Merry Christmas!

Today is such a special day! Christ is born to us on earth, a little babe in human form.

It is a special day indeed, full of hope and joy and family, but we have one more Christmas gift that we are very excited to share with you…

Did you read the bottom of that card carefully? Yes! We are expecting a new little member to our very own family in June! Make that June 21st ish.

Here’s a shot of the little peanut at about 9 weeks, he/she has grown a bit since then and is now roughly the size of an apple at just over 3 months:

Looks a little bit like an old man? Ahh but pure joy. We are so excited to nurture and prepare for the arrival of this little one. And this has been one hard secret to keep!

And Liv is over the moon! She’s into babies now (rocking her dolls, shushing them, walking them in her new Christmas stroller) and the idea of a ‘baby brother/sister’ – while a little subjective at this point – makes her so happy. When I ask her where the new baby is growing, she proudly pulls up her shirt and points to her little protruding toddler belly.

A few more outtakes from our Christmas photo, I think we captured the only shot in which Liv is truly smiling (even with hand in mouth) versus the distracted ‘what’s happening over there?’ glance in the wrong direction. We borrowed our friend Anna (many thanks!!) and a red barn wall in Old Town, San Diego to snap a few photos a few weeks ago:

Liv’s hiding!

And a few dozen pictures later…

Liv shows the camera a little love, Bodie is laying at our feet, and Kev and I both pull off a presentable shot.

The picture right out of the camera will do, but with a bit of Photoshop playing in the form of Pioneer Woman’s Boost Action:

Plus a very light ‘warm’ photo filter and an adjustment of the brightness/contrast to make that red wall pop:

And I’m really happy with how the final photo turned out.

More editing tips can be found in this Christmas Card break down (highlighting both Photoshop and free image editing programs) from last year.

We teamed up with our awesome sponsors over at Tiny Prints again and played with LOTS of favorite designs before finding one that fit the family well (not cropping out Kev’s head or Bodie’s body) and with a font and layout that we loved.

 Merry, merry Christmas!! So happy to let you in on our exciting secret!