JRPhoto's Other Blog: 2020

Gingerbread House!

December 12, 2020

In all of my life, I have never made a gingerbread house. This was the first time ever! Apparently, the kids did one with Grandpa Ron and Grandma Charyl last year, so they are old pros, but we still had to help them a bit. I made my own earlier in the week, but this one was much more exciting. The girls kept stealing the candy, and it was definitely messy, but we had a fun time. The kids got a pretty big kick out of Mike throwing some sprinkles when we were almost finished. I wasn't as thrilled but oh well ;)

Serious assembly stuff happening here.

Laina really just wants to eat all the candy.

Frosting sampling...

Furious decorating.

After Daddy tossed the sprinkles.

Eating the last bits in the bag.

Goofing around. We had lots of fun ;)

Christmas Tree Decorating

November 28, 2020

For the first Thanksgiving EVER, we didn't see any of our families. It was tough, especially since Mom's birthday was on Thanksgiving this year, and I felt terrible but trying to do the right thing is a little hard sometimes. Despite that, we had a good day and over the weekend, we were able to decorate the Christmas tree. The girls were geeked, and aside from starting off the whole thing with breaking an ornament, it went pretty well. I wasn't planning on decorating everything but it happened anyway. Yay for Christmas spirit!

Showing off their 2020 face ornaments.

How Christmas is going to look this year :(

Mike did the "this is okay for you to hang up" much better after Julie dropped the first one

Next year we better let Laina do it.

My favorite little spot ;)

Trying Out the Studio Christmas Set

November 25, 2020

This year, the Christmas set up at my studio was really pretty. I got to do mini sessions there but I wanted a few of the girls there too. I didn't love my outfit choice but they still looked cute, had a good time running around, and I got a Christmas card photo out of it anyway ;)

Tennessee Trip and Auntie's Wedding

November 9-14, 2020

Though our trip to Tennessee wasn't even close to what we had hoped it would be, there were still some high points. The girls really enjoyed our cabin, especially the "hot pool" on the back deck. They got their very own BIG bed and bedroom too! And there was an arcade, pool table and theater on the bottom level. So fun!

We hiked up to a waterfall on our first day in town, right around sunset. Then we visited Gatlinburg the next day to ride a chairlift to the top of one of the mountains and walk across the SkyBridge which was pretty cool. Also a bit scary... but the view! Auntie and Byron arrived that evening and we got to spend time with them too.

The next day, we found a cool mountain coaster in Pigeon Forge. We all did it twice, and it was a lot of fun. I thought they would be more scared but they thought it was the coolest. Good times. Then the day that Grammy and Poopah showed up, we took a horse ride up the mountain. Julie got to ride on her own and the guide helped show her how to ride. Laina went with Mike. It was pretty cool. We could see the spot we rode across the valley from our cabin. Grandma Patti and Poopah played a lot with the girls, and that was a big highlight from them at least ;)

Despite some drama on Thursday, we also enjoyed the wedding! The girls got pampered a bit too, and even though Julie grabbed the curling iron and caused some drama, it was mostly a good time. I was running around a lot but thankfully the wedding coordinator took care of almost everything so I was less stressed! The whole day went well overall, and we were all pooped by the time it was over.

I sincerely wished everything would have been a much less stressful time, but in the end, Kara and Byron are married, we had some fun, and it was a gorgeous wedding at least!