Gowder Family Pictures

My mother-in-law, Lynda, has wanted family pictures for a long time. But it's so hard to get a group together for pictures (especially when most of the men absolutely hate having their picture made!). We finally did it in October. She asked us to do it for Christmas, so Lisa, Lynda & I picked a date & Amy came & took the pictures. We were all nervous about how all of the kids would do. Evan & Jack would be fine since they are older, but LilyAnne, Luke & Max, well it would definitely be interesting! I even warned Amy when I asked her to take the pictures that the kids may be challenging & so would the men! LOL! I guess all of our worrying was for nothing because everyone did great!

Morris Avenue Pictures

These are from June (I know, I'm slow about posting!). Amy met us down on Morris Avenue in downtown Birmingham. I just love these pictures! The setting there is just beautiful. Here are my favorites:

Picture Fun

I'm participating in a blog hop. This is a picture of Luke from a year ago, right before Christmas. It's one of my favorites! Here is the straight out of the camera shot:



Here is my edited picture:



I use a Sony aDSLR camera. I've just started to really get into editing & I don't have any fancy software yet, so I just used the Microsoft Photo Editor & tweaked the color saturation until I got the result I wanted, and then cropped in just a little.

Shutterfly Free Card Giveaway!!

I LOVE Shutterfly. I do all of my pictures on Shutterfly (and cards, and photo books). This year, they are giving away 50 free cards to bloggers! I’m so excited since I have been playing around with some of their card designs for my Christmas card. They have a great selection, really too great because I’m having a very hard time choosing which card I want to use! I guess when I decide which picture I’m going to use, it will make choosing the card a little bit easier!

Here’s a few cards I really like (note: the pictures are not mine, they are just samples):







They have so many cards to choose from. Here are some links to view them:

Christmas photo cards: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

Holiday Cards: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

They also have very cute invitations:
holiday invitations to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-invitations

Be sure to check out their other items. My favorite thing from them for a while is their photo books. They are very, very nice & very easy to do. You can choose the layouts or use their program that will auto-fill your book for you. I've done several books over the past couple of years for me, and for gifts for the grandparents!
You can sign up here for the free cards: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Wordless Wednesday

Beach!

We LOVE the beach! We are fortunate enough to be able to go every year in May. It's a work trip for Bret, and his company is kind enough to allow their employees to bring their families. We've been going since before Jack was born & we love it! This year, Grammy & Papa (Bret's parents) went with us & we all had fun. I was a little worried about Luke. Didn't know if he would like the sand (Jack wouldn't put his feet in the sand until he was 4!). Luke LOVED the sand! And, Jack LOVED the gulf! Jack loves to swim in the pool, but he has never really cared about the gulf. Well, this year he was so brave & wanted to play in the gulf! Jack lost a tooth at the beach (2 years in a row), we played, ate great food, and relaxed (well, Bret worked mostly).

Jack loves to be buried in the sand!



Jack showing off his muscles! (With his feet in the gulf!)



Luke loved the sand! Every day we had to bathe him extra long to get all of the sand off of him. He even would get it in his ears!



My sweet boy!



Did you notice the matching bathing suits?

Grammy & I took the boys down to the beach before dinner one night to try & get some pictures. These were my favorites!

Yam It Up 2010

Jack's school has an annual art appreciation month. They learn & try different art projects at school & they once again had their YAM (Youth Art Month)contest. Last year, Jack made Perry the Platypus as Agent P (from Phineas & Ferb). This year, he wanted to make just plain ole Perry, the pet. It turned out so cute! He was so proud & so were we!


We had to put the Yam Perry with the stuffed Perry to make sure we did it right!

Easter 2010

I love Easter! We usually have warm weather, I LOVE dyeing eggs, the boys hunting them, Easter clothes, the story of Easter, etc. Here are some of our Easter activity pictures:

Egg hunting at Grammy & Papa's:




Easter morning. What did the Easter Bunny bring?
Jack was still very sleepy!




Handsome boys!