Snapshot of a Beeler Christmas

Yesterday was our Beeler family Christmas, so I am skipping ahead a bit so the far-away siblings can see a bit of our day yesterday! =) I will come back and do Paige's birthday and the in-between stuff too!

Lauren and Travis playing mancala.

Lots of chatting!

This is Jaelyn's reaction to, "It's not quite time for presents yet!"

Paige loves her doggie!

Almost present time!

A blurry laugh I just had to share.

Papa Jody reading the Christmas story.

Jaelyn giving us a performance of "Jingle Bells", or as she called it, "Christmas is hiding in your tummy!" um… ok.

It was captivating.

Grandma snuggles after her show.

Now, consider this a warning to all, if you so choose to make a face at my camera, you WILL get blogged with such face.  Every.Single.Time. 

Jaelyn playing with Tyler.

Paige cuddling up to Camryn.

The girls singing their "Happy Birthday Jesus" song from church.

Except Paige. She didn't want to participate - that girl never really has been much of a follower.

Jaelyn and her baby doll from the Kohners.

The big girls bickering a bit over how to hand out presents!  Ha!

Lauren and her angel ornament from Grandma Nel.

Paige and her bell - a tree one this year!  

Lauren and Paige opening Rainbow looms from the Kohners!  They are beyond happy!

Jaelyn and her bird ornament - a feathered owl!

Paige is thrilled to have a set of her very own matryoshka dolls from Grandma Nel.  The girls each received one and think it is quite the special treasure!

Then it started to snow and the kids all took off to catch some snowflakes.

It was a beautiful day!

Travis cozying up to Trigger after coming in from the cold.

This is my favorite shot of the whole day. I think it tells such a story, and these are the amazing moments that I love capturing with photography.  It's not perfect, but life is far from perfect.  

She's freezing here, her hands were bright red, so she is sitting on them and trying to dry her frozen hair with the air from the space heater.  Wrapping paper still on the floor, family talking and laughing behind her.  This was our day!  And it is precious and beautiful.

Singing happy birthday to Jesus with a cake.  My BIL's face cracks me up here, the cake was under a lid that messed up the script, so it said Hap~~ Bir~~~da~ Jes~~! ;o)

The two EIGHT year olds!

I was taking a shot focused on Travis when I happened to catch Shawn's little jig.  

I just had to share.  ;o)

Merry Christmas, far-away Beeler family members!  We were missing you all day!  <3 <3 <3

Catch up time!

Since it IS almost Christmas, I figured I should take a minute and catch up with back photos!  I will let the pictures tell the stories here.  

I will come back and do a post for Paige's sixth birthday - because I think each birthday should get a post all its own! =)  

Prescott with Friends

While the Daddies went deer hunting in Kaibab, Jaclyn and I decided to take the kids to a cabin in Prescott for a few days.  We all had such a great time, even though it was raining almost the entire two days we were there!  

It cleared up as we went hiking at Watson Lake, and the kids found all kinds of animals that day!

The cabin had two hammocks in the front yard, so that was a favorite of all the kids!

Jaclyn tried SO hard to build a fire, since the children really though we needed one - but it was just too wet out for it to get any bigger than this!

This just cracks me up!

Paige gets pretty grumpy when she is sleep deprived.  It is either this face, or loony-bin laughter.

Porter is one of Jaelyn's favorite people!

We had such a nice time, it was a great break in the middle of daddy being gone for a week!