What the Roo?

While I was putting the lights on our huge and very crooked Christmas tree Liam found his Roo costume (6-12 month size) and said "I be roo?" He then proceeded to attack Sam and run around.

I got him to stand still for 2 seconds:

He is so stinking cute!

Big tree or little tree?

I hope your Thanksgiving was lovely! Thanksgiving Eve Chris and I headed out to see New Moon all by ourselves! I have never left Abby but when our sitter showed up at 9pm she was soooo tired and ready to go to bed. I laid her down, she rolled onto her side shoved her thumb in her mouth and was out. Chris and I spent 3 blissful hours completely alone, well never mind the hundred other people in the theater. I don't know if the movie really was a crazy amount better then the first or if it was because I had no one to hold, sshh and interrupt me with potty break requests but man did I love it! The next morning Chris was in charge of the ward football game, which meant yummy left over doughnuts for us!

We spent Thanksgiving Day with two fun families from the state department who live here at Oakwood. We split up the food assignment which was soooo nice (who really wants to cook all that food for one family, half of whom won't touch anything but corn and bread?) It also meant considerably less of a mess to clean up. The kids loved the fruit and cheese kabobs off this melon based turkey

(how cute is that). On Black Friday Chris and I agreed that there were no crazy door busters that we needed and Chris actually had to go to work :(... for a very short time period with a nice long lunch haa! By the end of the day we had actually ended up going to Target, Toys R Us and the Mall (Tyson's was INSANE!). So Christmas shopping for the boys is all done!
Today was wonderful! Every year I tell Chris how much I want to cut down our own tree. Well seen as we will have a palm tree as a Christmas tree next year, we decided now was the time! We loaded the cuties up in the car and drove out to my favorite farm, the homestead, to cut down a tree. As we were driving there I thought about an article I had just read about shooting in the middle of the afternoon and how nearly impossible it is but how if you can do it you get amazing blue skies. I thought well this ought to be a challenge! When we pulled up the boys were so excited. They hopped out and after throwing rocks for a while we went on the hunt for the “biggest one”, that is what Sam wanted. Liam wanted this tree:

I told him that it was too little and wouldn’t fit our ornaments or very many presents underneath it. He let me take a picture of him by it so he could always remember it.



Then he ran off to be with his best bud.
The two of them spent WAY more time picking flowers then looking at trees.


Sam told me that the flowers were “So beautiful” and smelled “lalicious”.

It was pretty cold and windy and Sam is like me and hates being cold, so I actually got him to wear his coat again, even if he doesn't like it.

Abby spent the majority of the time hanging out in Daddy’s coat being all snuggly.


When we did finally find “the one” we went and got our awesome saw. They told us if we needed we could come back and get a chain saw. I thought I could do it and then Liam offered his help (more like demanded he help) so I knew it would be super fast.


I got about 1/3 the way through and let Chris take over. I was holding Abby and trying to take pictures so I felt bad when Sam crawled onto his back to supervise.

I just started laughing when Liam crawled on also.

Poor Chris, trying saw and be horsey for two boys. Chris got it all cut down and with some help dragged it over to this cool machine that shakes all the dead or loose needles off it.

The boys really got a kick out of this. But then they got distracted by the tractor.

That’s when the wheels started coming off. It was cold and windy so both boys were begging to go to the car but I REALLY wanted just one picture of all of us. Well this is what happens when you drag kids into pictures:

We got the kids loaded up and Chris and the nice worker loaded the netted up tree onto the top of the car.

We drove up to the farm house to pay and let the boys out to see the goats and grab some apples. The owner was nice enough to take one last picture of all of us. (Abby's huge eyes are a shout out to her cousin Ava).

Sam thought it would be a good idea to grab a bag for himself until he realized how heavy these huge apples are.

I got one of their Carmel apples and a cup of hot cider.

We stopped by the local feed and seed for my favorite BBQ pork sandwiches (Thank you REESE!) and headed home. It was a really fun morning. What is hilarious is when Chris brought the tree up after nap time he had to work forever to get it into the super cheap and way to small tree holder I purchased. For some reason we could NOT get it straight, so Chris headed out and got a nicer tree holder… yeah our tree grew completely crooked. I mean WAY crooked. Chris and I are still trying to figure out what we can do to fix this gorgeous tree that is now propped up against the wall. We are considering fishing line and duct tape.

Why Abbers is sleeping through the night....

She found her thumb!

I think it is adorable but Chris really wants he to push the binky instead, they are a lot easier to take away. It is just soooo adorable and she has it when ever she wants!

What we have been up to

Lately things have been busy at the Crawford household. This is great-- I like busy. I am much more organized when I feel like I am in a pressure cooker for a little while. Chris had Veterans Day off so we decided to take Sam out of school (I was so concerned he would have a sea of have make up work-- NOT!) and headed up to Hershey PA. This has been on our "places to go list" for a long time. The boys were great in the car and it was only an hour and a half drive. I think giving them starbursts really helped, even if Liam did get the wrappers stuck all over his face

A kind lady offered to take our picture infront of the entrance so we got a rare family picture

The boys were in HEAVEN. Sam has the same favorite candy bar as my mom, a plain 'ole Hershey's bar, and they were everywhere!


The boys got to pretend to be factory workers and push buttons, load box's and do a little shaky dance then put them on a conveyor belt.

Then they got to twist knobs and Hershey Kisses came pouring out of a funnel. We went on the "where does chocolate come from" ride a few times. At the end they give you a free sample, that day they were Mr. Good bars. My favorite candies are York peppermint patties and Reese’s Peanut butter cups. They didn't have many of these surprisingly, so Chris surprised me with a York topped cupcake

It was soooo yummy! On the way home we stopped briefly at Gettysburg. Christopher had never been there and we definitely have to return because this trip was just a glimpse. We also borrowed the Toy Story movies from some friends. These are Limas absolute FAVORITE movies and since they are in the darn Disney vault we don't have them He was so excited to watch them he went in and got all the characters he has from the movie, Woody, Buzz, Rex, 'tato head and slinky dog. The other day while we were at JoAnne’s he found a 3D Toy Story book and kept asking me for Bo Sheep and Piggy "Pwease Pwease Pwease". Anyways he got them all and lined them up on the train table then hoped up to watch the show. It had been a long day though and before the end of the movie he looked like this

One night Chris and I decided to head to my new favorite cupcake place Buzz's on Slaters. We headed a different way then we usually do and ended up on the GW parkway, so we hoped off at Gravelly Park. This is a really cool area right at the end of the Reagan national airport runways. The planes fly right over your head and are super loud.

Liam and Sam LOVED it.

We didn't stay too long since it was dark and raining. We'll have to go back on a nice Saturday :)

This last Thursday Sam had his Thanksgiving feast at his school. I volunteered to help set up (because I am nuts and want to be involved even when I would probably be more of a detriment then help-- since I brought two kids with me) and to bring cookies. I had every intention of making these amazing turkey cookie creations that my friend Nicole makes, but when it came down to it things were just WAY to busy so I bought the HUGE cupcakes from Costco. The teachers were delighted because when cut up they fed all four classes instead of just Sam’s. Sam wore the headband he made and brought home a fun turkey!

He was thrilled to model his headband for me can't you tell?
We also did family pictures a little bit ago. We got together with our friends the Moons and swapped picture taking. We went to this abandoned house out by Homestead farms in Maryland. I know I am weird but I really wanted pictures in front of this door.

(You can check out more of these pictures on my photo blog)
Then we headed up to homestead to buy some apples and let the kids play in the hay.


Brandon found a caterpillar which the boys thought was sooooo cool.

(Liam had just received that magnifying glass in a kid’s meal-- oh the irony)

He also found this crazy looking gourd that the kids thought was a snake

When we were done we all headed back to our place and were joined by our friends the Nielsen’s for a Costco potpie and apple crisp! It was so great to catch up and enjoy yummy warm food. That night I also took dinner to the Stahles since Ryan had just delivered Ruby. I felt awful because I made orange chicken, pot stickers and white rice, Chris ran it over and came back and informed me that they also had family in town that there was no way that was going to feed everyone-- DANG IT! I was so embarrassed, and what did the Stahles do? They returned our Tupperware filled with bar none THE best cookies I have EVER tasted.

Sam asked for one and I gave him a famous Amos instead, there was no way I was giving him one of these. Ryan gave me the recipe and you can find it HERE. She does not add the orange zest and substitute’s molasses for dark corn syrup. Make them; you will NOT be able to stop!
A ton of my time lately has been spent doing photo sessions. While I love doing shoots on location, the fact that daylight savings makes it near impossible to find a time when there is light and Daddies aren't at work, has made me turn to more studio work. The term "studio" is used ridiculously loosely here. I have been trying to figure out how to get a square of wood flooring that I could have in our apt. for shoots. Well I had the best luck ever and ended up with this nice white wood flooring and I have been practicing lightening it correctly etc.


I also found this adorable green basket at Crate and Barrel that I thought would be solo cute to take pictures of babies in... I was wrong.

Apparently Abby didn't like the wire... even when I padded it.

Even with all this craziness we have still had plenty of time to be silly:

A long break

OKay wow, I have totally be neglecting my personal blog, but it has been NUTS around here. So much to do and soooo little nightime to do it aka after the kiddos go to bed! This really isn't an update post either, I will have to do that on Sunday but I wanted to get these pictures up for Granny, Grandad, Grandma and Grandpa. It is basically the same post from the photography blog:

When people find out I am a photographer the phrase that generally follows is "I bet you have great pictures of your kids" I then awkwardly shift my weight from foot to foot, avoid eye contact and mumble something incoherent because to be honest I don't have a lot of "arranged" pictures of my cuties. So, after my morning shoot I took a short break then Chris humored me and we went out to get some pictures of the boys. See, a wonderful friend of mine found the deal of a lifetime the other day when she purchased a fantastic vintage tricycle for FOUR BUCKS! I won't lie, I have major bike envy. For some reason I thought lightening might strike twice so I dragged Liam to our closest thrift store and although there were no trikes in sight, Liam did find a cool old wagon that he refused to get out of... it was awkward when he was clinging to the sides as I was trying to pull him out and avoid getting Abby (who was chillin' in the front pack) kicked in the face, in the end I buckled and just bought it (how many times have I forked over mola to end a tantrum? To many to count- that's embarrassing-- and pretty bad parenting). I am so glad we got it though, the boys love it and I know it will be in some amazing shots. We headed down to the "caboose" by our house, Sam's new favorite place, and I went to town.


I love Liam's pouty face:

Eventually Liam refused to stand on the back of the bike so Chris had the cute idea of putting him in the wagon and having Sam pull it.

Sam was pretty good, you can bribe a 3 year old.


Plus just being able to play on railroad tracks and around a train was enough to put Sammy on cloud nine... although he hated his coat and boots, great because those were sooo cheap....


Liam liked playing with the old broken bell

And although he didn't stay on long (how fun is it when you can't reach the pedals?)
I did catch a smile or two

He did give his Sad face a lot, he is such a little actor we love it!

Chris was kind enough to walk around with Abby and watched which ever boy wasn't in the shot. And then took Abby on a ride on the trike.

Giveaway For KC photography

Alright folks I have THE coolest idea for a photo shoot but I need a 6-10 month old girl. One who can sit up and preferably not even crawl (I need her to stay put essentially.) If you know of someone who is wanting some super cute pictures of their baby girl leave a comment on this post or the coinciding post on my photography blog and tell me why you need a picture of your little angel. This ought to be interesting since I really think very few people who aren't family read this blog haaa! So I will just curl up into a ball and cry when no one leaves a comment. Included in the giveaway will be an hour session at my "studio" aka my apartment, a high resolution DVD with 5-10 images, one Christmas card mock up with 25 prints. I think its a pretty darn cool giveaway!

Giveaway

One of my favorite Etsy stores is doing an awesome giveaway! Banner Boutique sells amazing head bows, they really take the flower clips to the next level... plus I love their pictures and logo haaa! Check it out and maybe you will win!
http://www.bannerboutique.blogspot.com/
Heres hopin I win because heaven knows I spend to much money on Abby's accesories.