Special Lunch and Special Photos

While our family is with us for this Christmas week, we've experienced a mixture of hanging out at home and doing something special each day to mark this significant family time.

Today was a little trip down the road to a favorite restaurant for lunch, thanks to a gift from my mom and dad to make that possible!

Thank you Mom and Dad for giving us this fun experience!

One of the wishes on my list for this family time was getting a photo of everyone together. Since we were already going to be out today, it seemed like the best time to make that happen.

With Claire and Caleb's help to go scout out a place up in forest near where she lives, Claire then set up her tripod and had it all ready for us when we showed up.

This photo is the most "real" since in reality it was really cold outside today, not to mention foggy, muddy and a bit drizzly!

But in my mind I had a different picture for what I wanted this to look like...something more like this.

You can't tell that it's cold can you?!

We did leave coats on the little boys, though had their moms and dads take off their hats so it looks more like a late fall photo than winter. And as Dave said to me many years ago when we took wedding photos on a cold March day, "If you don't act cold, you won't look cold in the pictures."

I think we achieved that well today for this family photo!

This one turned out to be my favorite of all!

It captures the joy of these days together, of the love between us, and God's kindness of knitting us together into a family.