a little christmas spirit

A hodge podge of pictures from the past month. I just love Christmas.

 This may be my favorite of the season.  I just love seeing how excited the girls get about Christmas too!

remke family christmas

Here are the pictures I planned to put on here last week when I found out I didn't have storage. (In case you were wondering, each blog doesn't get its own storage amount, just each google account. I have several blogs and a picassa web album- so I used up my storage quicker than I thought I would. but 20gb is only $5, so it all turned out ok)

We went down to Dallas last weekend to see the whole Remke family. It was a wonderful weekend and we had a great time relaxing and enjoying each others company, eating tons of Remke favorites (Ribs, homemade meatballs, beer cheese and cream cheese pickles always make the list), making a ginger bread train and, of course, opening presents! 

We also headed to the park for some family pictures.

 love this one of granny and pops!

 and this one of Dan and Shanna

Like I said, fun times all around! I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas week! We will be heading to Denver on Christmas day, so look for plenty of pics of the ludwig side as well.

a couple things

1. I didn't even keep up with ten on tuesday for two weeks. man.

2. Blogger just informed me that I have used up all my space and can't add anymore pictures without buying some storage.

3. I am crazy nesting right now and decided it is imperative to have the girls in a big girl room and have a nursery for Evie, instead of her sleeping in a pack-n-play in the office. So we are spending hours and hours cleaning out a closet, condensing the office into the closet, getting the girls stuff to the office and creating a nursery. Drew loves me. The plus is that the condensing gives us a leg up on moving in a couple months.

4. I don't know how to do a post without pictures, so I updated my header. It's a tribute to 2010. 

ten on tuesday?

I am just now realizing what a terrible blogger I am. You, of course, already know this (because you follow this blog) but I am way too inconsistent. I will post 5 times in 7 days and then  only once a month.  I just get super overwhelmed by blogging material and then as soon as I get behind, its all over. Does this happen to you?

SO I am stealing an idea from Robin and doing lists on tuesdays. Hopefully this way I can maintain some consistency around here.

1) I started the 365 again. I know it was too overwhelming last time, but I am doing it on flickr now and it is much less stressful not having to keep up with another blog. I really missed taking pictures and without a goal in mind I wasn't doing a great job. The 365 pushes me to be creative and grow in my understanding of photography like nothing else, so when I got the new camera I decided to start again in order to help me get comfortable with it. It also explains why I haven't been posting that much on here.

2) Evie is still doing great. I am starting to get the "you're ready to pop" comments, which happened a little sooner this time than last time, but we are still doing great. :)

3) We had a barbeque the other night to celebrate Evie. (not a shower, as Drew was quick to point out) and it was a wonderful gathering of friends. Kead thought Evie was going to come out at the party though, and was pretty sad on the drive home without her.

4) At the shower  barbeque there were amazing s'more cupcakes.

You have to try this recipe. We used a brownie mix instead of making the chocolate cake part, but other than that it was the same. And it was amazing.

5) I have been getting to do some photo sessions lately. Check out the photo blog for some cute ones of friends and family. Another reason I have been inconsistent on this blog.

6) I have 20+ pregnant friends right now. Seriously. Babies everywhere! I love doing maternity portraits. I think they are my favorite.

7) We are going to Dallas this week for Remke Family Christmas and then driving to Denver on Christmas day for Ludwig Family Christmas. I am super excited about spending Christmas morning in our house and still getting to spend time with both families.

8) Yesterday was St. Nicks day (the day we do our stockings). I asked Kead why we do stockings on Dec. 6th and she said "Cause Pops is from German" :)

9) This year at our annual craft night we are making tea wreaths. I just bought 600 clothes pins.

10) I leave you with a funny story. The other day we heard some serious laughing in the other room. Drew went to see what the girls were doing and came back to report that they were licking each other....on the tongue. awesome.

h.p. mania

Totally did the H.P. premier at 12:00 last night. So much fun and so worth it!

This year our friend Allison made us shirts for the premier! Yes, I convinced some other people to wear them with me!

The front had the sign for the Deathly Hollows:

And the back had a quote:

"And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure"
-Albus Dumbledore

Remember how much I love Harry Potter? The excitement on opening night is contagious. Sorry about my face in this picture...I get a little excited about Harry Potter...

 super sweet wristbands to wait in line!

I even convinced Drew to join us..

 See you again in June, Harry Potter!

hello again

Busy busy busy. That's how things have been around here! So in attempt to not get completely overwhelmed, here is what we have been up to:

1) So You Think You're Crafty. If you aren't familiar with this, it is a craft competition and Kirst and I are competing in together for kojodesigns. Every week they give us a theme and we have to come up with something that is voted on anonymously, then the person with the least number of votes is kicked off. So far we have made it through 7 weeks (including our audition week.) Only 4 more left, if we make it to the end.  I can't show you my latest craft because it hasn't been voted on yet, but it has been a crazy.couple.weeks. By far the coolest craft I made yet was the baby buggy:

2) Meeting my nephew! A friend's dad is a pilot for southwest airlines and he gave me a buddy pass so I got to go meet Easton! It was a fabulous sibling vacation and I loved getting to just hold babies and cook and run errands without my kids to worry about. Drew is awesome for watching the girls so I could go.
While there, I got to take some pics of sweet easton:

I also got a little session with adj, tricia and stetson:

AND got to hang out with the little miss piper jane:

3. Invites! I have been working on TONS of invites lately. These are all parties I am helping with- so lots of partying will be happening soon too! Here are a couple of my favs:

Well, now you are all caught up on the goings on around here...like I said we are busy. Luckily things are just about the slow down in time for the craziness of the holidays and then a new baby. :)

once upon a halloween...

Oh how I love Halloween! Not in a creepy, make-lots-of-body-part-food kind of way, but in a I-love-costume-parties kind of way! You must remember the H-party last year? This year we had a storybook halloween party.

Here's the invite:

 Our friends were (again) SUPER creative! Here are some of the costumes. Popeye and Olive Oil won the "Best Costume" award.

 I did a terrible job of taking pictures of the decor...but here are a few of the food. We had a lot more, but again, I did a terrible job!

And finally some pics of our family. We dressed as the Berenstain Bears. I love that Drew always goes along with my shenanigans. ;)

Monster Evie

Keadryn was so excited when she found these googly eyes, she ran over to me and shouted at my belly "now you can see us Evie!" She made me lay down to put them on there so that baby Evie could see. So cute!

pumpkins!

The other night we had a wonderful time at our local arborretum's annual pumpkin walk! There were 1,500 pumpkins that people had carved and donated with which the volunteers lit and lined the path that runs through the arborretum:

 Kead said her favorite was "the spiders" (there were lots of spiders) and Sayla said her favorite was "PUNKINS" I guess that means all of them. :) My favorite were the little pumpkin lanterns hung in all the trees:

...and speaking of pumpkins- here's a funny one of my little pumpkins. Yes, Keadryn is licking Sayla. Such a big sister.

Easton is here!

My sweet sweet nephew arrived on October 21st! Pray for him as he tries to get over an infection and establish his breathing. And pray for my sister as she just wants to hold her little guy and get to take him home!

I can't wait to hold this little peanut! Isn't Easton such a little sweetie with his black hair? Love it!

sayla's "cheese" face

I don't know why all kids go through this, but the "cheese" smile is funny! It looks so painful.

 a couple things:
1) sorry this picture is so over-exposed...still figuring out the new camera's settings.
2) for keadryn's "cheese" face look at this post.
3) I am so thankful to have a blog for these things. I would never have printed these pictures and they would have gotten lost in the 10 million photos in my files. It is so fun to be reminded of the everyday things. Go look through your old blog posts- its so fun!

a fun night out

One of our dear friends, Andy Hedges, is a great musician and cowboy poet. Do you remember this link to him reciting a poem? He's awesome, you should buy his new CD! Well, you should buy all his CDs...and listen to the poem. He really is great.

Well, he plays fairly frequently at a local wine and tapas bar, but it's not really the kind of place where you bring sippy cups and goldfish, so we haven't heard him play in a long time. The other night he was playing and we decided to get a babysitter and finally go to a concert! It was a blast. He was playing with another musician, Mike Beck, and the night was filled with great music, great food, and great friends!

and they even had non-alcoholic sangria for the preggos!  (there were two of us in our group)

Can you tell I am LOVING my new lens and camera? These were all taken in a low lit indoor venue at night...with no flash. Yes, it is awesome having a camera with an ISO of 6400!

and then all of a sudden...

...there's a baby bump! We were at the park today when I realized, I actually look pregnant. Don't you feel like the awkward stage of not looking pregnant lasts a little too long? I much prefer looking pregnant to looking like I ate an extra 40 doughnuts for breakfast.

Drew was taking a couple pictures and I am sure he made a smart remark (hence the smirk)...but it ended up being my favorite. :)

an afternoon drive

My husband really really loves me. I am sure you know (because I have said it 9000 times on this blog) that this is my favorite season. So Drew, knowing I won't get a "fall" in the Middle East, took a couple days off work and we piggybacked a trip to Farmington (my hometown) onto our Balloon Fiesta trip so that I could get a taste of fall. We had a wonderful stay in Farmington with some long-time family friends and it was so great to catch up! We haven't been back there since we had kids and it was fun to see friends and show the girls a little bit of where I grew up! (And yes, we drove by the house I grew up in and I cried...)

Another bonus is that Farmington is only a short drive from Durango, my favorite little mountain town (besides B.V. of course). We went in search of some fall colors and the drive did not disappoint. The aspens were the brightest shades of yellow mixed with some oranges and the greens of the pines. SO pretty! We even got to get out on some little dirt road and hike around a bit with jackets on! Glorious.