I Want One, Santa!

Hey, Santa! How come I didn't get one of these for Christmas?!?

So not fair!


All kidding aside, here is precious little Noah! Isn't he the sweetest little Santa you've ever seen?!?

Our photoshoot went like this.

Dress Noah in his onesie, his little jeans, little Santa boots and hat, then stuff him into a big red bucket!

Lean back and get all cozy, Noah.

Give him a cute little Donner reindeer to teeth on :).


Eat the props and hang on!

Getting tired, Noah? Take a little rest . . . .

. . . . and start looking for Aunt Nikki.

Ooh, time for a little snuggle-break :).

Add Gramma into the snuggle-time :).

OK, all ready for more pictures.


Posing and teething is hard work!

(Take a little photo-journalistic opp here to show off these awesome little Santa boots!)

Then finish off with some any-time-of-the-year kind of pictures :).




Noah loves his Aunt Nikki and Gramma - you could just tell by looking at him!



Such a happy, precious little fellow! He loved getting pictures taken. Not a frown to be found in any of them. Sweet!

Hang on a minute! Noah wants to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Seriously, Nikki - thanks for letting me take Noah's pictures. He is so precious and I know he must be a delight to your whole family. Love you! Happy Holidays!

Family Time

Christmas is a time for family. And this year, we have a new family member. Bobbie. We traveled to my mom's place, so she could meet Jason's wife Bobbie for the first time, and we could all spend Christmas together.

Bobbie and Jason have been married for 13 days. Bobbie graciously offered to cook the entire Christmas dinner, and drive it almost two hours away to my mom's so we could all spend the day together with Granny.


We had ham, green bean and potato casserole, Bobbie's famous macaroni-n-cheese (this is the best homemade mac-n-cheese you will ever eat!), and Texas toast. It was all incredible! Thank you, Bobbie!!!

This would be the new car-owner featured in the post just below this one :O).

Recently Kali and I were traveling home from Atlanta and we stopped in at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. Kali found these awesome glasses. They look similar to 3-D glasses and when you look at Christmas lights through them, you see either little snowmen, or Christmas trees - depending on which glasses you are wearing. Don't they look spiffy?

Said "tree" - at Taylor Manor . . . .

. . . . and looking through the glasses :). We actually placed one lens of the glasses over the camera lens and shot this :). With this pair you see little Christmas trees with the words Merry Christmas over the top of each tree.

Jason and Bobbie. I can seriously tell you I haven't seen my son smile as much - ever - as he has since he and Bobbie got married!

He's one smiling sucker! So is Bobbie :).

After our awesome dinner, we headed back towards mom's room and stopped along the way to play with our glasses. Here are some cool snowmen . . . .

. . . . cool snowmen through the glasses.

Beautiful snow people . . . .

. . . . snow people through the spiffy glasses.

On to presents :). Mom opened a nice card from Bobbie and Jason. They had it filled with spangles and hearts :).

I took two of my favorite shots from the wedding and had them made into canvases for Bobbie and Jason's Christmas.

It was my first attempt with canvas and I think Black River did an awesome job!

We had a great Christmas together, then we headed back home because both of the fellows have to work tonight. All night. Until tomorrow. Yuck! I'm so thankful to be retired! Merry Christmas! Thank you, Bobbie, for the wonderful dinner! We all loved it!

Merry Christmas, Kali!

Merry Christmas, Kali! What a joy and blessing you are to us!

Love,

Mom and Dad, 2009

Merry Christmas, Bloggy Friends ♥ ♥ ♥

Well, most of the packages are wrapped. Christmas Eve dinner is in the works. And, the last gift arrived in the mail just a few minutes ago. All is on track for tomorrow.

Time to slow down, time to reflect, to think about Christ-mas.

"Christ"mas.

The birth of Christ.

The birth of our Savior.

The birth of hope.

The birth of a future.

The birth of wonderment, and peace, and joy, and love.

From my family to yours - we pray you have a wonderful, blessed Christmas-time and a Happy New Year. May God richly bless you in this time with your family and loved ones.

From the Hendons - - - Merry Christmas!

The Kiss

This is the shot I posted a few days ago from Jason and Bobbie's wedding.
It has been dubbed "the kiss."
Today I was editing more shots and came across this one that Kali took at the wedding.

This is the picture Kali clicked at the same time I took the first photo. If you look at Tyler's position, you can actually match him up from shot to shot. In the first picture you can see his hand raised and his little face just under Jason and Bobbie's chins. I love it!

Merry Christmas Photo Cards

The morning of Bobbie and Jason's wedding, we went to a local hair salon to get Bobbie's hair styled. The salon had done a lovely job of decorating and I ended up taking pictures of the ornaments in various locations around the shop. Now that I am back home, I've been playing with those photos, editing and seeing what I could do with them. I ended up making two photo Christmas cards that I plan to email out to a bunch of people. They were really simple to make. Here is what I did:

This is the original photo I took. I opened it up in Photoshop CS3.

Next, I opened up the Pioneer Woman Action Set I, that I downloaded for FREE from http://thepioneerwoman.com. I highlighted the lovely and ethereal action and ran it.

Next I ran the soft and faded action. I like the antique/vintage look it gives.

I brightened up the photo some with the slight lighten action.

Text is easy to add using your editing program. Place it wherever you want it on your card.

Lastly, I wanted to add some texture to my card. In PSCS3, I opened filter, then texture, and selected the mosaic tiles action. This is the final product.

Easy to do. If I can do it, so can you. Go to the Pioneer Woman's blog and download her two sets of FREE actions and get started.

This card was just as easy to make. For this one though, I used actions I purchased online from MCPActions.com.

Here is the original photo from the hair salon shop.

From my MCPActions, I opened MCP Frosted Memories and ran the gold locket action.

I gave the photo some texture by running the Next Monet action.

The faded edges - high res action, does just what it implies.

Then I ran the toasted edges - low res action.

I finished off the card with some text.

Easy to do and the results are beautiful! Let me know if you try your hand at a card - we can post your results here if you'd like! Merry Christmas!