Goldfish for Dinner: Merry Christmas from The Asbells

Merry Christmas from The Asbells!

I need to admit something.

I LOVE everything about the Christmas card process. I know, I know...it's horribly stressful, but I love it.

I love thinking about their outfits. I love deciding the location. I love taking hundreds of pictures. I love trying to choose just one. I love designing the cards. I love tweaking my spreadsheet of addresses. I love printing the labels. I love stuffing the envelopes. I love love love seeing all the Christmas cards stacked in the mailbox waiting to go to friends and family.

Every Christmas card we have gotten since 2011

Now....I need to admit something.

Just because I LOVE all this, doesn't mean I don't totally and completely freak out during every step of this process.

This year, I tried to have family pictures taken on TWO different occasions. We haven't had family pictures since Luke was two. #firstworldproblems It wasn't in the cards for us, yet again. With that knowledge I let my own personal deadline creep up on me. When I realized it was now or never, I went into complete freak out mode. Oh my gosh. They don't have anything nice to wear. We don't have anywhere to go. Luke's hair is too shaggy. I need to take these pictures in the 1 hour we actually have not scheduled this weekend.

Enter John, the one who handles my Christmas card freak out every. single. year. Together we got Luke's outfit together. He was the one who single-handedly put Evan's outfit together. He was the one who suggested our house for the picture.

Evan was in a pretty foul mood. Luke just didn't' want to get dressed. John suggested a 'compromise' to Luke, we weren't even going to leave our house! I dealt with Evan. After he got dressed I asked him what was wrong. He said, "I am dressed like I have the most important job interview of my life" while rolling his eyes. I died laughing which made him laugh as well which cheered us both up.

I got some really good pictures of the boys. Evan is amazingly photogenic like his father. Luke is just cute with his missing front two teeth.

Then the boys wanted to turn the camera on us. Now, let me just say, I had just gotten home from Hot Yoga, it was freezing outside, and we were SORELY not prepared to have our picture taken. But this is real life. We had so many belly laughs while they were shooting.