Sneaux Day

One of the advantages of living in South Louisiana is definitely the climate, but this year global warming apparently took some time off because we have had a long, hard winter!  Hopefully all these freezing temps are killing some mosquitoes!  We even got a super-rare sneaux day...

Corinne had never seen snow before, having been left behind during ski trips...

She was curious for a second...

...then cold and completely OVER IT!  She begged us to take her back inside.  "It's cooooooold!" she said.

Not having it...

This one, however, had to be forced to come back inside to warm up...

Note the footie pajamas (or "zippers" as Watts calls them) under the ski bibs.  Tres chic...

See all the snow in their hair?  It pretty much snowed all day, and we had about 4-6 inches in the yard...

Watts was rocking Graham's hand-me-down ski suit...

I convinced Corinne to go back outside and pose with the giant snowman the kids made...

Sneaux isn't an everyday thing around here.  This photo was taken of Stella the last time it snowed in South Louisiana...

Gingerbread Construction Zone

Another fun holiday tradition is building gingerbread houses with our Millets!  The main campus of their church hosts a family build each December.  This year only Molly and Missy were building because Ethan and Aaron are getting too old to be any fun.  Boo!  We missed our Millet guys, but we had a blast eating LOTS of candy and using a little of it to decorate our houses.  Cille's creation...

Casa de Watts...

Stella's gingerbread cottage...

A silly Coco and Molly...Corinne was probably on a sugar high by this point...

Stella's finished product...

Cille's...

And Watts'...

Thanks, Missy, for inviting us!  We had a blast!

Christmas Card Photos

Ahhh...Christmas card season: that time of year when moms everywhere start to freak out over how they can walk that fine line of coordinating outfits and being able to convince their kids to actually wear the outfits.  I fear that my days for accomplishing this feat are severely numbered, but I did manage to squeeze at least one more in, and I was lucky enough to match the kids to clothing Damon and I already had, so I feel like that's a double mom win for me.  This was actually our first family photo shoot ever that did not involve threats or tears from children or parents, so this was truly a historic day...

I love this one!

The money shot...

We used this on the back of our card...

And this...

Corinne is definitely a three-nager.  She mimics everything she sees the big kids do...

This is one of my favorites...

And this one cracks me up.  It perfectly captures Corinne's personality...

I hope these four always stay best friends...

Does this pose make us look clingy?

Just the Pourciau girls...

And the Pourciau men...

Stella and Cille posed this one themselves...

As always, Erin Guedry did a fabulous job of capturing our craziness.  She is wonderful at making the kids feel comfortable in front of the lens.  We highly recommend her if you need family photos.

Christmas Tree Farm

One of the highlights of every Christmas season for our family is our annual trip to Yawn Station Christmas Tree Farm.  This year's visit was extra special, because our family photographer asked if we would be interested in shooting our Christmas card photos there.  Of course we were!  Yawn Station is a place that holds lots of special memories for our family, so we really could think of no better backdrop for a family photo.  The session may have actually been our easiest photo shoot ever with the kids, because we told them if they smiled first they could play afterwards.  There was no wailing and gnashing of teeth for once, and even Corinne cooperated, unlike her behavior in some recent photo attempts.  The photos on this post were actually taken with our cellphones and not by the  photographer, but I'll share Erin's later because they turned out great and we just love her...

The kids are posing for Erin but Damon is probably messing up her flash with his cell phone.  Thanks, Dad!

This kid is just too much sometimes...

Again...notice that the kids are focused on the real photographer, and not their father...

My favorite photo of all taken by yours truly and an iPhone.  Portrait mode rocks!

Riding the train to choose a tree!

We had such a fun day at Yawn Station!  Can't wait to go back next year!