Say Cheese!

Amanda's post got me thinking about our Christmas cards this year. We're blessed to have a sweet friend, Katie, who is going to take the picture and make the cards for us (thank you, Katie!). She has her work cut out for her, though, trying to get a good picture of two adults, a toddler, and a baby smiling or looking pleasant and all looking at the camera at the same time.

It's easy to get Hattie to smile. She's a ham with the camera, but this is what her fake smile always looks like:

All scrunched up and kind of evil looking, I think.

And this little bit - it's pretty easy to get a smile from her, too.

All I have to do is get up in her face and be all squeaky and the smiles come. But with babies it's all about timing - finding the perfect window where they're up and happy, not tired or hungry - and that's usually about a 45 minute to one hour window for Mary Ellen. Otherwise, we can forget the smiles.

And I found the girls matching Christmas dresses about a month ago. So excited about those! Dressing my two girls alike for holidays and such has been a dream of mine ever since I found out Mary Ellen was a girl. But I've learned the hard way that I shouldn't show Hattie a new dress until the day she can wear it. She has asked me every. single. morning. if she can wear her Christmas dress TODAY! It's lacey and poofy and totally up her alley.

Speaking of getting ready for Christmas, I asked Hattie what she wanted Santa to bring her this year. Here's her list of what she wants:
1.) A jump rope
2.) A purple present
3.) A story-tale
4.) Princess rings and princess earrings
"And that's all that we need" is how she ended her list :). Easy enough. I can handle all that with like one trip to the local dollar store. I better enjoy the desire for cheap presents while it lasts, right! And she has made it very clear that she is NOT sitting on Santa's lap. She is going to stand by him with Mommy when she tells him what she wants. So that picture'll be pretty interesting, too, I'm sure!

Happy Friday, y'all!