Christmas Party

The day after Christmas, my parents hosted a party for friends and relatives. It was a combination gathering for Christmas, my dad's retirement, an introduction for my sister's new husband, and an open house to visit with people we don't get to see very often. (Especially since my sisters and I have moved to other states.) It was a nice time, and I'm happy so many people stopped by during a busy time of year! I got to see some relatives and friends I haven't seen in forevs. Thanks to my mom and dad for being great hosts, as always. We grew up having lots of gatherings and dinners with friends and family. Lots of happy times that contributed to my own hostessing habits.

These photos will mostly be of interest to those in attendance, but hopefully they are somewhat enjoyable even if these are strangers to you. I didn't manage to get permission from everyone pictured, so if you see your photo and you don't want it here in public, please let me know and I can take it down.

Christmas day

Here are several photos of the scene on Christmas morning and then a few in the day. I feel like they really capture the general spirit of things. It was a happy day! I'm sooooo so so happy I got to spend it with my nieces so I could watch their enthusiasm over the gifts. :) :) Let's do it over again!

I don't know if you can tell, but she's into Minnie.

I just realized this might be the only photo of my sister's dog, Asher! Huh. Unless he snuck in some others. I probably should've made an effort to get a better picture. Also featuring K's zebra PJs!

E and her mama.

And my mom! Who hopefully doesn't mind I'm picturing her in her robe. I feel like this picture is so very Christmas morningy.

E couldn't wait to wear her "homet" for her new scooter.

K, looking at a photo of her new bike waiting at home.

I got E this Sophia (sp?) wooden "paper" doll. Really my mom helped pick it out--I had no idea who Sophia was.

Dad, just taking it all in with Rocky staying out of the way.

Later in the day we did a lot of quiet relaxing.

I was glad to have my laptop for some quiet game playing on some of the days.

Meanwhile, E played with stuffed animals in the entry way.

I think my dad was showing my sister and her husband some trip photos. What looks like a dog and Barbie in Santa hats is on TV. :P Wth?

More playing. Some of these were dog toys.

E's cute while doing pretty much anything. Including drinking sparkling cider from a bottle.

It was just a small extra gift I got for each girl, but they seemed to like them!

I still find it so cute when kids play on the computer, even though it's normal for them.

But N's been practicing since she was 1 and a half! :) She used to hop up and pretend to do what she saw her mom and sisters do.

Hey, sorry I still need to catch up on comment responses! I appreciate the comments I've received, but I easily fall behind. Maybe tomorrow I can work on it. Later!

Christmas pix

I feel so behind on posting photos here! At least I haven't really taken any in January (typically a very slow month, and sort of a photography break for me), it's just all of the Christmas ones that I have left to edit. If you're like me, you're ready for spring and not necessarily in the mood to look at Christmas pictures, even though it was only a few weeks ago (which seems impossible). BUT! Too bad so sad, I'm posting them anyway. Here is the first set of what I like to call Christmas Vacation Assortment.

And by "assortment" I mean randomness. I just took pictures when the mood struck, so there's variety here, but I also missed photographing certain activities because I was enjoying my nieces instead of holding the camera. So here are some Starbucks mugs my mom is apparently collecting. Or at least inadvertently collecting. I like them. Poor New Mexico only gets one for the entire state.

I think it was the first night my sister's family arrived when we sat around the fire pit for awhile.

Rocky joined us.

N loves her Hello Kitty sleeping mask!

There are definitely a lot more photos of little E than any of the other girls. She's 3...I can't help but take pictures of her all the time! The other girls had their moments of way more pictures back when they were about this age, too! (Like that time I took a thousand pictures of N, for instance.)

Anyway, E loved this little display right at a perfect height for her to admire, and even though we told her not to pick the stuff up, she couldn't help herself.

E being silly, dancing around to a musical stuffed animal.

More dancing.

My parents actually had a real tree again! We grew up always having real trees, but when I was an adult they bought a fake and had it for years. I guess they got rid of it so I was thrilled to have the real thing again. I know it's a hassle, but it's just better!

E wasn't as cooperative for this picture, but I loved that N was happily posing with her sister. Right afterwards, though, E wriggled away and N had hurt feelings.

We spent a lot of time in this "Christmas room" (the livingroom) because I looooove the couch in here and it was all nice and festive.

E, watching Polar Express in the trailer where some of us slept. She lays so cutely.

My parents got Shari's Berries!

And truffles. And I got to have one. :)

On Christmas Eve I didn't get a chance to do portraits with E (I did them with the other girls--photos to come), but I wanted to make sure and get a picture of her in her dress. She had already opened her Christmas Eve present of slippers, so I thought the combo outfit was cute. And then she's just putting on shoes in the other picture, and she put them on the right feet! Some kids are cute enough that even putting on shoes is photo-worthy.

I'll just keep posting these in sections until I'm done! I don't know how many posts it'll take. Check back for more tomorrow!

I also took a lot of video, because my new camera does video and I had to try it out. I don't know if you're interested in those, but I may post one or five later.

Christmas 2014

[An awesome card my sister sent my parents.]
I'm in northern California staying with my parents. I've had a wonderful Christmas break and there are lots of pictures I'd like to post here sometime. I'm going through them today since my sister's family has started their 2-day trip home, and now it's just my parents and me (I leave tomorrow).

It was so much fun to spend several days with my parents and sister's family! My nieces and I did Christmasy things like crafts, cookie decorating and looking at lights. Then we had several friends and relatives over and I got to see people I hadn't seen in years. We had a full week. If you follow me on Instagram, you saw a little of it.

Now it's a lot quieter here and I miss my nieces already! :( :( They are so cute and funny and special bonus: they like me! I am trying to not think about it already being over because it'll make me too sad. I'll see them again in a few months, hopefully!

I don't even know where to start with the photos, so here are just a few that initially caught my eye. I'll post more as I work on them.

One morning it was really foggy, so one niece and I went out looking for good photo subjects.

My sister's due in early April!

My nieces looking all cute for our party. It was chilly, but I dragged them outside for a few quick photos. Soon they will have another sister!

Little girls fascinated with the light-up angels in my parents' window.

Sisters being kind of goofy after the party.

Little E (age 3) "putting on makeup." She was basically waving a coaster in front of her face, because she's adorable.

I hope you all had a nice Christmas. I can't believe it's already time to start compiling my end-of-the-year posts!

Christmas + Ice Melting

I didn't intend to wait this long to start posting my Christmas vacation pictures! Now I'm betting most people are not in the mood for Christmasy pictures since we've moved on, but I decided to post these anyway. My family might want to look at them.

I didn't take a lot (for me), but tried to capture some of the scenes and activities. That ornament is one of my dad's because he used to ride a unicycle.

More still life scenes of the Christmas vibe at my parents' house. I love the blue poinsettias, no matter how unnatural they are. :)

This Christmas I flew in the Saturday before, so I had a few days to hang out and do Christmasy stuff with my parents and friends. In the past, I've flown in on the day of or Christmas Eve because of ticket prices and the way the days fell, but we planned further ahead and I really enjoyed my long visit. It gave me the opportunity to take my time and add some extras into my stay.

Such as a lunch outing with my friend M. This represents that, since I'm not sure if she's okay with me posting her picture. :) M's a longtime friend, but we've not had a lot of contact as we've aged, moved, and (in her case) married and had kids. I've really enjoyed the past couple of deep conversations we've had. It's great to reconnect with her. :) We went to New Earth, a grocery store in Yuba City that has an eating area.

My mom and I made Spritz cookies. Have you made them? We baked them a lot growing up, and I was craving some. These are wreaths, and I'm not so great at getting the sprinkles on the cookie.

Dania's dad sent my parents some Shari's Berries!

My mom and I put together a 3D lighthouse puzzle (seen in the tree picture above) that had all of the [plastic] pieces numbered, so it was pretty easy and more like a construction than a puzzle. It was fun to sit in the "Christmas room" (living room) drinking egg nog and relaxing. My dad even kept bringing us all sorts of treats. My cousin also stopped by to pick up some gifts, and it was good to see her, even if just briefly.

A picture of me waving to you in an ornament. And looking a little crazed.


My mom used to play French horn, so we have a few ornaments in that shape.

I also opened a late birthday gift from my sister that contained lots of candy (among many other cool things). I opened it then so I could share it with my parents, and in a slower moment of my stay decided to photograph some pumpkin spice kisses. These are weird. At first it's like, "Okay, that's nice, I've had my fill." But then there's a lingering flavor that makes you want MORE. So I ate too many. Have you tried them?

Skip ahead to Christmas Eve. My friend Dania and I have kind of made a tradition of going to dinner (usually at Chili's) on Christmas Eve and exchanging gifts. Since we were planning the SF trip, I wasn't sure if we'd be doing it this year, but was super happy when she invited me. :) Dania also brought me to a street in town that has lots of well-lit houses. I had never been to this particular street, for some reason. It was pretty crowded, as many people had the same idea, but we found a place to park on a side street and then walked around taking pictures of the houses.


Here you can better see the traffic and people.

Dania pointed this out to me because she had seen it before. Do you get it?

And now we're at Christmas morning. My family draws names for the adults, and I got my mom for the second year in a row. No probs, because she's easy to buy for. I don't know if she's opening a gift from me or my dad here, though.

My dad made Cinnabon cinnamon rolls for breakfast! So good. :D

My aunt gave my parents these measuring spoons, and I loved them! So now everyone gets to see a picture.

For Christmas dinner, my mom and I made these cute potatoes that I had seen on Pinterest only days before. They were more manageable than I had feared, and I want to make them again sometime. Here's the recipe. We used rosemary instead of thyme, since my parents have a lot in the yard.

We also had ham and brussels sprouts. (I guess I didn't take a picture of all the food together.) I was happy to help with the cooking, and it was all pretty delicious, but low-key with just the three of us.

So that was Christmas! And now I can move on to the SF trip next. :)

Before I go, I might as well post this time-lapse video I made, since it'll probably be forgotten otherwise. I decided to photograph ice melting, and I added some food coloring so the ice would show up better. It creates a nice effect. But melting ice is less predictable than I thought and there's some weird movement and lighting in these two sets of ice. That's all the disclaimer I'll include. :) Enjoy.

Ice2