Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses...

OK so the Christmas lights were partially done since before Thanksgiving, but the last two weekends we have been out of town, first to St. Louis to visit Kristin's parents (and grandparents and sister and aunt) for thanksgiving, and then last weekend to Branson with James's parents to see the lights at Silver Dollar City.

We enjoyed a nice long visit with Kristin's parents (They say fish and houseguests start to stink after 3 days. We were there for 5. You do the math.) Stuffed myself silly before, during and after Thanksgiving dinner. I am proud of Kristin; She was pretty good and managed to stay on her diet and still enjoy herslf! As mentioned below Kristin and her sister Kim went Wedding Dress shopping. Apparently they were successful

Silver Dollar City was nice as usual (supposedly their biggest Christmas light show ever, but when they have 4,000,000 lights, who is going to notice 4,000,001? :-) ) Of course we went to see their stage version of "A Christmas Carol" and we got to ride a few rides. They actually have quite a nice selection of roller-coasters now; we rode Wildfire (5 loop-de-loops) and The Giant Swing, (which is kind of like the Viking Boat on Crack). It was a whole new experience while hauling an 18-month around; let me tell you...  I had to stand in the back of the auditorium with her during the play; she wasn't being naughty or really fussy, just very fidgety and talkative. Our visit was a little shorter than usual due to the Wear-a-van breaking down. And for some reason there are no services shops open on the weekend, even in a tourist destination like Branson! So we had to drive 10 miles to the rent-a-car place, another 10 miles to the nearest Ford dealer, drop the van off, and then go to breakfast and the amusement park. Lily enjoyed herslf and enjoyed the pretty lights, and parts of the musical she really liked. Plus she got to be bundled up warm and pushed around all day sleeping most of the time which sure sounded good to me! Sunday we crammed all out stuff into the rented brand-new Dodge Journey, which is a lot smaller than the full-size conversion van!

But I digress... So anyway back to OUR Christmas lights, I got them finished today, in the snow... As Kristin mentioned earlier we have several burnt-out strands that we bought just last year, but when I took a closer look, most of them worked at least 50% or 75%. So I just overlapped the net-lights that worked with the ones that didn't and somehow managed to get full shubbery coverage. So I PROMISE that pictures are coming soon, but Kristin's Holiday Party for work is tomorrow night at our house, and I am not going outside any more than I have too today, it's been snowing like crazy! So of course, more excuses...

Here are some Branson pics to tide you over:

The sunrise view from our condo:
 

And some Christmas lights at Silver Dollar City:



And finally, my "artistic" shot of the trip:

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Where are the pictures?

Yeah, so not totally done with the lights still. We got the new blue and white icicles up, and the columns done, and the two pine trees out front, and the two baby trees at the porch. But we had a snag in the net lights department and those boogers are expensive, so we are trying to repair last years. Only have half the lights lit, because we need the nets to connect everything together. But we are headed to Branson for some Silver Dollar City Fun this weekend. I'm off tomorrow, we might be able to get some of the net lights out by then. Either way though, we have to get it done ASAP. I am hosting my work Christmas party here at Casa de Wear on the 10th. I want the house to be festive, which means I still need to put garland on the inside stair banisters, add lights, pick out a tree, pay for a tree, trim a tree...you get the picture. All while baking a desert for a larger work Pot-Luck on Tuesday, and making 2 appetizers, green bean casserole and another desert for Wednesday. Thank goodness for Honeybaked Ham.

We have some pictures from last weekends Thanksgiving visit with my family in St Louis. Lily had a ball and got lots of attention, being the only grand baby and all will do that!

I was able to go with my sister wedding dress shopping and her dress is lovely, but shush. Can't talk about it here.

Also went to a Holiday party at my future brother in law's parents. She goes all out with Christmas decor, but so tasteful. And her appetizers were fabulous, plus she makes her own wine coolers with whine, 7-up, orange, lemon and lime slices. Fun times were had by all. Except Lily, she had to stay at home with the baby whisperer.

My mom and I went Black Friday shopping. Check out my other blog if you want to hear all about my hatred for Wal-Mart and my love for Target.

We'll post pictures when we return from Branson.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Christmas Lights, Coming Soon!

Kristin and I are hard at work putting up our Christmas lights tonight and tomorrow morning. We are going with an all new color scheme this year: Blue and White, with some twinkling lights thrown in. We were so frustrated when we took out our lights from last year and realized that only about 25% still worked. We were able to repair some of the bulbs, but some we never did figure out... So, off to target for new lights (and we thought last year was the "rebuilding year"). We will post pictures as soon as we are done!

Friday, November 21, 2008

Fun with Leaves




A couple of weekends ago was a fabulous Indian Summer day, 70 degrees and sunny. I put Lily in one of her favorite dresses, probably for the last time and we took her to the park to play in the leaves. James took some good pictures and I thought I would share some of them here.








Doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider
Lily is growing bigger and bigger every day. She continues to amaze me with the things she knows and picks up just from observation. She is really into mimicking us right now. She tries to brush her hair with my brush, she likes to brush her teeth when we do, she even goes around our bedroom picking up stray socks and pajama's and throws them down the laundry chute. And I think her dad has taught her to find all the shoes I've left lying around, and bring them to me to put away.
Her baby sign skills are improving each week as well. For the longest time she was doing a sign, that I thought was her rubbing her belly. It wasn't until James did a baby shoot of Baby Aiden that we discovered she has been signing "please" this whole time. No wonder she would get mad at me when I repeatedly asked her to say "please" when she wanted something. Now, she is able to say "more, please" and "thank you" when she wants something. She can also verbalize those words, but sometimes she just not in a talking mood.
Today is her 18 month check up. Originally James was going to take her so I didn't have to leave work, but today has been slow and I realized I missed her last check up, so I really want to go.
Next week we are off to visit my family for Thanksgiving. Lily will get to spend 5 whole days with her Grammy, Papa Dude, Auntie Kim, Uncle Nick, Aunt Vicki, Naomi, Gigi and Papa. She will be loved and spoiled tons!
And Auntie Kim is going to do some wedding dress shopping for the first time!


Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Boo @ the Zoo Pictures


So it's been a while. It took James a long time to upload the hundreds of pictures he took of Lily from Boo @ the Zoo. And then it took me even longer to pick which ones too post here. Hundreds to go through, literally. If you want to see them all go here: jameswearphotography.com









Look at that Belly!








Done with the stroller. And costume.






See that monkey?









I kind of like my blue jeans!








Looking at some Koi.








Some thing's in there I just know it!






Loves to ride the carousel!










I don't see any elephants. Where are the elephants?!?!?








Oh here's what's left of one. Just kidding. We saw plenty of elephants.









I'm going to toddle off now, to find these so called elephants!


Oops fell down.
Look at me go!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Bright Foliage

Look how pretty our neighbor's tree is! See my photography blog for some nature shots taken today at Shawnee Mission Park.

Monday, October 27, 2008

WaterFire Kansas City 2008

Here are some pictures from WaterFire KC 2008: Lillian was be-boppin' to the World Music and watching the bonfires! Kristin and I enjoyed the smells of the incense and food vendors. I got some great abstract artistic shots of the fires (timed-exposure, mostly) which I will post on my other blog later this evening. Kristin also got a great shot she is very proud of, I will have her post it as well!



Weekend Recap

**Pictures to follow this evening**
We had a fun filled weekend. For some reason I can not remember if we did anything on Friday. I'm going to have to say probably not. I think we stayed in, ate pizza, and played with the Wii Fit. But the rest of the weekend was jam packed. Saturday we went to the KC Zoo, for Boo at the Zoo. Lily wore her pink three-eyed monster costume, and we spent most of the day there. We came home only long enough to feed her dinner and give her a bath, then we bundled her up in her PJ's and headed down to the Plaza for Waterfire, which I thought was fabulous. It was a little chilly, but don't worry, Lily was the coziest of all, in her pj's and bundle me. She eventually fell asleep, but not before we received lots of compliments on what a good baby she was, and how cute she was. I saw two co-workers while we were there, and may have drummed up some photography work for James. One of my co-workers needs to have his daughter's senior pictures taken, and their chosen photographer keeps flaking on them.
Yesterday we stayed at home in the morning, then met Stephanie and Zach for lunch at Red Robin (yum). After lunch we headed to Louisburg Cidermill to pick out our pumpkins. We ended up with 4 small pumpkins and one twenty-five pounder. It was too windy to stick around so we left after picking out the pumpkins.
Last night we carved two of the pumpkins. Now I know why my dad always did that part. It's hard! James is a master carver, me, well I'm a little messy. James carved a skull and bones and I attempted a spider web w/spider. James ended up cleaning mine up for me, so you could actually tell what it was, but I didn't do too bad.

We took lots of pictures this weekend. I thought James was posting them last night, but I think it takes a long time to take the pictures from his camera to the computer to the website. We will post some this evening.

Friday, October 24, 2008

The things you know

Lily is not a baby anymore. She's all grown up *sniff*. Yesterday morning before we went to school, James said he thought she was "working on a project", code for dirty diaper. I asked her if she was "stinky", she repeated "stinky"right back at me. Then I asked her if she wanted me to change her diaper, she said "yes!" then toddled off to her room and brought me a diaper back. I didn't teach her that.
Then yesterday when I picked her up, she saw me and said "oh good", then toddled over to the cubbies and got her coat. There were 15 coats there. How did she know which one was hers?
And we've also discovered if you sing "Ring around the roses", she spin in place and hum, then say "dooowwwn", but won't fall down. She doesn't like falling.

So if I had any reservations about sending her to daycare and not being a stay at home mom, those are all gone now. I don't know that I would have the presence of mind to teach her all those things. Eventually she would have picked all that up, but shes only 17 months old and so smart.

I bet all the parents think that though :)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Randomness

Nothing really new here. Lily is sleeping, and coughing, I'm listening to her through the monitor. James is upstairs editing photos and occasionaly I hear "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" or "Banana Phone" playing. I caught up on my TV shows tonight. I wanted to watch Bones in real time, but the World Series is on. I'm rooting for the Rays.

We took Lily to the library yesterday. Never take a toddler to the library, and let her roam the aisles. She loves books, loves to remove them from their homes. So she was going around pulling and pushing books off the shelves. And its not like we can yell "Lily NO" while in the library. Next time she goes in the stroller.

I had a cavity filled today. Ouch.

James spent some time in rural Kansas looking for cool things to photograph.

Saturday we are going to Boo at the Zoo and then Waterfire @ the Plaza. Check it out if you are so inclined: http://www.visitkc.com/events/waterfire/index.aspx/index.cfm

Pictures to follow after an eventful weekend. The weather will be gorgeous.

Monday, October 20, 2008

More fun from the Maple Leaf Festival

No I did not have to be dragged kicking and screaming from the deep fried Oreos! All I did was say "oh look they have deep fried oreos, like that time at Silver Dollar City", then I proceeded to tell the woman in line before me, that yes the oreos are mushy, but they are still so yummy. I never asked for one. I did ask for a lemonade though.



Here is a picture of the previously mentioned personalized coat rack for Lillian:



And here is a picture of one of the decorations I bought. This lady had a whole booth of items like this, and I could have spent a fortune. But alas, all I bought was this cute little turkey.

These pictures were taken with my Palm Centro, do not hold James responsible for these images. They in no way, shape or form represent his superior photo skills. (No he did not make me say that, but I thought it would be best to play it safe).



Sunday, October 19, 2008

Maple Leaf Festival


Each year since 1958, on the third full weekend in October, thousands of people flock to Baldwin City, Kansas for the annual Maple Leaf Festival. This year my wife (Kristin), daughter (Lillian), mom (Carolyn) and I (James) were among them. We had a great time. Arts and crafts were everywhere. Kristin and Carolyn got some Christmas shopping and ornaments purchased, and made a customized coat rack for Lillian. I got to visit several photographers' booths, where I picked up some new ideas and inspiration. I will talk more about that on my business blog: James Wear Photography.

We chowed down on some great eats including pork burgers, hot-dogs and tater crisps (basically a giant twisty potato chip made from one potato). They were fresh, crispy and super-delicious!
I had to drag Kristin away kicking and screaming, but we managed to avoid the deep fried Oreos!

Lillian got to play a carnival game for the first time, and ride the carousel for the second time. She was so good at the games she won a prize on her first try! (Okay, so you get a prize just for trying, but she still had fun!)

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Goldilocks and the Three Wears

Papa Wear:

Mama Wear:

Baby Wear: