Family Pictures 2021

I am far from a great photographer but am thankful to have just enough skills to get quality pictures of the family a few times a year. The kids don't love it, and neither does Dave, but they're good to cooperate for me, if only because I tell them it's what I want for my birthday. We did this year's session in an empty lot by the Discovery Center. Amarillo doesn't get great fall leaves, but there was just a bit of color in this field and I was grateful for it. The main family photo will be in a later post with our Christmas Card, but here are the others <3 

I was lucky enough to get two great shots of the kids!!

Sophie, age 8.5

Davey, age 5.5

Charlie, age 3.5

Griffin, age 1.5

Sammamish Summer Part 2.5 - Family Pictures

Everyone's (not) favorite part of family gatherings - the group picture! We found yet another angle to use at the house for a backdrop so we didn't have to travel anywhere for photos. Kudos go to Amy for handling the camera and I also contributed with a few headswaps :) We sure love this family of ours!

Currently up to 10 grandkids - 2 girls and 8 boys, with 2 more on the way

And Happy 15th Anniversary to us!!

The Howes as Pixar People

There was a trend on social media during June where people were using an app to make cartoon versions of themselves and their families. I tried it out for fun and these were the results. For some reason though, it gave all the kids and Dave blue eyes. I had seen other people get brown eyed photos, so I know it was possible, but no matter what photo I used they all came out blue. Maybe their eyes were just to dark for the app to read properly. Either way, I though we turned out pretty cute!

For My Birthday I Want Good Smiles :)

With Christmas just a month away, I still hadn't taken any pictures for our annual card/update and I was starting to get a little panicked, so I told the kids that for my birthday all I wanted was for them to cooperate for 10 minutes for a quick photo shoot. The real challenge in Amarillo is finding a day that's not ridiculously windy, and luckily we got one on my birthday! 

After school we played at a park for a bit to wait for golden hour, and then when the sun starting getting low we hopped in the van, changed clothes and drove to meet Dave. Our shooting location was an empty lot behind the gas station just minutes from our house. It hadn't been mowed and had lots of long, golden grass and the photos turned out amazing!!

I'm still a little in awe that I managed to get good smiles from the kids, with the correct lighting and focus. Normally one or two of those areas come up short. I not only got a couple good group photos, but also nice individuals of each child. It truly was the best birthday gift!! 

We used the vertical photo for our Christmas card, but also got a great horizontal one as well. It was nice to have the luxury of choosing!

Sophie - Age 7

Davey - Age 4

Charlie - Age 2

Griffin - Age 7 Months

I also hopped in a few photos, since it was my birthday after all. Sadly I did not get one with the older kids because they had already run back to the van.

Family Pictures & Fun in Palo Duro

Sunday afternoon was gorgeous, so we ate an early dinner and then took a field trip to the canyon. First I took some pictures of the kids since our last "good" photos were a year old, and then we changed their clothes and let them play around in the dirt and rocks. They had so much fun and didn't want to leave. We stayed until dusk and made it home just before it was all the way dark to put some very dusty kids to bed. I'm glad we have such a neat place to visit so close to our house!

I was so excited to get not one, but two good pictures of the kids! Look at those cute smiles. I also took some individual portraits to use for their birthday posts. I'm glad we were able to get out and do these before baby comes.

Once the kids changed back into play clothes they wasted no time and got exploring!

Charlie's favorite activity was throwing dust and rocks. He was filthy by the end of the night.

Sophie and Dave climbed up to this rock. It's higher up than it looks in the photo. 

Sophie brought me a lovely bouquet of thistles that she picked up on the rock

Davey with his "hi-yah" sticks attempting to break the ground. He did this for almost an hour. 

Thanks for a fun night Palo Duro!

Howe Christmas Card 2017

I wasn't planning to have family photos taken this year since we are adding a new family member in a few months, but there was a local girl wanting to expand her business in Amarillo looking for people to participate in a free photo shoot, so we volunteered! I'll share more of the photos in a separate post, but we did get a good family shot that I decided to use for our Christmas card.

This was also the first year that we did a sort of Christmas "letter" to go along with our card. I found a great deal on Groupon for nice quality cards, and then when they arrived, the back was plain white so I put together a little infographic about our family and ran them back through our own printer to add the "letter" to the back.

The whole process was actually much easier than expected, and I found myself in mid-November with everything done. It was awesome! Since we moved I wanted to get our cards with our new address out early, so I went ahead and mailed them just before leaving for our Thanksgiving trip.

It's not obvious at first glance, but Sophie is holding her arm out because she had found a inch worm and it was in her hand for the photo. Luckily it didn't ruin the picture because everyone was smiling really good in this one!

A short update about our family that I printed on the back of the cards

Like last year, Sophie helped me put all the stamps on the envelopes. 

Stamped, labeled, and ready to go!

FYI - The company we used this year was called Photo Affections and I was super happy with the way they turned out. Their website was easy to use, the cards arrived just 2 days after my order was in, and with the Groupon the price was just about the same as the regular photo cards from Costco. I'll be looking for a Groupon to use with them again next year!

Sammamish Summer 2016 - Part One

We just returned from one trip and have three days at home before we head out again. I was going to try and blog everything in one post to get it done, but I have a gazillion pictures and it would have turned into a novel. I decided to break it down into a few smaller, but still long, posts and here's installment one:

THE DRIVE We left at the end of June to drive up to Washington to visit all of my family. It was the perfect time to leave as Utah was reaching 100 degrees, while the northwest was still in the 60s-70s. My sister lives in Eastern Oregon so we stopped at her house for the night. It was so nice to spread the drive out over a couple days, especially with a baby that wants to eat every couple hours. Davey did pretty good with only one crying fit, and Sophie mostly listened to Disney music, napped, and watched some shows I had loaded on the iPad. 

MARINERS GAME Our first activity was a baseball game with the whole family. Dave and I were put in charge of the kid party wagon (all 5 carseats fit!), and after everyone aired their initial grievances, the drive actually went great. Sophie was too young to understand a lot of what was happening at the game, but did enjoy the music, snacks and atmosphere. It was also Italian heritage night so we all got free t-shirts. Best of all, the M's won! 

LAKE TIME Of course our main activity in the summer is the lake. The weather wasn't the best while we were there, but every time the sun did come out we would run down for some fun, and if it ever was too chilly, we just jumped in the hot tub afterward. The kids really enjoyed throwing rocks off the dock and taking turns going out on the wave runner. My dad also got out the fire pit one night for some marshmallows and s'mores. 

MINI RAGNAR My family has participated in the Ragnar relay race the past four years, but decided it was too much to do it again this year so my mom arranged a "mini" ragnar race around Lake Sammamish. The total distance was about 24 miles. The first car was my mom, me, Dave, and my sister Amy. Dave's portion was supposed to be just over a mile, but we messed up the exchange, and by the time we caught up to him he had gone close to four miles. Go Dave! After we were done we went back home to watch the kids and my mom, Nat, and Brodie ran the rest. At the end my mom ran across the finish line with Sophie and Anne and then we enjoyed a picnic lunch and lawn games at Marymoor Park. 

PICTURES SUNDAY On the 3rd of July we went to church. My kids wore their red, white and blue and I was finally able to get a cute picture of them together. After naps, we also all went down to the dock and took a group picture. It had been a couple years since our last Lambert Family photo and the kids have grown and Davey and Faye have joined the family. I'm not sure if it's going to be a Christmas card photo, so I won't post it here yet and spoil things. After the group photo, however, we took a picture of just our little family that actually turned out. I love it!!