Thursday, December 3, 2009

Family Pictures and Thanksgiving


We attempted family pictures over Thanksgiving break and this was the best one we got. My sisters were jumping up and down trying to keep the boys attention and trying to get them to smile, but Tanner and Trav wanted nothing to with the pics. I LOVE that Trav is holding Andrew's hand.
We got a couple good ones of Aub.
In the middle of taking the pictures Eric would just laugh. It really was a joke trying to get "good" pictures done. If we could've gone outside it probably would've turned out better, but Andrew is still to little and it is way too cold.
This boy turns 2 next week. I can't believe it.
I love Tann's laugh.
Tanner is always wanting to hold Andrew and then asks me to take a picture of him.
Tanner loves frosting and sprinkles.
Andrew is starting to smile a lot, but this is the closest we have got to catching it on camera. His smile makes me melt!
Eric threw Travis into the air. I love his face.
This one wasn't bad, but the lighting was.
Trav, giving his brother love.
My siblings who came home for Thanksgiving. Jon even brought his lady! I love having them home. I can't wait till Christmas. We shared Thanksgiving with Eric's family. It was so nice to have both our families together at one house.
The kids right before bed.
Aubs and Leah sharing a night gown.
Trav needs a hair cut.
Had my annual alumni game last Saturday. We brought Andrew with us and had friends watch the other kids. It was fun even though we lost. I wish I had some of my teammates show up.
Aubree loves holding her brother. It is really nice to be able to have her hold him while I take of the other boys.
I took pictures of my sister Amy's family. They are so cute!

Her hair naturally curls like this.


I wish I could have my eyes open in our pictures.
I wanted to make sure and document a conversation Aubs and I had a few weeks ago. This girl is special. We had just spent the evening with Tanner's birth mom and out of nowhere Aubree ask me a question about Tanner's birth mom. I didn't realize that Aubs knew who she was. She said she remembered going to her house a lot (Aubree is very observant). She asked me if we'd ever meet Andrew's birth mom and I told her hopefully. I asked her if we wanted to see her birth mom (we use her name) and she said she did (Aubree often asks to go see her birth mom). Aubree looked at me and said, "Mom, you are Travis' birth mom." She understands things that she seems to young to understand. She is still 3. We are so grateful for each one of our kids!

Oh, last night I was holding Andrew against my chest and Aubree asked me if I was going to breast feed him (she did say breast :)). I told her no and then she asked me if Trav drank all of the milk.

ps. this post ended up way longer than I planned!

5 comments:

Lacey said...

Your family is just beautiful! The one that you like where you said the lighting wasn't great, try to convert it to black and white and up the contrast and you might be surprised how awesome it looks.
Aubree's last comment is sooo funny! Thanks for the smile!

Lacey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tara said...

Oh Jen I wished we lived closer so I could get to know your kids. They are so funny! I love the pic of Travis flying thru the air - completely freaked out. Very cute family pictures too. Happy holidays!

Ryan Orr said...

To add to the lighting suggestion: I think you have Photoshop and one of the easiest ways to counteract less than perfect lighting (which for amateurs like me is almost every pic :)) is to do a Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels. This creates a layer that lets you adjust the levels of light. If you open it up you will see a graph that shows if your pic is heavy on light or dark. You can drag the adjustment knobs to set where you want ture white and black to be as well as how bright you want the midtones to be. It sounds complicated but if you just mess around with it you will get it pretty quickly.

MelissaR said...

Family pics are always and adventure! I just love Aubree's comment about Travis drinking all your milk. Too funny!!! And can I just say that you and Eric are just amazing! Miss you guys!