Fotografias

The tree ready and waiting for the boys to wake up!

The treadmill behind the boys is what Santa brought me :) No he wasn't dropping hints it was on my list!

And after gifts we had SNOW!!

Sharing Photographically

Ok so I am going to try to do this in order--somewhat...you know before Christmas, after etc....I have gotten ubber slack on the picture posting. One of the things I am looking forward to in 2011 is getting back into my personal picture endeavors. I decided, yesterday in fact, that I will be officially working my way towards closing up shop for Lilac Hill Photography, at least for now. With everything going on with the adoption I have no intention of restarting things here anytime soon, and economically speaking traveling back and forth from TN just isn't working and wouldn't work long term. So I made the decision to no longer accept any NEW clients, I do plan to continue with the current clients from time to time. So anyway--I am hoping that will allow me to get back into what drew me to photography in the first place. Anyway--all of that tangent blabbering just to share some pictures of us with you.

The big gift this year was a trampoline and they got it early--they LOVED ours we had in TN but we left it because we didn't think we could get it in our yard here, but after all of the clearing Robert has done it fits just great! These pictures aren't of the trampoline though--instead it's the boys playing in the boxes it came in--they had a blast coloring them all up and then sliding down our leafy hills and stairs. I never did get a picture of the finished tramopline with the net on it--but it's there!

I have just one shot from Jakeb's Christmas program--the 5th graders did a play and the 3rd and 4th graders sang songs in between "acts". Jakeb is in the grey sweater with red stripes with his arm up on the front row. I didn't get many shots because I took more video and he was never facing me.

Third up we have a few shots from Gavin's little Christmas "program" where he was waving and yelling "I love you" at us from the stage. He rocks. My dinky point and shoot camera doesn't cut it sorry for the grainy--I knew it would be there but I zoomed anyway!

And in his class.

The boys school (which is AWESOME) has a "Giving Tree/Holiday Sing-a-long" day. It's the last day of school of the "year" and they have every student bring a gift into the gym and then they donate them to the county children's services and then they sit in the gym singing Christmas carols. Now I am pretty sure they sang EVERY single Christmas song but it is just a wonderful thing that they do. I didn't sit with Jakeb so I didn't really get many shots of him but I did get a few of Zachary who came and sat with me.

And Santa Came!

And soon I will get to the actual Holidays....

¡Prospero Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year! Adios 2010 and Hola 2011!

Twenty ten was certainly a busy year for us here in Casa de Beaz....and a good busy. We certainly had our down moments but we ended the year healthy (well if you don't count a stomach virus and a cold!) and here and for me that's a pretty good year.

Our move was certainly the biggest event for our family of the year, as well as our decision to adopt. We sold our second house and bought our third. I entered my 3rd decade--eesh!

We said goodbye to my grandfather for the last time. And I miss he and my grandmother a lot. Being in a different state softens that blow but I miss them greatly.

Settling in here in Georgia has probably been the biggest thing for us this year. Robert and I went on our first lengthy vacation without the kiddo's--and had a blast despite my worrying! The boys started at a brand new school--that we love. We miss our family but love the slower pace we have settled into here.

I look forward to so much in 2011. Finishing up our dossier and being that much closer to bring home our kid(d0's) from Colombia. Ending up on a list somewhere to wait! Learning Spanish as a family while we wait.

My baby starts Kindy--that I don't look forward to but I know he probably does! New friends and activities we will find in our new home. But I still can't believe it's 2011, I have been trying very hard today to hit the reset button on my mental time clock--you know a fresh "sense of time" or something. But I don't think it's going to work.

Robert took all the Christmas decorations down yesterday while his parents and I were out shopping (yes you read all of that write) and now it feels like maybe Christmas didn't happen. It went by so very quickly! Either way I am looking forward to a new year and all it has to offer!

A Holiday

Um so Christmas has come and gone. We had a wonderful extraordinarily low key holiday this year. No grandparent visiting, no family dinners, no traveling, no hauling cranky sugar filled kids to various houses, no wrapping presents until 3am, just a quiet Christmas at home. My mom came down as well as Robert's brother from Chattanooga and that was that.

Every year for as long as I can remember we have spent our Christmas's running all over. Every single Christmas Eve was without question spent with my dad's parents--this year my grandfather passed away and so did that tradition. One of our own family "musts" is that we are home Christmas morning and this year we moved so spending Christmas Eve or day anywhere else would not allow us to be home Christmas morning. So instead people came to us. Robert's parents are going to spend New Years with us and we will celebrate Christmas with them at the end of this week. My dad swung by yesterday and we said our hello's and swapped gifts with him. While the quietness has been nice it's also been strange, the hustle and bustle is part of the excitement of the season sometimes so it's just been a odd holiday for us. A great one just different! The kids have had a blast and spent 5 solid days at home doing nothing but playing with their new toys and hanging out with us. They went absolutely no where and spent several days in pj's all day, they were in heaven. It has been wonderfully relaxing for sure.

I have lots of pictures and eventually will load them up. Until then!

Feliz Navidad

(photos courtesy of Lisa Slate Photography)

Grown

Someone Thinks He's Big.

Halloween

Some shots from Halloween this weekend....the boys had a good time and we have more candy than we could possibly ever eat. Next year I am asking for nickels because we would have a nice jump start to college funds if we got a nickel from each person instead of candy that is going to end up in the trash. Just sayin'. And it goes in the trash because sadly we COULD eat it all, without too much dedication.