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.



Giving Thanks

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving with Carter this week and it couldn't have gone much better.

We started the day watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Carter especially liked the Snoopy float!

Look, Mom!  Are you SEEING this?!

Then we headed out to have dinner with Michael's extended family.  

Carter was a good boy and enjoyed watching everyone around him.  

He's completely fascinated by people eating and drinking, so I think he'll be

more than ready when we start solids in a couple of weeks.

Here's a pic of him cuddling with his Grandma.

 He was in such a great mood all day!

After that meal, we went directly to another dinner with friends.  

Carter hadn't had a nap all afternoon, but he handled it like a champ and was a joy all evening, too.  

He was a hit at the dinner and we even had three bachelors take turns holding him and carrying him around!  

He performed his newest "party trick" which is Carter laughing hysterically as someone rips a piece of paper into little pieces.  

I'll have to post a video of it - so funny.

Michael took down all our outside fall decorations this weekend and put up the Christmas stuff.  

I realized we didn't have any pictures of Carter with his Halloween pumpkin,

so I decided to take some Thanksgiving pictures before we threw it (and the others) away.  

It's been so cold here that it hadn't even started to rot!

Our Thanksgiving boy:

 



Carter's pumpkin all lit up:

 It looked better on Halloween when the light was only visible through the "C".

Now the whole thing glowed a weird reddish color.  Maybe it WAS starting to rot...

Oh, well.  Halloween's over and so is Thanksgiving.

Now on to CHRISTMAS!

Didn't my sweet husband do a great job decorating our house this year?

This outdoor nativity was our early Christmas gift to one another.  

I've always adored the nativity story, but it holds more meaning now than ever before.

So excited for Christmas this year!

And never so thankful for anything in my life as I am for this precious boy.

Linking up and loving this week's Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all.

Christmas Pictures

I'm trying to come up with a cute photo idea for Carter's first Christmas.

I saw some beautiful pictures of babies with strings of lights and thought I'd give it a try.

The thing is, I know NOTHING about photography.

Like I've never dared to turn my camera to the manual setting until two days ago.

I decided to play around with the settings (It took forever just to learn how to change them!)

and see what I could come up with.

I knew I'd need some practice shots, so I grabbed Carter before his bath Friday night and gave it a try.

At barely five months old, he's not quite sitting on his own yet, so I decided to lie him down.

It actually worked out better for lighting his face, too.

I wanted a dark, moody look with nothing showing in the background.

I don't have Photoshop yet (Please, Santa!), so the only photo editing I can do is with

Microsoft Office Picture Editor, which came free with my computer.

(Does anyone know any good free photo editing software?)

Here's what our practice shot looked like:

What do you guys think?

I'm hoping one of you awesome photo-taking, blogging mommies will stumble

on this post and have some advice for me.  I know I need help.  Please be gentle, though,

as this was my VERY first attempt at shooting in manual.

My settings were F6.3, ISO 800 and I played with the metering

(Remember, I have NO idea what I'm doing!)

and I think wound up with my shutter speed around 1/15.

It was too hard to write down settings in the dark, while

trying to keep the lights out of Carter's mouth.

And I'm completely freaked out about the lead in the lights,

so I only let him touch them for a minute or less,
then he went straight into the bathtub.

Hoping to keep practicing and have some great images to share by Christmas.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer any advice!

Oh, and my camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T3i with whatever lens came with it (EFS 18-55MM).

Linking up with Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all.



Fun in the Jumperoo

Look who's feeling better!

Such a silly boy. 

He thinks it's hilarious when I pretend to chomp on his arm

(or his foot, or his tummy, or his cheeks...we play that game a LOT!).

Unfortunately I caught Carter's cold just as he was starting to recover.

I was feeling like garbage, but seeing how happy he was

definitely helped to cheer me up last night.

Thanks, Little Buddy!



5 months old

Our poor little guy came down with his first cold this week.

Ironically, we think he caught it at the doctor's office.

He was up a lot during the night, and he hasn't been napping much,

so he was TIRED.  And SICK.  But still willing to give me a little smile!

Happy Birthday, Big Boy. 

We love you so much and hope you feel better soon!

Linking up with Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all.