I made these super easy and cute reindeer cookies on Friday in preparation for our Christmas party yesterday (more on the party in a later post.) They’re basically peanut butter cookies with a red m&m for the nose, mini semi-sweet chocolate chips for eyes, and broken pretzels for antlers. Cole especially enjoyed rolling the dough into balls and plopping it on the cookie sheets.

We found the recipe in a recent issue of Woman’s Day.