From our family

 

From our family to yours, we wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and want to share a few pictures from our little Christmas card photoshoot!  I'd spent the weeks prior to Thanksgiving (as well as some after) taking pictures for other families, but hadn't quite figured out what I wanted to do for our own cards this year!  Isn't that how it works being a photographer? Thankfully, we planned to take a few pictures after Thanksgiving out by where my parents live.  The weather turned out to be quite dreamy with overcast skies and a bit of haze lingering.  I thought it was perfect for some pictures in a pecan orchard. Egan, in typical two year old fashion, didn't care much for taking pictures, but with the help of some gummy candies, a silly grandad, and a camera wielding nana, we prevailed.

I'll share quite a few of the pictures from our photoshoot mostly for the benefit of our extended family, but feel free to take a look if you'd like!

Not at all sure what he's doing here, but something was sure funny!

We took a few final pictures out on the runway.  Yes, an actual airplane runway.  It isn't fully functional yet, but Egan was in little boy heaven being turned loose on one!

We had a fun morning, but I'm quite glad I typically get to be on the other side of the lens. It is always great though to have the excuse of a Christmas card to take a family picture.

Now, for a few out takes…  I would hate for anyone to think I have the perfect child in photographs.  He may be the most challenging of all the kids I work with!  Here, he's putting antlers on daddy.  Because… why wouldn't you want antlers on your head in a Christmas card picture?

And here… he was just done. Done smiling, looking at the camera and having fun… done.  Thankfully, we were able to "turn that frown upside down" with some gummy Lightening McQueen candy.  A little sugar goes a long way, and I'm never above bribing to get a good photo… ha!

Merry Christmas!

where Egan learned to howl…..

Blake had a few vacation days he needed to use, and we wanted to spend some time as a family, so we took a little overnight trip to the GreatWolf Lodge. Blake and I have been before, but Egan had never been to stay overnight. He was so excited.

We got there Monday afternoon and swam for a few hours before having dinner and then got Egan's jammies on him for story time. The were perfectly themed for the lodge too! He loved the carpet in the hotel and as he ran down the hall, he stomped on each kind of animal.

While we were waiting for the clock tower show, Egan spotted the legos. The boy LOVES legos. (Maybe I should say "boys".)

The clock tower show was really cute, and Egan had a blast watching it.

(You'd never know it from his face though.)

He also enjoyed story time and wasn't scared of this large walking wolf that came to visit at the end.

Our room was so much fun! It had a "wolf den" theme" which Egan adored. He pointed out all the different animals painted on the walls.

It even had these cool bunk beds.

The next morning Egan slept in a bit… (thankfully!) and then we went down to do some more swimming. I brought my camera along for part of this.

One of his two favorite things at the water park was this water gun. Here he's shooting Daddy.

His other favorite thing was this blue waterside. He went down it probably 100 times.

This right here is the face of pure delight!

He even got brave and did "no hands".

He also did some really big slides that I was surprised he'd actually do, the wave river (which he called the "crazy river") the wave pool, and this fort which just so happened to have MORE WATER GUNS!

Overall, Egan had so much fun and didn't want to leave at the end of our stay. He may not be quite old enough for everything just yet, but it won't be long before he's climbing the really big slides and riding the tubes.

Thanks Aunt Amanda for helping us have such a great time!

a few thanksgiving tidbits

I've come to realize that taking pictures while chasing a wild-man two year old is quite the challenge, so the few pictures I took at Thanksgiving are a bit disjointed and don't quite tell the story, but that's life! The weather was so nice! Where else do you get to enjoy Thanksgiving outside?!

Egan had fun running down the hill and falling at the end.

He sat with his cousin Greyson. He had fun having another kid around. (This lasted about 10 seconds.)

Egan chased Maggie. (You might catch a trend with this happening. It is a daily occurrence here.)

Eventually Egan got the ball and Maggie was tired.

There was a flying baby!

Egan and Uncle Tyler built a fort...

…played video games...

and watched cat videos on you tube. Crazy kid.

Don't worry, there was plenty of food and other family gathered for Thanksgiving, but like I said… pictures of those didn't happen!