I can hardly believe Christmas is behind us, and 2008 is right around the corner.
The last few weeks of December were a whirlwind, but we had a fabulous Christmas.

Loads of pictures to follow
Baby Girl is starting to crawl



We got our first real snow storm



Gingerbread House fun





more torturing the baby girl



and Santa dropped quite the load under our tree



Daddy has been off all week, so it's been nice to relax and enjoy the downtime with him home.

And lastly, I decided to finally take the plunge into turning the photography obsession into a little business. Thanks to everyone who has been such an encouragement that I can, and should, pursue this!
Kim Weiss Photography

Best wishes for a wonderful 2008!

one happy 10 year old boy

Billy turned 10 on Thursday. Double Digits. A Big Deal.
He'd been asking for an iPod. Sneaky me kept telling him I wasn't sure he was old enough. They are too easy to lose. All the while snagging a good deal at the Apple store on a refurbished old generation nano.
The look on his face was absolutely priceless as he opened it up, it took him a few seconds to realize what he actually had in his hands, but then once he realized, he couldn't contain himself! Even Thomas got super excited. Either just because Billy was so excited. Or he was cracking up that Billy didn't even get so much as a TOY.








and just for fun, sophieroy was here:

Santa came early!

My husband is, once again, much too good to me!
I've been feeling the need to upgrade my camera and when the latest model of Nikon came out, he was more than willing to indulge me! So I'm the proud new owner of the Nikon D300
Here are my first shots with the new camera of my only willing subject (though the older boys promised they would let me practice on them tomorrow. we'll see!)

Heather asked for more layouts to be posted... and it's not for lack of WANTING to... I've just been in a serious scrapping drought!
This is from last week. I've never had a baby more eager to start foods! Heck, until Thomas, I never had a baby who would even really eat baby food! But this girl was eager and READY and is eating like a pro.

credits here

And this is it this week... just using the pictures I just posted below too!
What I forgot to mention about those photos is that it was my first practice shoot with my birthday present from my marvelous wonderful husband, an Alien Bee 800! Isn't he the best?! It gets even better because Santa Bill also has a brand new Nikon D300 on order for me for Christmas!!! Who needs diamonds when you can get sweet new photography gear!?

credits here

Yeah, I'm a slacker

Seriously busiest time of the year!
But managed to get a few new pics of our SIX MONTH OLD! How the heck did THAT happen?!?



she's trying her darndest to get it all together to crawl!

the whole fam damily

My PSA for the day, don't attempt a self family portrait with 7 kids. Thomas was not in the mood, thus Jonathan progressing to putting a death hold on him to get him to stay put. Even Grace was holding his hand in an attempt to keep him in his spot. And now I can see I didn't do a good job at arranging everyone, but we were rushing for light. And, despite her checking continuously, Abigail is NOT taller than I am... our backyard just has an incline. She is getting close (I'm 5'7", she's 5'4" at last check).

poor little shorty Gracie... but all us girls!

my beautiful girlies!!

and handsome boys!

the only shot before Thomas completely bolted

horror of horrors

I didn't take a single. solitary. photo on Halloween night. I should be shot. Can't believe it myself. But after trying to get them all fed, dressed, out the door, I was too tired to think about it. I did. briefly. As Daddy had them all halfway up the street. o'well!

I did manage to (somewhat) get a s hot of Sophie's new teeth. Can you see them?? (may need to click to see larger)

ummm.... she's not giving me sign language, is she?



Daddy, after my protest, let the older boys pick put scary costumes this year. I even tried to play the "Thomas will be too scared" card, but Thomas only cracked up at them in costume. And he wore Jonathan's Scream mask all morning today. :::sigh:::

you say it's your birthday....

well, it's Thomas' birthday too, yeah!