Decorating the Tree & Family Photo Session

I am still playing catch up on all of these posts.  We did a lot of Christmas stuff on the weekend after Thanksgiving.  After getting home from getting our tree and eating lunch, we proceeded with decorating the tree.  Chalk this up to another instance of my OCD, but I simply cannot leave my tree unadorned for even one day after bringing it home.  It simply must be all decorated before bedtime.  Ridiculous, right?  Oh well!  Whatever saves my sanity!

Of course, when you are OCD, you get stuck doing the lights.  Ha!

And the bow topper.  Eddie put it up, but I had to straighten it. 

Evan enjoyed decorating his own little tree. 

And Brody helped too since it is technically his tree too. 

Love watching them work together.

They did a good job!

Brody liked helping Daddy hang ornaments on the big tree.  He has since added a few "extras" to the tree.  

Hanging some special ornaments together.

Just a few last touches.

And the finished product, of course. 

On Sunday, we got all dressed up and took our family Christmas card photos (looking for those "perfect" Christmas card pictures of course).  We took 114 photos, and these are some of my favorite outtakes.  Of course, I can't put 114 photos on the Christmas card and had to limit it to just 3 shots.  The outfit choices for the year:  Brody wore his big brother's old outfit from when he was two, Evan got a new red sweater from Children's Place, Daddy wore a red striped sweater he already owned, and I got a red sweater dress and infinity scarf from Old Navy that was on sale.

Some cute shots of the boys together.

They were very well-behaved for most of the shoot.  I think they are just "well-trained."  Haha!

Daddy took some shots of Mommy and the boys while he was setting up the tripod to get the family shots.  

Love these cuties.

Love Brody's "real" smiles here.

This pose was inspired by Brody who has been lying like this a lot lately.  I just think he always looks so cute and grown up lying like this so I had Evan do it too. 

Sweet

Bored?

My little cutie

And you know he is always this sweet.  Ha!

A big boy pose on the stairs.

Little brother wanted to join him.  

The family card worthy shot. 

A fun pose of the boys. 

Silly boys. 

A fun family pose

And of course, we needed a little comparison shot of these boys wearing the same outfit at two years old.  Looks like we had to "bribe" Evan with candy to get this shot.  Ha!

We have since mailed out our Christmas cards for the year.  I wish that I could send cards to everyone who has shown us love and support through this difficult year, but I limited the number of cards we mail out each year to close relatives and some relatives who live far away that we don't get to see often and a few of our closest friends.  I hope you will not take the absence of a mailed card to mean you don't mean a lot to our family.  There are many, many people in our lives who have shown us their love and support this year, and we hope that if you are one of them, you will "pretend" that this little card is in your mailbox as it is shared with love for you all.  If you did receive one of these in your mailbox, you can also appreciate that you are one of few.  :-)

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