Santa Paws Sneak Peak

Since before Joey was born, our family has had our holiday Christmas card picture taken at the SPCA of Wake County's Santa Paws fundraiser. Each year, just before Thanksgiving, we dress up in color coordinated holiday cheer and hop in the car with at least one of our dogs to go get our picture taken. For the last several years, the picture location has been an empty store at Cameron Village. Tonight was our night this year. Black jeans and red and black shirts were the theme. Blaze got to come with us. They took several poses. Now that they use digitial cameras, I could see on the LCD screen that they got at least one good picture. Next Tuesday, I can pick up a CD with the digital images on it and then go to Wal-Mart and get our holiday cards made. Fun!

I took a few sneak peak pictures waiting to get our picture made with Santa and then a few of the boys with Santa after the family picture was made. The album is here.

It cost $40 for our family, and I know it goes to a good cause. If you think you might like to get your family's picture made this year, there are still appointments available.

Last year's Santa Paws picture album is here.

Snow!

I really hope it's a sign of more snow to come this winter for us. We've had flurries at our house twice in one week, and it's only November!!! I realized it was snowing at 7:15 this morning and went excitidly into the boys' room to wake them up to go out and see it. Normally they sleep until 7:30 or 7:45. They were still out solid. I was like a crazy woman coaxing them up, pulling on socks, stuffing into jackets, letting them slip just their Crocs on. I didn't want it to stop before we got outside! They thought I was a tad nuts until they actually got out in it. Then, their faces lit up! We walked Blaze and had fun (and then went back inside where it was warm). No accumulation. Maybe next time!

The rest of the pics are here.

Orange is the color of Fall...

I've been dressing the boys in orange a lot this month (October too). Orange reminds me of Halloween and Fall and the leaves turning. Pretty soon it will be time to make the Christmas shift to red. I caught the boys being silly in their cute orange shirts last night and took the pics in this collage.

The window for taking Fall leaf pictures is about over. Many leaves are down in our area of NC now. Those that are still up are turning brown. I'm really sad to see peak leaf season go...especially when today it's being replaced by cold temps and a strong wind.

Soon I'll be back out taking bare tree pictures and sunset pics...I hope. This whole amateur photography thing started about a year ago with beautiful December sunset shots. I was driving home from work one day and was upset that I didn't have my camera because the sunset was so pretty. The next day I brought my camera, and the sunset was pretty again. I took some nice pics, and I've been trying to take interesting nature pics (often along the side of the road as I travel to/from work or shopping) ever since. I hope to repeat the pretty sunset shots this year, so keep checking back!

It's Fall...

I've been out taking pictures of the beautiful fall leaves the last two days. I think the leaves hit peak here in the triangle this past week, but we had several rainy days, so yesterday was the first real chance to get out and try to capture the leaves in their fall glory.

I hope you enjoy these pics, and if you'd like to see more, the best from Friday are here, and the best from today are here.

Halloween

We had a really good time trick or treating tonight with our friends in the neighborhood. Some of the smaller kids like Sophie (cute little witch) and Sienna (pink princess) were able to really get into the swing of things with the older (aged 4-8) kids. Joey made his official debut at R2-D1-1 while Johnny wore the Mr. Incredible costume that he's been enjoying wearing for weeks. Madi had on a new witch costume. Eli was Darth Vader. Grayson was a knight. Celeste was in a very cute horse costume. Rick was a ghost. And, well, I was Wonder Woman. I think everyone can be a kid or at least try to feel like one on Halloween, right?!?

Rick spent most of Friday decorating the Haunted Garage. The big attraction tihs year was a special card game between several skeletons. He spent a lot of time organizing their hands, laying out the chips, stuffing them, and finishing the effect with spiderwebs all around. It was neat. The boys and I helped set up a few things around the card table as well. Everyone was getting in on the act.

It was nice to see the kids enjoying the pretend of Halloween and not being scared by the props that have bothered some in the past. They just charged right into the garage this year. It was obvious Mr. Rick was the ghost:-)

The rest of the pics are here.

Time Change

Well, here we go again. The clocks are going back one hour. As a matter of fact, they turned back in the middle of my Halloween and It's a Wrap posts, so they are out of order:-( Us adults will want to sleep late. The kids won't know the difference and will be up anyway. No problem letting them stay up until their new normal bedtime tomorrow. But, watch out later in the week as they are all short on sleep...again.

It's a Wrap...

Until next year, Happy Halloween. The boys and I spent the day taking down what we'd worked so hard for nearly 6 weeks to put up. In order to spend a little bit of time celebrating the middle child, Thanksgiving, we figured we'd better put Halloween away before it's time to get Christmas out! It was another good fall season...

Putting Frank away is always the sadest. We enjoy him so much. He's got a tear near his feet now, but hopefully he'll last us at least one more season. To keep us from getting sad, we put Tom Turkey up in his place. Gobble, gobble...

The rest of today's pics are here.