I desperately love these people.

I cannot close the door on this Christmas Season without posting some of my favorite images from our family’s time together. This has to be one of my favorite Christmases ever. Our little family was together a lot.  We traveled to Virginia and North Carolina to see extended family the week before Christmas. That is a lot of time in the car together. We fought, we laughed, we loved. All rich and good.

The above photo is from our annual getting-of-the-tree. I have been so busy working on everyone else’s images that I never got to work on ours. I hope to remedy that from now on. These moments are just so fleeting and valuable.

Here are a few from that day at Coopers Tree Farm, our favorite place to shop for our tree every year.

The next set of images is a mixed bag from traveling, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Johnny setting the baby bird puppet straight

Hanging out at Red Robin... Yum!

Walking through downtown Williamsburg

The Fabulous Three

Time in the Hurricane Simulator Christmas Eve

More Hurricane Simulating

Walking into PF Changs Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve after all were in bed

Christmas Morning with all in place

Waiting to come down. The last year of this?

Blue Man Group Tickets!

A gift to Bonefish Grill for mom and dad:)

Sister Love

Finally, A white Christmas. Icing on the Cake!

A Picture of Faithfulness

The last image is one of my very favorites. Chris is down at the barn getting water for the horses in the snow. My faithful husband who serves me so well. The horses are my project, and yet he holds them as a priority because I do. Love that man.

Yes, a wonderful Christmas season. I am so very grateful, and looking forward to what this year my bring.

Winter entered this year softly and sweetly with a blanket of snow on Christmas night. Welcome winter. We are glad you are here.

We don’t get much snow here in Georgia. Last year we got one day’s worth, and it was so magical. I felt like a little girl on that day. Then, as if someone shook the etch a sketch, it was all gone the very next day. We have had some false alarms this year, so when the weather man said it would snow on Friday, I was more than a little cynical (mostly because I wanted it so badly). However, much to my surprise, we got a great snowfall, and enough to play in too. It was a wonderful Valentine weekend surprise.

I took some photos while it was snowing on Friday afternoon, and then again Saturday morning when the sky was cerulean blue. I found my heart overwhelmed by the dramatic scenery. I asked God to help me to capture it if possible, but more than that, to breathe it in and enjoy it. I have often felt jealous of other photographers who get to travel and photograph beautiful scenery in faraway places. To quote photography icon and author Joe McNally from his book The Moment it Clicks,  ” If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff “. I love that quote. The bottom line is that capturing God’s creation is at the center of my joy in photography, and I want to see more!

However, I felt thankful Saturday morning as I walked in the glory, that I had not (up until this present time) been a world traveler. I found my heart could not contain the splendor I found in my own backyard. I felt so small and incompetent as I fumbled through my bag, disapproving of each of my lens choices as soon as I placed them on the camera body.   It was a humbling experience, as I once again offered up my heart, and my camera to God,  and I laid down my need to perform for the approval of others. That is something we artists have to do on a daily, or even hourly basis. Anyway, this is what came of my time in the glory. Thankful for my own piece of  ”faraway” that God gave me this weekend just out my back door.