merry merry

Wishing you a lovely holiday. We are so thankful for the blessings of family, friends, health & love. Most of all, we thank God for sending His son so that we could know the truth & have hope. May your Christmas be merry & bright!

Love, the Henry family

Christmas decor from around the house

Here's a look at some of my favorite little spots around the house. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! :)

 

our photo shoot

Elsa & I had the honor of being photographed by Lauren Sharpton of Freckles Photography!

Lauren & I go way back to our freshman year of college, when we were randomly paired together as roommates.  We had a lot in common & hit it off right away, becoming fast friends!

That was almost 14 years ago now!  Crazy!

Also during that first year of college, we met Tom who introduced us to his friend Kenton; they went to high school together in Alaska.

Well long story short, I married Kenton & Lauren married Tom.  Pretty cool!

Anyway...I took my first photography class with Lauren & have learned a lot from her as a photographer & an artist.  She continues to inspire me as she devotes her time to art & is starting a photography business in Corvallis & the surrounding area.

Needless to say, Elsa & I had a great time during our photo shoot!  I honestly didn't realize Lauren was photographing many of these moments.  She does a good job of keeping an eye out for the genuine & candid moments.

I am so thankful to have this collection of photographs to remember this time in our lives.

I'm right at the end of my three month maternity leave & have SO thoroughly enjoyed my time at home with this sweet girl.  Plus, my boys have kept us busy, transporting them to school & home.  I feel blessed that I was able to be home for so long, as we transitioned into a family of 5.

Lauren got some great photos of Elsa's nursery!

I put a lot of love (& time) into decorating her room & got so many fun ideas from Pinterest!

I know I'll be glad to have these snapshots, especially as Elsa makes her own decisions about what she wants her room to look like.  ;)

I love having the little handmade touches around the room & have been gifted many beautiful handmade gifts that work so well in this space.

The bug, pillow & quilt that are on the rocking chair were all made for Elsa & given to us by friends.  And the tissue paper pom poms (above her bed) were decorations at my baby shower.  I made the pouf, window garland & dot mobile (above the rocking chair).  

The alphabet cards were a free printable, found here.

I love this series of photos from our backyard.

I really appreciate having my home & yard as the backdrop.  As we change things up over time, it'll be nice to see what everything looked like when Elsa was a baby.

Elsa had just woken from her nap & was feeling social.

She kept an eye on Lauren & was talking & cooing throughout the rest of the shoot.

Love this smile.

Such blue eyes!

She makes some great faces, at this age.

Thank you so much for these photos, Lauren!  What a treasure.  :)

To read what Lauren had to say about our photo shoot, check out her blog post.

lazy sunday - snow day #3

 We weren't feeling very ambitious this morning.  We stayed home from church, rather than driving on the snowy roads.  We got out the Nativity set & the boys helped set it up while Kenton read about the Christmas story.

 Again, I was impressed with my helpful boys.

 They took turns nicely & were careful with "my" Nativity set.  ;)

 They voted for keeping the pregnant mama figure out until Christmas.  Then, we'll switch it out for the Mary & baby Jesus figure.  :)

 I've had this set since before the kids were born & still love it!

 As it warmed up a bit, we decided to head to my parents' house.  It was good to see what the roads were like & to be able to take our time getting there.

We ate lunch together, then the kids played in the snow.  Aaron was determined to make a snowman in the powdery, hard to pack snow.

 He had helpers come & go through the process...

 ...but he did it!

 And it turned out really cute!

 Back at home, we let the boys make gingerbread houses.  The annual Gingerbread House event at church was cancelled due to crazy cold/snowy weather & our boys were really looking forward to going.

 I helped each of them get their structures set up.

 Then they decorated, mostly on their own.  I helped with piping on frosting.  ;)

 Cedar's house!

 Woo hoo!

Finley's house!