Holiday Picture FAIL

Since The Baby has been born, I have take about eight thousand pictures.

Yes, eight thousand. With my camera, not counting my flip or phone. I might have a picture taking problem.

This year, since it is The Baby's first, we are going to do picture holiday cards. You would think that somewhere in those pictures, I would have one that I loved enough to put on our holiday cards. But nothing was perfect. So inspired by pictures of my nephew I recently saw and the beautiful weather yesterday, I took The Baby out to get some new pictures.

I just didn't anticipate what would happen the first time that The Baby was on grass, not a blanket.

I couldn't get him to look at me! No amount of calling out his name, or squeaking toys could get his attention from the grass and leaves. He was so fascinated, that it even took him about fifteen minutes before he started to eat them.

I did not get a great picture that day.

We also tried over the weekend to get a cute family picture. That didn't work out so well.

Here's to hoping that I have better luck at Thanksgiving.

The Holiday Issue

It's hard to believe that it is almost Thanksgiving, which means that the holiday season is upon us. That is bringing a whole bunch of issues this year, since it is the first with The Baby.

The biggest issue being where do we go?

We are lucky enough that both families live within two miles of each other. So in the past, we've always split the major holidays. For Thanksgiving, we would have dinner with the husband's family and dessert with mine. That meant that we usually spent less time with my family.

So this year, my mother asked if we would do Thanksgiving dinner with them. Since Thanksgiving is the one day of the year that we get together with my cousins (who live quite a bit further than two miles away), I agreed.

This is not going over well with the husband's family. They want the see The Baby.

It doesn't seem to matter that every Christmas for the past ten years (with the exception of the one year I was out of the country), I've spent both Christmas and Christmas Eve dinners with his family. I would only see my family for a little while before church on Christmas morning. And this year isn't going to be different.

It also doesn't seem to matter that we are going to be visiting with them before heading over to my parents' for dinner. So they will get to see The Baby. They just won't get to spend all day/night with him.

And I feel bad for my parents. They are getting the better part of Thanksgiving, but they are getting seriously shafted on Christmas. I know that this bugs them. One time my mom made a comment about it and since she feels that she should never complain, I know it must have really been bothering her.

Sometimes it feels like we are spreading ourselves too thin trying to spend time with everyone. This doesn't even take into account spending some holiday time with just us, but that is an issue for another post.

How do you handle seeing family at the holidays?

The Halloween Parade (Literally)

There was no big party to attend this year. There was no trick or treating, since candy is still off limits. But my little lion did march (ok, was pushed) in the local Halloween parade.

And yes, he had a tail.

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This post is part of the Celebrate Halloween SITS Contest, which I really want to win. If you haven't already checked out SITS, you definitely should. They have the best blogging tips, and are a great place to find new and interesting blogs.

Check out my other entries for the contest:
Ghosts of Halloweens Past
Creepy Crawly Creations

Also linking up to Cole's Trick or Tweet.

Ghosts of Halloweens Past

For a number of years, every Halloween, my husband would get the flu. It started the year of Josie, when he called me the morning of the party. My (at the time) boyfriend, who only ever wanted to be left alone when he wasn't feeling well, called me and asked me to skip the party and stay home to comfort him. (Which I didn't do, because I had people depending on me to complete our costume. I swear that it wasn't because I wanted to go out and NOT get the flu...)

Every year after that, come Halloween, he was sick. To the point where people stopped thinking that he would ever show. (Not that it ever stopped him from getting a Halloween costume, he got a new one every year that he didn't use.)

Then last year, I was four months pregnant, and we were planning on heading to the same Halloween party that I went to every year (alone).

And he didn't get sick. And he got to use his costume. And no one knew who Dr. Horrible was. But I got to spend Halloween with my husband for the first time in many, many years.

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This post is part of the Celebrate Halloween SITS Contest. If you haven't already checked out SITS, you definitely should. They have the best blogging tips, and are a great place to find new and interesting blogs.

How much is too much?

Recently, Mama Kat has had a few posts about internet safety which have really hit home for me. I've always been a little paranoid about how much I share on the internet. I haven't really figured out how much I'm going to share on here. Right now, I haven't used any names, and I'm thinking that I'm going to keep it that way. I've been limiting the pictures I post, even though I usually love to show off my family and friends.

I know that I don't have a lot of readers right now, but I'm hoping to grow. So how much is too much to give away? And is there a point where I am not sharing enough? I started this blog as an outlet now that my life is so baby-focused. How much does it really help me if I have to edit everything I write about?

Writer's Workshop: Creepy Crawly Creations

I am not the most creative person. Especially when it comes to Halloween costumes. My costumes tend to be of the store bought variety. There are a few years in recent memory where I tried to be a bit more creative than "Sexy Alice" (although, I rocked Sexy Alice last year at four months pregnant).

A few years ago (a few more than I care to admit), I convinced two friends to do Josie and the Pussycats with me. It wasn't that long after the movie had come out, so there were the licensed versions available for purchase. We did not go that route.

Melody, Josie and Valerie*

The three of us went shopping at off-the-beaten-path stores to get the perfect outfits and accessories. The ears and tails were generic tiger accessories, but everything else I thought brought it all together perfectly. And even though we didn't have the generic movie costumes, people still recognized who we were.

We had ears! And tails!

That was an awesome Halloween.

* Masks have been added to protect the innocent.**

** I'm (apparently) not that innocent.

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This post is also part of the Celebrate Halloween SITS Contest.

You Capture: Orange

I wasn't going to participate this week, but I passed this tree while walking with the stroller this morning. I couldn't believe how vivid it was when all the trees around it were still green.