A Christmas Tradition

We have a Christmas tradition in our house. It started last year when we were listening to a song called, "A Mad Russian's Christmas" by Trans Siberian Orchestra and now every time we play the song, this is what we get. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

* PLEASE: No judgment on the state of my house in the video. It's normally spotless, I'm not sure what happened that weekend. Thanks, Momgmt*

o

Rowan's 9 month check up

Hard to believe we have a 9 month old on our hands but that we do.

Rowan is still a growin', but not as fast as before. To the stats:

Height: 28 1/2 inches --> 75-90 percentile

Weight: 20lbs 11oz --> 75-90 percentile

Rowan seems to be growing into her frame and lengthening out a bit. Several weeks ago she started crawling but lucky for us wouldn't stray too far. She has since honed her "pulling up" skills she gained several months ago and is effectively "testing" her boundaries. Here is some video proof:

How about that! We think she'll be walking on her own soon.

She loves to eat her Mum-Mum's!

I wish we had these things when the girls were little!

Her first "real" family meal is below.

Pork roast, mashed potatoes, and carrots. She did a great job and may or may not have eaten better than her older sisters on that night.

She's also a fan of yogurt, cheese, mashed potatoes, avocados (still), spaghetti, puffs... and the list goes on. She let's us know when she's had enough by turning her head and yelling. It's pretty effective.

She LOVES her sisters. Especially when they do silly stuff like fall down in front her and run in and out of the room. The girls get a kick out of making her laugh. They are also always happy to come get me yelling, "Mommy! Rowan needs you!" when she cries and I'm not in the room.

Here are some photos of "Row-ster Bow-ster" as we like to call her:

Rowan is on the good list this year and only wants her two front teeth from Santa. They have actually already broken through the gums. With her other 2 teeth through on the top and at least 2 or more on the bottom this girl will be eating apples before New Years!

Happy Holidays from Rowan!

Masterpiece Theater: Thanksgiving Edition

Theme: Thanksgiving

Medium: Coloring page

Vehicle: Markers

Behold!
The pilgrim woman who can look into your soul.

For some reason, Stephen and I had to do a double take with this picture... that is one creepy pilgrim!
Extra points for staying in the lines though.

Final Grade: B- for creepy yet neat lines

Photoshoot - November 2010

So it's been awhile... I realize this and apologize. Believe me when I say the blogger guilt for not posting for close to a month has been a heavy weight to carry. Now that that's out of the way... on to the kids!

We took the kiddos about a week before Thanksgiving to Portrait Innovations again. We did this when Rowan was about 3 months old and we were pretty happy with the results. So off we went to with our holiday clothes and high hopes for a publishable family photo of five (say that 3 times fast!).

While the family photo of five is unpublishable on account of the Family Standards Act of 2010, Fuller Edition (i.e. mom and dad think they look terrible) we did get plenty of keepers of the little ones! And some pretty funny ones we plan to memorialize and bring out when the girls start dating... enjoy!

***WARNING: picture overload***

We started out with our Christmas dresses...

Another sweet one of Grace.

Here is Peyton, mid-sass.

The photographer was really nice and in trying to get Peyton to smile was asking her to repeat all kinds of crazy stuff.  Before this shot he said, "I like boys!".  Once Peyton realized what she said he snapped this shot. Too cute!

Poor Rowan didn't take a nap before our 9:30am pictures and finally fell asleep in the car on the way... as soon as we walked in it was our turn.  After a 5 minute nap, this picture pretty much sums up what she felt like for the first part of the pictures.

With minimal sleep she's still as cute as ever!

Here is special section I like to call - 

Herding Cats Part I:

 

 This is the fun that can be had when you try to photograph three children of differing ages with a strange man waving a stuffed animal in their face.

On to the "look into the light" shots...

Grace

Peyton

 

And next onto some matchy-matchy outfits the girls are sure to hate me for in about 10 years. 

But they look SO cute now!

You're welcome! Love, Mom

Peyton and her sass smiling for the camera.

Grace doing who knows what for the camera.

One of our favorites of Grace!

The big girls working it for the camera.

Pink plaid is the best, no purple plaid is better.

Lucky girls to have one another and I think they know it too.

 

A favorite shot of Rowan! 

Herding Cats Part II:

 

Rowan: "Get me out of here."

Peyton: "Get me out of here."

Grace: "Get me out of here."

Here is the best shot we got of all three girls:

And here's the Photoshop'd masterpiece Mom did in Paint.

 

Ahhh that's better!

Fall Colors

Get your swimsuits kids, it's fall in Memphis!
Nothing like putting your two-piece on as the leaves are changing hues and falling to the ground.

This Wednesday I took the chance to photograph the girls against the beautiful Crape Myrtle trees in our yard with the temperature in the 70's I'd say. Finally, after a two month absence, we found our camera battery charger on the night stand. Silly battery. So I was finally able to get some good pictures unlike the past couple of weeks.

Here are some of the better shots:

(P) is in the white and (G) is in the green.
Holding hands, so sweet!
(Daddy would look at this as Peyton putting Grace in some sort of WWE submission move)

Both smiling: check
Four eyes open: kinda?
Verdict: I'll take it.

Aww Rowie!
That's Grace she's looking at (i.e. not the camera)

The outtakes:

Sure Mom! One more pictures sounds awesome!

Wait, I thought you just said one more.

That's it, we quit.

Seriously, we're done here.

Luckily Rowan was still up for another shot!

To even out the P & G pictures, here are a couple more R ones.

Loving life and all things chewable!

Here she is showing off those two bottom pearly whites!
(And her Michelin tire arms)

Disney Halloween 2010

There is a reason it's taken me so long to document one our family's favorite holiday.

Old film.

Yes, believe it or not - film does expire. Who knew? Luckily, the Griz team photographer and friend, Joe, was able to quickly pinpoint [one of the reasons] why my pictures turned out like this and this. (I knew it couldn't have possibly been user error.) The Halloween pictures I was sure would turn out GREAT were even worse than those. I do have a couple shots taken with my iPhone and I bought the CD from Walgreens of those from my expired film so here is our Halloween, kind of.

It all started with some shirts the girls made at school, complete with glittery puff paint!

Here is Rowan working the pumpkin hat.

Mommy playing with an iPhone app.
Big thanks to GRACE for humoring mommy.

Next was the school Halloween party. The girls dressed up as pirates, which some of you may remember they did last year. The teachers said they might get messy with all the festivities so we thought it was best not to ruin our real costumes.

Here is Rowan dressed for school on the Friday before Halloween.

Here is evidence of the full moon.
All three of my children in the same picture!

On to some pumpkin carving and decorating.
We use the Mr. Potato Head princess and pirate kits so the girls can help decorate.

We learned last year that power tools make even pumpkin decorating that much easier.

Here is Mommy's finished project.

(I know you don't need me to point out the fine photography work at hand. Just wait, it gets better.)

Finally, Minnie Mouse (G) and Ariel (P) make their Halloween 2010 entrance.

A rare close up of a mouse.

Yes, she's blinking. But how lucky are we (and you!) to see this picture of a real mermaid. Blinking or not, I'm feeling pretty starstruck right now.

For all those wondering, yes, I will be starting my own photography business in the near future!

And there off!