Two Weeks

Can it be?

Only two weeks 'till Christmas Eve?!

Where does the time go?

To say I'm a little behind this year is a bit of an understatement.

We did most of our shopping on line this year, mostly to avoid germs.

As typical first-time parents, we are completely paranoid about Carter getting sick!

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we are almost completely done with our shopping.

Hooray!

And I'm proud to report that our Christmas cards were mailed out on Saturday.

Not our best cards ever, but at least they're out!

Here's what they looked like:

Inside, I made sure to include our blog address again for our family and friends

to follow our adoption journey.

And I couldn't leave out Molly.  I always think it's sad when people include their pets on their cards each year until they have a baby and then the pets are forgotten.  Unfortunately Molly didn't get her holiday haircut until Saturday, so we didn't do a Christmas picture of her.  Instead, I just used this one I had from the summer.  Gotta love the Santa hat app!

I know it's silly, but it was only the BACK of the card...

I wanted to take some cuter pictures of Carter, but he was in a fussy mood most of the week, so I wound up just using some of our "practice" shots.  We'd already had some of the most frustrating photo sessions ever - for both of us - so I decided not to subject either of us to another attempt!

As wonderful as it is to have Carter more active and mobile, it certainly makes it tougher to take his picture than it used to be.  That Santa hat picture was the only decent shot I got before Carter grabbed and wrinkled up the wrapping paper and then pulled it off the wall and onto himself. 

And that red background?  It's his changing pad with a furry red cover on it.  I had tried to take pictures in his Santa outfit, but he was fussing, so I started undressing him and he cheered up.  I carried the changing pad (with Carter on it) over to the floor by the window and snapped away.  Happy shirtless-baby pictures are better than crying Santa-suit pictures any day!

That large bottom shot that looks so artfully cropped was actually done that way out of necessity.  

Carter kept moving around and his head was extending over the edge of the green wrapping paper I had wanted in the background, revealing a giant pile of laundry on the bedroom chair behind him.  So I cropped the picture right along the edge of the wrapping paper, eliminating the laundry pile.  You'd never know it, though, right?

  

Just for fun, here are a few of the shots that didn't make the Christmas card:

  

Mr. I-know-how-to-sit-but-I-think-it's-much-funnier-to-see-how-aggrivated-Mommy-gets-when-I-lie-down! 

I got smart and put him in a seat to MAKE him sit up...



"You can make me sit up, but you can't make me smile!"



 

So, yeah.  I think we did pretty well, all things considered.

A five-month-old doesn't make things easy.

At least MINE doesn't.

Linking up late with this week's Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all.