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!

Jason and Bobbie Get Married

December 12, 2009, Jason and Bobbie got married. (I have been trying for the last couple hours to load pictures on facebook with no luck, so I am directing all those people here to my blog :)). So far, this is my favorite shot from the day!

We started the day before - at the grocery store. Bobbie and Jason wanted to have a barbeque at the house to celebrate their marriage. I think both of them were tired. They both work the night shift and aren't used to being awake during the day :). There was a lot of shopping and manicures/pedicures :).

Their wedding day started off at the beauty shop where Bobbie had her hair styled while Kali and I watched and took pictures :). . . .

. . . . then back to the grocery store for more shopping. As I took this picture, the cashier asked what was going on and we told her Bobbie was getting married. The lady asked when the ceremony was. I checked my watch and told her it was happening in 27 MINUTES!!! Run to the car!

Back at the house, lots of preparation was going on. The fellows were heating up the smokers for all the meat we bought.

Kali started filling balloons with helium and tieing strings to them . . . .

. . . . to decorate this.

Once everything was ready, and Bobbie and Jason were dressed, I sneaked them out the back door to get a few photos before everyone else knew they were ready. I didn't get them to myself for long, but I did get a few shots.






The two of them are a hoot together!



Jason was like, "yeah! let's do it!"

Actually, Jason and Bobbie met with a notary for a few minutes and signed the paperwork inside the house before they came outside with everyone else. They were technically already "married" at this point. That's the marriage certificate in Bobbie's hand.

Meet Tyler, Bobbie's nephew. I think he is maybe 7 years old, something like that. He wanted to say vows with Bobbie and Jason, and he wore his Mister Suit so he could do just that.

He's all good and ready to go!

Tyler actually had his vows written out in this book so he could read them to Bobbie and Jason. (You may notice, he had a run-in with some monkey bars the day before the wedding.)

Jason and Bobbie and Tyler head on over to the tent . . . .

. . . . where Aunt Bobbie made sure he had his page ready . . . .

. . . . and she and Jason helped Tyler up onto a chair so everyone could see him.

Bobbie's vows came first.

Then Jason's.

These are the vows Tyler wrote for them to use:

Bobbie, Do you promes to be awsome to Jason for InfineDy Beond with all your heart?

Jason, Do you promes to be awsome to Bobbie for InfineDy Beond with all your heart?


Followed by an exchange of wedding bands.

Then Tyler told them to kiss, which they did for some time :).




Then we moved on to CAKE! . . . .



. . . . which was very politely fed to each other - lol!




Removing the top layer was interesting. So, how many people do you think it takes to remove the top layer of a wedding cake?


Apparently a few - lol!


Lots of barbeque, potato salad, and Bobbie's wonderful macaroni-n-cheese was shared by all!

And we all played. This is Lucy - isn't she beautiful? What a great, friendly dog she is!


Good friends :).



I'm not sure how this guy fits into the family, but I sure liked his ride! All decked out for Christmas with antlers, red nose, Christmas running lights, ornaments!

Winding down.

It was a great day. Everything went smoothly and Jason and Bobbie seemed to have a wonderful time. They were both a bit nervous early in the day, but did fine as the day ran on. I will have more photos to post over the next few days. Especially ones of Mark and my "grandkids" - Bobbie and Jason have eight ferrets! which are all adorable! Pictures to come!