Making of the Christmas Card 2015

Hi you all,

We had a great time (once we figured out a theme) creating our Christmas card this year.  I decided it would be too difficult to do the pictures together as a family with really young children.  You know, no one is looking at the same place, not everyone has the look we are going for, etc.  So we started by knowing that our pictures would be individual and went from there.  With some inspiration from Google Image we came upon the "Christmas Wrapper" theme.  We even took the photos on seperate days because of the individual photo factor.

The Google Image inspiration:

Goodie did hers first and from the beginning we knew she would be a fun name to work with.
Goodie Goodie Gum Drops was decided rather quickly, with gum drops being the Christmas theme to the name.

Yep real gumdrops! I painted brighter the gumdrops in the above photo, selected for the card, for purposes of the gumdrops standing out.

Yep her sister Liza ate the gumdrops during the entire photo shoot.

Then Liza took her photo.  I thought of rapper LL Cool J, since Liza Love is LL.  Then to tie it to Christmas theme I added babe, for the babe Jesus.

LL Cool J, in case you didn't know who he was.

LL Cool Babe.

Not all fun and games.

Then mom lures with fruity snacks.

And she's back to smiles.

Luna was third in line for the photo shoot.  Her Christmas Wrapper name was made up after her photo.  We used Goodie Goodie Gum Drop's tutu and pearl necklace.  At first I thought of kid rapper Lil' Bow Wow for a name, but it wasn't Christmas enough.  Black sheep?  No.  Precious Pooch.  No.  Miss Claws?  Yes!  Luna is very obedient so this was the first photo and we were done with her shoot.

Then I got in on the fun.  I wanted to be Merry Mary because there is an actual musical duo called Mary Mary and, well, its quite Chirstmas themed.

We used wrapping paper as a backdrop.  you can see in this photo I have a baby bump, 17 weeks along at the time of the photo (currently 20 weeks).

Definitely not "Merry" enough.

Finally was Tuff's photo.  This was a real struggle as we had no clue what Christmas theme rapper he could be.  He thought of a "Pitbull" type rapper, the kind that wear suits, so we went with it.

Pitbull for those of you who don't know.

Then Tuff went on Google and started browsing Christmas song lists.  Nothing was coming to us then I saw Frosty the Snowman and said, "You can be Frosty the Showman!"  Tuff agreed then immediately said, "Go to Wendy's and grab a Frosty."  So I did and here are his photos:

Ok so I got two Frostys.

As an after thought I thought about including the growing baby, as "Santa Baby."  But Santa Baby did not make the cut.

Our Final result.  Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2015

November was pretty routine with no major traveling.  We did go to Colstrip for a weekend and then the following weekend St. Xavier for Thanksgiving.

Great family time and food!

The group minus our two girls, who were napping.

Traditional monkey photo.

 On the home front our family has been healthy.  Just before Thanksgiving we got our first substantial snow.  The girls loved it! Ok for about 20 minutes.  20 minutes of winter gear prep for 20 minutes of winter play.  Haha.

Christmas decorations went up Friday after Thanksgiving.  No black Friday shopping for us.

And since Christmas season is in full swing we are enjoying activities with friends, Christmas parties, etc.

Miss Laurie and Goodie.

Goodie's 1st gingerbread home.

Houde family, some of our Billings friends.

Billings has lots of hot spots for Christmas light viewing.  This one was pretty.

We had guests over the other night and surprised them with some holiday cheer! I think this was reminiscent of Harris Family Christmas card 2010.

Liza turned 16 months old recently and we dropped the front of her crib.  Now that she is in her "big girl bed" I am trying to convince her to stop sucking her thumb because "big girls" don't suck their thumbs.  So far her obedience only goes as far as our presence. As soon as we are out of sight, she pops that thumb in.  Thumb polish is not working.  She actually likes the cayenne flavor. Taking suggestions if anyone has them!

Next weekend I will update the blog with this years making of the Harris Family Christmas Card! Many of you get the card so I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

We are headed to Minnnesota this year for Christmas and maybe as late as New Years too.  Looking forward to seeing many of you!  Be joyful and until next time...