Photo session with Deborah Cull Photography!!

And a brief break from the Christmas blogging...

We had a wonderful professional photo session with our dear friends Deb and Matt Cull -- Deb was Princeton '03, and is an absolutely amazing photographer.  They live in Florida, but were up here to photograph Andrew and Miriam's wedding back in October, so we jumped on the opportunity to get some family photos while they were in town!

And oh my goodness, did we get some absolutely breathtaking photos...

I'm only posting about them now because we just got our prints from that session hung up on our walls.  It was SO hard picking just a few to print -- if only we had unlimited funds and wall space and could get ginormous canvas prints of all of them!  :)

So here's our new photo wall display!





The first side (going along the wall towards our kitchen) has my canvas of Joshua (still one of my favorite photos I've taken of Joshua to date).  But the rest are all the work of Deb and Matt.

David had the idea of doing a "faces" and "places" theme for our display, as a hat tip to iPhoto.   :)  So side one is our "faces" wall -- the Joshua canvas, a photo each of one of us with Joshua, and a sweet family photo to tie it all together.  And side two is our "places" wall -- the large canvas was taken on the bench in the garden where David proposed, the vertical photo with that beautiful stand of trees is on the Princeton Battlefield, where we used to go on long rambles back when we were dating, and then a photo of us in a little library at the Grad College (where we spent some of our first dates) and one on the little bridge on the golf course that we crossed right after David proposed.

We love, love, love our photo display.   :)  And because my photos of the prints don't even begin to do them justice, here are the images we chose!









Deb and Matt, thank you once again for such a fun session and such amazingly beautiful images!  We treasure each one of these prints!

Joshua's introduction to Christmas

So Joshua had to miss out on both the PEF Christmas party (started at 9:30, he was asleep the whole time upstairs) and the Vespers service (started at 9pm, he was asleep at Steven and Hilary's the whole time -- thanks again, Hilary, for watching him!).  But of course we're doing our part to introduce him to the trappings of Christmas this year!

Our first attempt at a family tradition: Christmas PJs!  They came just in time, too -- he's fast outgrowing his cute little duckie pajamas, and they're also not quite warm enough for the extreme cold that set in so quickly this winter.  So now Joshua is sporting the latest and finest in Christmas fleece sleepwear!



Next up: Christmas presents!  His NC grandparents sent up several large packages, addressed to "Josh Keddie" (and yeah, I know that's our son's name, but it's still so weird to see his first and last name written out together like that!).  Joshua doesn't quite understand the idea of opening presents yet, though he sure does love playing with packaging paper and ribbons!  But he's also really loving his first Christmas presents:



And finally: Santa hats!  I wish I could take credit for the cuteness to follow, but it's pretty much all thanks to John and Lucy...  We were all at Bonnie and Andrew's housewarming/birthday party, and John and Lucy showed up in their cute matching Santa hats.  Joshua was fascinated with the bright red of the hats, I think, and we had some failed attempts at getting photos of him sporting the hat by himself -- the hat would stay on for about half a second and then Joshua would pull it off in an attempt to get it in his mouth.  :)  But when I scooped him up and put the hat on him, he was happy to just look cute with it on.  And then right before John snapped a shot of us, Lucy plopped her hat on my head.  Resulting in the following best Christmas photos ever:



The only thing that could make these better would be to have David in here with his own Santa hat.  So yeah, I'm working on that...  ;)

It's so much fun sharing the little joys of the season with our little guy!  Rest assured, more Christmas photos will follow!

Christmas Vespers 2010

The next Christmas event on our schedules this year was the one that is perhaps my favorite Christmas event every year -- the Christmas Vespers service.  It's such a lovely service -- lessons and carols, a choir, beautiful solos, a brief homily, all with the aim of refocusing our hearts and minds on the miracle of Emmanuel, God with us.

And again, this year was no exception.  The students handled all the surprises and hiccups before the service (75 too few chairs; a random stage left over in the common room) with such aplomb that no one even realized that any of the changes (lovely wooden chairs hauled in from the dining hall; hello, big huge stage at the front of the room) weren't part of the original plan.  And it really was such a beautiful evening of interfellowship worship!


The choir and musicians on the stage


Dion leading the congregation in carols


The pure joy of Stephen's solo in "Emmanuel"


Pastor Matt's homily


Some of the sophomore girls singing together


And I absolutely loved Becky's rendition of "Welcome to our World."  In large part, of course, because of her beautiful voice, but it's also one of my favorite Christmas songs:

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting
Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that You don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world