NYE fireworks

We went to Luke's tonight for NYE. He bought some fireworks for the kids and some bigger ones for him and John. They had fun with sparklers and roman candles. He also bought a new fire pit but it didn't help a whole lot. I could not feel my fingers or toes when I came inside, it was so cold. The kids would light their fireworks in the fire pit which was probably not the smartest idea.









I did not bring my big camera so I could not get photos of the big fireworks, Luke had one that looked like the big ones organizations shoot off. Here is my favorite photo of the night, the three kids sitting on the pool ladder to watch the display.



And here are some more of the sparklers:











ETA: I am not sure why my pics didn't turn portrait. I took these with the new Nikon, please don't tell me I am going to have to upload to iphoto and rotate them everytime. I will have to look into this and fix it, so check back to see the pics turned the right direction.

My favorite shoe store

I went to the Collierville mall today. I love that mall because there is an Eddie Bauer, Clarks, and Liz Clairborne shoes right in a row, or at least there used to be. I got out of my car today and the Liz Clairborne shoe store has closed. There was just a locked door and empty shelves. So sad! I have at least 15 pairs of shoes in my closet from there, what is a girl to do know?

New camera stuff

My mom got me some new camera accessories to go with my camera. I can't wait for some pretty weather to get out and play. I also read about a challenge in one of my scrapbook magazines to take a photo a day. I am going to try and do that starting Jan. 1.



I got a big tripod that extends to 57 inches, a little bity tripod, a bag, 3 filters, an 8g memory card (not pictured because it was in the camera taking the picture), a card reader, a small photo printer (that we got exchanged finally), a new little camera with a hard case (maybe I can not break this one), and two lenses. One lens is a wide angle macro lens and one is a telephoto 2x lens. I haven't really played with the macro lens yet but I took these pictures of Peyton with the telephoto lens. I don't think the lens does what I thought it would. Not sure why I get that black circle but it's kinda neat and has some potential.





I also got a lot of free stuff from Wolf Camera (where the little camera came from) including a free photo book, 25 free prints, and tickets for 18 photography classes. I am excited to see what those are.

Saddest tree ever

Well we managed to get the Christmas tree up this year but just barely. I let Kaitlyn put the ornaments on but I only brought two boxes of the ornaments from my mom's attic. Then I never figured out how to plug in the lights at the top. So we have the saddest Christmas tree ever this year but at least we actually have a tree up.



And then I was playing with my camera taking pictures of the tree. I had forgotten that the camera has this really cool feature on it called Color Accent. You can pick out a color and it will make the picture black and white except for that color. I wish I had remembered this when taking pictures with santa, it would have been neat to just have santa's red suit show up. In this picture I picked blue so only the blue ornaments are in color. Pretty cool! I just have to remember that I can do that.

Time to play with all the stuff

Kyle got several games to play and they both got puzzles so last night after getting home from our 3 parties we went to, we played some games and worked the puzzles.

Kaitlyn got this bag to color:



Dominoes



Fishing (this game is hard)



Puzzles

Santa Came

Despite the fact that I told my kids Santa might not come because they were behaving so badly, he came anyway! Here is our Christmas morning:







Kyle of course wakes up first and runs in the den. I have to keep the camera beside me so that I can just grab it and go. Kaitlyn is not far behind.







Then they opened some gifts from mom and dad.

I love the look on Kyle's face here.



This was a gift to both of them. I didn't think that one through all the way.

Comical gifts

There are a few funny stories surrounding the gifts this year.

First my aunt and my mom bought Kyle the same remote control car. It actually is going to work out great because Kyle opened the one from my mom and tore the box all up trying to get into it and that one doesn't work. So we took the box from the one my aunt bought and put the broken car in that to take back.

Then mom got me a new little camera to keep in my purse. She was getting a digital camera from me and my brother because she was still using disposable cameras. Well we bought each other the exact same camera! Same color and everything!

And finally my mom also got me a small photo printer. This was the box (a Sony digital picture station):



And this is the printer that was inside (an HP printer):



How weird is that! Now some of you might be thinking no big deal just keep the HP (because I really didn't care which one she got me) but I don't have the "stuff" that comes in the box for the printer (software, ink, power cord, etc.). So that should be an interesting conversation when I go to take that back to the store.

Christmas at Gran's

We always go to my mom's on Christmas Eve to have dinner and open presents. We have Mexican Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans and Corn Pudding. Kyle told my mom on Tuesday night that he also needed some macaroni and cheese so she had to stop at the store on Wed. to grab a box of that, I mean can you turn down a 5 yr. olds request for mac n cheese?!

Kyle and Kaitlyn pass out the gifts:





Kaitlyn opened this box and was really confused about why Gran would buy her a toaster oven (there was really a bag for her bowling ball inside).



Kyle did the same thing. He opened this box and said "why did you get me kitchen stuff?". He also had a bowling bag inside.



The kids got plenty of good stuff.









I had a "camera Christmas". I got a new photo printer, little camera for my purse (since I broke my other one), and some cool accessories for my big camera including a tripod that extends to 57 inches!

The elf

Kyle found this hat at my stepmom's and wore it all night.

Can we please open just one?

Kyle has begged to open a present so we finally gave in this morning. We let them open one present each. I knew they had two movies under the tree and only three presents so chances were good they would open the movies and it would give us something to do. Christmas Eve seems to go by so slow and our festivities didn't begin until 4:00. Kaitlyn opened "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and Kyle got all 4 original "Superman" movies (on one DVD) so we watched Sisterhood first and then Superman 1. Then we were off to Pat's and then to my Mom's for what would begin 24 hours of opening presents and eating!!

Storytime with Santa and Mrs. Claus

Santa and Mrs. Claus came to Andrew's house tonight. The kids wore their pajamas and each kid got to spend some one on one time with them. Santa asked Kaitlyn if she had been fussing with her brother and she said no. He looked at her and I said Kaitlyn we can't tell Santa a story. He said Santa knows. He warned them about fighting with each other and told them they have to be good.







Then they sang some songs and Mrs. Claus read them a story.





Then they made a gingerbread man ornament.





Most all of the kids and Santa:



And these were taken at the end of the evening, I thought they turned out really good!








Thanks to the Jamerson's for a fun filled evening. Everything was really nice!