Christmas Card Photo Shoot

I'm not sure what took me so long this year to get my Christmas card picture, but it seemed like December just flew by. So once Brian was home for a day between all of his travels we sat the kids in front of the tree and gave it a whirl. We decided to set the tree up in the family room this year. It just seemed more Christmas-y than putting it in the front room. Although, it always looked pretty when you drove by the house, we didn't get to enjoy it as much. This also gave us room to open our presents around the tree this year. I again, didn't put my ornaments on my tree (I'm lazy) but it didn't get it's ribbon. I'm sure I will get better in the coming years, but next year should be interesting with Amelia moving even more than this year.

So here is the picture that made the cut for the card this year. I couldn't get the kids to look at me, but I thought the joy on their faces was perfect. Since Amelia isn't sitting completely on her own for long periods of time, I wrapped up a box and put her in it. The whole idea was supposed to be that Gabriella opened a present and we got Amelia this year. :) The caption was, "Look what Santa brought us this year!" Merry Christmas!

So now on to the outtakes. Because honestly, these are usually pretty priceless and sometimes I get some real favorites out of them.

So this is what happens when you tell your 3 year old to look surprised that her sister is in the box that she just opened. I find it amusing that Amelia looks just as surprised that I put her in a box.

This one cracks me up because the look on Amelia's face is almost like she popped up and said, "Surprise!"They get the biggest kick out of each other!
So here's where it starts to get a little crazy. Amelia decides to get a taste of the present. She gives it a little lick to see what's the flavor.

Gabriella finds it all humorous and falls to the floor laughing. Meanwhile, Amelia finds that the flavor is pretty good and decides to really give it more of a taste. Yum! You can see the sparkle in her eyes.
Then I thought it was funny because she stayed like this forever watching Gabriella goof around. She is doing her best impression of the doodle, "Kilroy was here" After awhile she finally decided that she had enough of sucking on the paper and when she sat up you could see the dye of the paper left a nice sized Koolaid stain across her face.
...and then Gabriella decided she didn't want this present any longer and went to put Amelia back inside the box. (No she isn't really pushing on her head. She was trying to hug her head or something.) Needless to say pictures were over at this point.

We put Amelia on the floor and then Gabriella and Rookie wanted to get in on that action. What a bunch of goofballs :)
Merry Christmas Everyone!