A Storybook Photography Photo Session - The Fitzpatricks

A few weeks ago, before the frigid weather hit St. Louis, I had a session with my sweet blog friend Becky (Weezer Words of Wisdom) and her adorable family. Her kids are just so cute!! I had a lot of fun with this session! Here are some of our favorite photos from that day. :-)

 See... I told you they were cute! :-)

Christmas Pajama Party Link-Up

I'm linking up with Darci, Ashley, Jenny, Julie and Natasha for their Christmas Pajama Party Link-Up.

We happened to take our Christmas Card pictures this year in our pajamas, so before taking those, I got one of just Jackson in his Christmas Jammies! I wish I would have gotten a full body shot, but with a 2 year old, you have to take what you can get. ;-)

I'm hoping to get our Christmas Cards out today or tomorrow, so I'll have a post on that coming soon. :-)

Our 2013 Christmas Tree

This past Saturday, we went to our favorite little tree stand, that we've gone to every year since we got married, and picked out our 2013 Noble Fir.

Jackson went along with us for the second year, and though he was more interested in the playground at the daycare behind the tree stand than in picking out a Christmas Tree, we found a beautiful tree and even got a few cute pictures while we were there. I am so bummed though, because I had one of the men there take a family picture of us with our tree and when I got home and started looking through them on the computer, I accidentally deleted it off my memory stick. :-( It didn't go in to my recycle bin either, so I guess it's just gone forever. Oh well, I got some cute pictures of Jackson, so I guess that will have to do. 

I wish he was showing me the trees here, but he was wanting me to follow him to where we could see the playground. ;-)

Jackson checking out the little bit of snow that was on the ground that day.

Jake and Jackson watching the man trim the trunk and wrap up our tree for us.

We brought it home that day and set it up in a bucket of water in our garage over night and then we brought it in and decorated it Sunday evening. 

Jackson helping to decorate the tree. :-) BTW, this didn't last long, so I'm glad I got a picture when I did. ;-)

And our 2013 Christmas Tree all decorated. It smells oh so good and Jackson got excited when we turned the lights on this morning. :-)

A Visit with Santa

Before I get started, I first want to say a big Thank You to everyone who linked up with Holly and I yesterday for our Christmas Traditions Link-Up! I've loved reading all about your traditions and hope to comment on all of them today!

Now onto our trip to see Santa. :-) We took Jackson to see Santa last night at the mall. We've taken him there every year since he was born. It was a new Santa this year though and he was great! I had been talking up Santa with Jackson before we went and he was even saying HoHoHo when I woudl ask him what Santa says. Super cute!! So when we got there, Jake took Jackson right up to him and Jackson gave him a high five. We were thinking, oh good, he's going to do great again this year. However, it went down hill when Jake went to sit Jackson on Santa's lap. Jackson was not having it and actually got down and ran and got back in his stroller, Ha! I so wish I had gotten it on video.

So I stepped in and took Jackson back over to see Santa and he was not happy about it. So I got him a candy cane and sat next to Santa with Jackson on my lap and he calmed down when I showed him the candy. He was fine as long as I was holding him, but the moment I tried to set Jackson next to Santa and scooch out of the picture, it was all over. :-(

So needless to say, Jackson is sitting on my lap in this picture and they were able to get a couple shots of him where he's not crying. I tried leaning back out of the picture, but you can still see that he's clearly sitting on my lap. Ha. Oh well, at least we got a picture and have a fun little story to tell someday. :-)

As we were leaving, we told Jackson to say bye to Santa and he did say bye to him and waved. It was cute. He just didn't want to sit on his lap. ;-)

And because I always like a comparison. Here are all 3 Santa pictures side-to-side. :-) I just love seeing how he's grown each year.

Christmas Traditions Link-Up

I'm so excited to be hosting this fun link up with my sweet friend Holly. I sure hope you'll all join in on the fun! 

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Jake and I have several Christmas traditions that we've started since being married. One being that we get our Christmas Tree from Sullivan's Tree Farm every year. The first Christmas after we got married, I knew I wanted to get a real tree. Both Jake and I always had an artificial tree growing up, but thought it would be fun to try a real tree. We've really enjoyed having a real tree, even though its a lot more work.

The first year we wanted to go all out and go cut the tree down and everything. So we went out to a farm that we found online about an hour away. When we got there, they only had little small trees that weren't even ready to be cut down in my opinion. So needless to say we didn't get a tree there, but we decided to go right down the road from us to a cute little family owned lot and pick out a tree. We loved the tree we got there and the super nice family that runs it, so we've gone back every year since then. It's so convenient too. We get a Noble Fir every year that smells wonderful and looks beautiful. Its probably my favorite tradition that we have. We plan to go this Saturday and get this years tree. I can't wait!

A second Christmas Tradition is that we've taken a family picture in front of our tree every year. I always use the picture to make an ornament to hang on the tree. I thought it would be cool to have an ornament on our tree from every year to see how our family has grown. Below are our 6 years worth of pictures so far.

A third family tradition, and this goes back to our childhood, is to go to the Christmas Eve Service at our church. Its always late at night, normally at 10 p.m. and its always candle-lit and so beautiful. Usually the kids come in their pajamas and it just really gets us ready for the coming of Jesus and helps you remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.

A fourth tradition that we started with Jackson last year, was the "Santa Gift" on Christmas morning. Jake passed this tradition on from his childhood. His mom always got he and his brothers several (wrapped) gifts from her and then the biggest gift was always from Santa Claus. It was never wrapped, just left under the tree Christmas Eve and was there waiting for them when they woke up Christmas morning. We started this with Jackson last year and it was so cute to see him get excited when he went into the living room Christmas morning. 

Another tradition Jake and I have is we always watch Christmas Vacation together. It's probably our favorite Christmas movie. It's so hilarious!!

And finally, our last tradition is that we always spend a day close to Christmas with each side of our family and we have fun traditions with both! With my family, we always fix a big breakfast, even if we're not getting together until lunch or dinner time. We have bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy, sausage and hash browns! Yum! It's a fun tradition we started several years ago and it just stuck! 

(I don't have a picture of our big breakfast, so here's a picture of my parents' tree with all the presents under it last year.)

With Jake's family, we started playing a fun Survivor game with all the adults. Jake's mom started it a few years back and we've played it every year since. It involves immunity challenges and lots of fun little gifts to open!!

(My MIL putting the immunity necklace tie around my neck last year after I won a challenge!! I was pretty proud that I actually won a challenge!)

Now it's your turn!

What are some of your favorite Christmas Traditions?? I can't wait to read about them!! Just tell us about them on your blog, add our Link-Up button and then link up below! It's that easy!

Baby Girl Update

We had our 18 Week Ultrasound yesterday afternoon and everything looked great! She's growing really well and looks very healthy! She is even measuring a week ahead of schedule. We could see she has chubby little legs already. Ha! 

 I just love getting to see the baby moving all around. She even had the hiccups at one point and she was very active, though I can't feel a lot of her kicks yet. I found out yesterday, I have an anterior placenta. Meaning the placenta is between her and I and it acts like a cushion for all her kicks. It's very common and as she gets a little bigger, I should be able to feel her moving around more.

This would have normally been the ultrasound we would have found out the gender of the baby, had we not cheated and found out a little early at a 15 week elective ultrasound. :-) The technician yesterday did affirm that we are in fact, having a sweet little girl though! :-) Yay!

So all is going well and the baby is doing great!! We couldn't be happier and are so excited to meet her in just a few more months! Now if we could ever come up with a name for the poor girl. ;-)

A Storybook Photography Photo Session and an Upcoming Link-Up

I'll start with this fun photo session I had a couple of weeks ago. It was actually my sister's in-law family. It was a big family and though it was cloudy and rainy during some of the session, we got some good shots I think. Especially when working with this many people. Here are some of my favorites. :-)

Lovely parents with 4 boys who are all married with children. There are 10 grandchildren and 1 on the way!

 Jeremy, the oldest of the 4 boys, and his family.

My sister's husband Jason is actually a twin. I can't remember which one is oldest, but this is Jason's family. 

Justin is the other twin and this is his family.

This is James, the youngest, and his family. They are expecting their second baby in June of next year. :-)

There are actually two sets of twins in this family. Jason and Justin are identical and their oldest brother Jeremy, had a set of fraternal twins. So cool!

This was a super fun shot of the whole family. :-)

Sweet Max resting on his Daddy's shoulder. 

Ruby, she's such a cutie.

These two cousins are BFF's!  When they saw each other they ran and gave each other a hug. So sweet. ♥

I have so many more photo sessions to share in the coming week or two. Storybook Photography has been very busy this past month and I'm loving it.