Today

Today..

...my boys played with eachother for 40 minutes this morning before coming to get me in my room. For the THIRD time this week. This is uncharted territory people. I have had a little person pulling on me every morning (before 7am usually) for the past 5 1/2 years! Children who entertain themselves/dress themselves/ feed themselves breakfast without needing mom? Holy Moley, it's strange. And nice. With a little side of STOP GROWING UP SO FAST!!!

...my boys were beating on each other. I sent them to their rooms, but then had the brilliant idea to put them in each other's rooms and make them clean up each other's messes. Why have I not thought of this before? I have two clean bedrooms and two happy boys right now. Hooray! Now I'm kind of hoping one of them starts misbehaving. I have some toilets that need to be scrubbed.

...I'm still reeling from watching Inception last night. My mind was officially blown. And my dreams were beyond wild last night.

...I finished up our annual family video. Here she is for your viewing pleasure.
(embedded video)

Untitled from Melissa Englebright on Vimeo.

After doing slideshows for both of my extended families for Christmas, I am going on an iMovie hiatus.

...I am trying not to cringe every time I look at Luke's hair. Our haircut yesterday was going along swimmingly, until he decided it would be fun to try and karate chop my hand every time I snipped at a lock of hair. His hair went from looking long and blonde...
to a new bad haircut that looks short, dark(er) and oh so grown up. Parker even got upset and said that Luke doesn't even look like Luke anymore. After I heal from the emotional trauma I will post a picture of the new short do. Maybe. Or he might be wearing a hat for the next 3 months.

Happy 2011! I hope yours is off to a happy start!

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A Classy Christmas (and why I love my 35mm lens)

I pulled a ham out of the refrigerator on Christmas Eve. Aaron passed it during the day and was upset. "We have to order pizza like we did last year," he explained.

Remember last year? When we went to the zoo, got home too late to make dinner and ordered pizza? I was oblivious to the fact that that was the beginning of a Christmas Eve tradition. But it sounded fantastic, so I was happy to comply. I don't like ham that much anyway.

5:00 rolled around and we set off to get our pizza. Only no one wanted pizza anymore. No one. So I told my boys to name their favorite food and we could either make it or buy it. I should have known they would have wanted McDonald's happy meals. Curse them and their dang toys!

One hour later we were sitting around our table eating fast food by candle light. My boys with their happy meals, and me with my Arby's french dip sandwich and curly fries. How classy are we?
And guess what? We are going to do this every single year because our boys were in heaven. And I think it will be fun to see how it evolves over the years. One day I'm sure they will be requesting homemade cinnamon rolls or steaks from Outback. I am going to enjoy the Happy Meals while they last!

We had a small family night where we talked about Christ and bore testimonies. The boys exchanged their gifts and opened their pajamas and we all cuddled up and watched Home Alone.

Aaron and I waited for the big man in red to show up and I sneaked upstairs to grab a picture of my boys sleeping in the same room. (Something they don't normally do). Luke popped up after I had taken a picture and then plopped back down and went back to sleep.

(Okay people. Everyone is always surprised when I tell them the 35mm 1.4 L lens is my favorite lens. The next pic shows why!)Christmas was wonderful. Slow paced, with presents, a yummy breakfast, and visits with a few friends.
We even woke up the next morning to snow! Church was canceled and the day turned into Christmas take 2. Hooray!
(The pic on the left is another shot at 6am with my 35mm lens)

I hope your Christmas was a happy one!

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The Blounts

I am digging myself out of the Christmas mayhem. Be prepared for a smattering of posts.

Meet the Blount kids.

It was freezing.

They were awesome.




Happy 2011!

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