Playing with my new camera and Picassa

I've been wanting to play with my new camera and figure out all that it can do but time just hasn't presented itself for me to do so. One day I took pictures of the kids while they were watching a show and these are some of my favorites. I've been using Picassa to store my pictures for quite some time and decided to mess around with the features and this is what I came up with. It's pretty fun stuff!!!

Christmas Evening with the Grandparents

We hosted Christmas evening at our house this year. Steven's mom passed on it since his dad had been in and out of the hospital and she hadn't gotten much done around the house. So we happily excepted the opportunity. Steven made steaks and we had twice baked potatoes and spinach. Yummy! Then of course had another round of gifts.

Sutton with his Micky Mouse scooter which is loves.

Steven and I got a wine package to make our own wine and have a party with our friends

Puncle helping Audrey with the new legos

Papaw opening his new iPod speakers

Pop-O and his new personalized bar sign for the house

Puncle got a ping pong table and he was opening his paddles, he didn't quite get it at first

Oh boy!!!!

Whoa!

More makeup!

Christmas Morning!!!

Christmas morning was filled with so much fun and excitement. Gavin and Audrey are at such a great age. We actually had to wake them both up which is odd for them especially on Christmas morning. They were ecstatic and couldn't wait to see what Santa brought them. I loved it when we all looked out the window and saw all the white. A white Christmas in Texas, who would have ever thought? Toys were torn into and played with all day. Sutton didn't know what to do with himself. He just loved crawling over everything and playing with the paper and boxes. We kept him in his highchair while Gavin and Audrey opened all their gifts. He was happy to just sit and watch. Everyone had a fabulous time and got everything they wanted. They played all day with all their new toys. What a fantastic day!!!

Christmas Eve

We hosted Christmas Eve at our house again this year but it was a small crowd because of the weather. Every year I get so busy and don't think about taking a group picture. Darn! We had Olive Garden this year, lasagna and salad, thank you Buddy and Roger. Mima didn't make it this year, she stayed home because she was getting sick and didn't think it would be a good idea to get out in the cold.

We also got to exchange gifts with my sister and her kiddos. I can't believe how much they have grown into little adults. Connor is 12, Camryn turned 10 shortly after Christmas and Caden is 5. We need to work a little harder at seeing each other more often. We miss seeing them now that we don't live in Aledo.

After everyone left Brittany and Paul (my cousins) decided to stay and play in the snow. Paul stayed inside with Sutton most of the time while we all ran around the backyard. I still can't believe how much snow we had. It was amazing and so much fun. The kids had a ball until they both got really, really cold and were ready to come inside. The cheeks on Gavin and Audrey were so red from throwing snowballs at each other. They loved it!!!

The Duer kids, Connor, Camryn, Caden

Buddies, Gavin and Caden

Audrey and Gavin

Gavin's snow angel

Audrey's snow angel

Getting a big snowball ready to throw

Look at those rosey cheeks

Brittany and Audrey

The Fam

Sutton wanted to know why in the world is my mom letting me sit in this stuff???

Gavin wanting to drink Santa's chocolate milk

Cookies and milk....Enjoy Santa

Slovak Christmas

BIG NEWS!!!! I got a camera for Christmas. So exciting! We needed one pretty badly and Steven did a fantastic job researching and picking one out. He ended up getting a Nikon D3000, pretty fancy if I do say so myself. My wonderful husband decided that it would probably be a good idea to give it to me before Christmas so I could take pictures. He is one smart man. So, I have been having fun figuring it all out and I finally got around to uploading them on the computer. The pictures in this post are unfortunately out of order and I don't have the time to fix it so here you go.

We do Steven's families' Christmas the weekend before every year. It was at Aunt Jeanne and Tommy's this year. The family keeps growing and growing, so many little cousins everywhere. The kids have a blast and Santa even comes for a visit with presents in his bag.

Sutton was so excited to get his first gift

Audrey and her princess makeup, of course.

Me and my sweet baby girl

Love that face

Gavin and Santa

Miss A with Santa

SuBear and Santa (he is not so sure about this)

Ah, look at Puncle with Sutton (Steven's brother, Uncle Patrick)

Oh my, there isn't much growing room on those stairs

Love this picture of Sutton with his Daddy

Sweet lil man

Grandma and Sutton

The kids made gingerbread houses, as you can see Audrey was eating more than making.

These are all pictures I took before we left. Audrey asked if I would straighten her hair for the Christmas festivities and of course I obliged. She still looks so different to me with her hair straight. Such a big girl.

Brother and Sister Love

G-Man

Audrey Kay

Love it!