Laura Vegas

today was a busy day. i was working … but only had one daycare kid here. and an old one drop by to hang out for part of the day. i decided that christmas was over … and packed up the tree and all the decorations. feels good to have the house back to normal. and i edited every single photo from christmas day … even uploaded and ordered them all. so i thought i'd share some photos from the rest of our day on christmas … i'm narrowing them down to a large handful. after doing our family thing here with the girls … we headed over to my parents house.

   

first up … some family photos. my sister came out to visit from colorado … and we knew we needed a more current photo. the one that is hanging up on everyone's wall is from 4 years ago. we decided we'd just do a quick one in my parent's backyard. problem was … it was so incredibly windy that day and super cold. that morning i had curled my hair and had it all prefect. and within minutes of being outside to pick up the girls … it was all ruined. seriously … i had to come home and try and salvage it. my sister-in-law, kathy, did not want to go out … she was thinking the same thing with the wind. i actually did photoshop some of her hair in this picture … it was blowing quite a bit. lol! we were all freezing in this photo … so we only spent about 3 minutes actually trying to get a decent photo. and kathy's mom did a great job with the camera … i told her where to stand and she snapped away. so this is the one we came up with. no planned, coordinated outfits … just a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants family photo! and it does look semi-blurry here … but looks fine when i pull it up.

 

while we were out there … i took a few quick ones of my brother and my sister-in-law.

 

and my sister.

 

kind of like the lights in this one … even if alyssa is a bit blurry. it's one of two pictures that i took INSIDE the house with NO flash. i wish i didn't have to use my external flash indoors … but i havn't learned how to NOT use it yet. lol!

 

this was the other one without a flash. mainly because i was waiting for everyone to come outside for pics … and had my other lens on and no flash. and i loved that there were other camera's out taking pictures too. takes some of the pressure off me to do all the picture taking.

 

even my aunt sandy … with her disposable camera. she had a reason for having one of these. but we still gave her some teasing about it. "check the back and see if that last shot was good … oh wait, you CAN'T". "take another just in case … oh wait, you only have 27 on the roll". "can you email us a copy of that … oh wait, you have to drop off the camera, and wait for the prints, and then see if they turned out, and then get us the negative, and then we'll have to order reprints". rofl!!! totally kidding sandy!

and i have no pictures of dinner. but trust me … there was a big dinner right about this time. yummy stuff … everything a christmas dinner should be. not sure why i never take pictures of that … probably because i'm too busy eating my mashed potatoes and gravy!

 

then it was present time. our little santa helper came out and was ready to go. she loves putting on the hat and passing out the gifts.

 

alyssa helped pass them out too. but no hat for her. lol! and can you tell how thrilled she was to have her picture taken?

 

that is my mom holding one of the completed mini albums i was working on. kind of completed, i should say. i had some technical difficulties along the way (not fitting in the albums) … so i had to simplify them in the end. i guess i should share the end result with you … since i showed you all the in-the-works stuff. lol! later this week.

 

my grandparents … and my aunt vicky.

 

sarah. not even sure how she ended up back in jammies. lol!

 

alyssa and her new converse shoes.

   

sarah and joe. when everyone sat down to do gifts … i commented that he was in "his chair" again. i've been realizing that everyone sits in the same spots … every christmas. lol! and this is his spot … the chair. of coure, i'm in MY spot … in a folding chair, in front of the TV. mainly because it's the one spot from which i can take pictures of everyone. lol!

 

wendy … all decked out in some warm stuff for her cold weather back home.

 

alyssa and my dad. which i'm bummed that this came out blurry … but glad i kept it anyways.

 

my brother and sister-in-law got the girls some tickets to go to a show. can't remember which one exactly … and they took the tickets back so they wouldn't get lost. lol! but they're taking them out to dinner and then the show. i'm sure they'll have fun.

 

and after all the presents … alyssa played us some songs on her clarinet. quite a difference from last year. lol! then we had dessert … and chatted. and cleaned up. and then alyssa's allergies started to get really bad … so we packed up and headed home. all of 2 blocks away … at which point, we unpacked again. lol! and that pretty much sums up our christmas!