Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from our family to yours! I hope that your 2014 is filled with warmth, joy, curiousity, exploration, and love.

These are the photos I took to send our to family as our holiday cards, they are not the traditional formal pictures I take, but I thought the kids would enjoy this sitting more. I set up a secret hot cocoa picnic compete with artisan marshmallows and candy canes.  It is fun to give them a big treat like that every once and a while.

After taking the photos we went on our annual December float on the Willamette River with our kayaks lit up for the Illuminata Regatta. It is always fun, but this year was so amazingly pleasant. I don't know if it was the really cold (14 degree ferenheit) weather we had in the weeks leading up to the Illuminata Regatta or what, but it felt so warm we didn't even need our gloves!

I hope you enjoy the pictures.
:) Emilia

Father's Day Photo Shoot & Gift

I did a lot of searching online for Father's Day ideas and how to include the kids in making the gift for Father's Day. I discovered many photo shoots of the kids along with prop ideas and framing ideas. You can check out many of the ideas I came upon on my Pinterest board about Father's Day. I took a few of these ideas and combined them to get what you see above.

I really liked the idea of the kids finishing the sentence I love Daddy because... and using their answer in the photo shoot. I also thought it was really cute to see kids dressed in their Father's work clothes. I think it would make a nice sequence if we did it year after year to see how much they have grown. I also really like the sign for I love you in sign language, I grew up using it with my mom and have used it with the kids so I really liked the tracing of the child's hand and having it folded to say I love you in sign language and holding a heart.

Each of the kids also answered questions about Daddy (like what is his favorite food, what does he do at work, what is is favorite thing to do, etc). I plan to do that year after year as well and see how the answers change.

I would love to hear of other ideas that you come up with so I can start coming up with things for next year or birthday which is right around the corner. :)