My family. Constantly making me want to be better. Every single morning I pray for the grace I need to be the mother and wife I want to be. I love these shots in black and white film. I love capturing my family like this. I'm so looking forward to some serious family time next week. I love this time of year. I always hope the feeling I have in my heart in December will last all year round. Christ lives. And because of Him my family can be together forever. That makes me happy, because I love these three people more than I ever knew I could. 

We've had a stomach bug this last week (so gross!), so one morning while we were hunkered down, we made Christmas tree crafts. This was a great activity because of it's 2 phases. First Holly had to paint the popsicle sticks. While, we waited for the to dry, I helped her make a new beaded snowflake ornament which upon completion, I immediately hung on the tree so it wouldn't get lost. Holly had sequins and mini pom-poms to choose from to put on her tree. I put little blobs of white glue on and she picked what she wanted on the tree, which turned out ot be mostly pom-poms. Greta made one too, however, I gave her a foam tree to work with. These turned out so cute!

We decorated gingerbread houses with our friends. Holly adores her buddy, Lucas, and was so excited to be decorating with candy and spending time with him. Whenever anyone asks what Holly would like Santa Claus to bring her, she always says, "candy!" Hope she's not disapointed on Christmas when she gets toys and only a little bit of candy. Next year, I plan on making a modern gingerbread house. Looks awesome!

Last week, we threw our joyschool Christmas party - it was great! Holly and I are so lucky to have a fabulous group of friends to learn with. We both love joy school. I only took pictures of our joy school crafts, but we also had free play, a gift exchange, and a cute Christmas-themed snack. Our crafts were decorating mini gingerbread houses and making snowglobes. All the kids were crazy about the candy! Oh, and I'd just like to draw attention to the fact that were were outdoors for the crafts! Love California!

Last week I sent off my second roll of B&W film and I am so happy with the results! I think I'm getting better at working with my camera. Very exciting! I couldn't wait to see how these two photos of Holly turned out. I'm amazed that I was able to capture them. She's so difficult to take photos of and I guess that makes success so much sweeter. These photos are so Holly right now. I love my Holly so much! She's going through another personality blossoming phase and she shines so bright. Holly is a gift to our family.