Christmas Catch-Up

Can you believe it's almost the end of May and I still haven't gotten Christmas pictures up? I can...

I'm notorious for not getting pictures up in good time. Frankly it was a miracle that I got my graduation pictures up only a week after it happened. Maybe now that I've finished school I will be a little better about that kind of thing. Maybe. We'll see... :p

Anyway, on to the pictures from Christmas! Technically these are from New Years, as we didn't have Christmas until January, but most of them are from the present opening day.

Jackson! My most adorable nephew! He looks so little here! He's already so much bigger than this, and it was only like 5 1/2 months ago! What happened?

Presents 2017

The fam.

Aunt Ruth made us all new cowboy boot stockings to hang above the stove downstairs.

This one is mine. :)

Baby's first Christmas. :)

Christmas Paparazzi. :)

Literally. :p

Grandma and Jackson. :)

I have a feeling that most of these pictures today are going to be Jackson. :p

Did people get bored waiting for Jackson? :p

Jackson needed help opening everything. I got him these two books, but I think he enjoyed the colorful wrapping paper even more. :p

Daddy and Jackson. :)

Eva gave me a Mr. Rogers mug for Christmas. :)

His sweater changes color with heat!

I got a bunch of books for Christmas too. A Doctor Who Cookbook from Shaina, as well as a Doctor Who history book and the Atlas Obscura from mom and dad.

I tried to do a selfie with Jackson, but it wasn't entirely successful. :p

Okay, it was kind of successful. He's so stinkin' cute. :p

Grandpa and Jackson. :)

I found these pictures on one of my devices after most everyone had left. :p

And of course, the last pictures of the day were Jackson as they were leaving.

He's just too cute.

I have some other pictures from around that time as well, but I'll save them for another post. We'll see if I have some time tomorrow. Stay tuned! :)

Grandpa Bell

As most of you know, my Grandpa Bell died last month. Sadly it was the same day as Jacob's wedding. We found out as we left the reception. I didn't want to mention that in the post about the wedding, but thought I should mention it here. We knew it was coming, but it was still a shock.

As funerals tend to do, we had a ton of family brought together that week. I took a bunch of pictures before and after the funeral, so I wanted to share them here. Before I do that though, I did want to share a couple of the pictures I took at Grandpa's 90th birthday party last year. All his kids made it down for that special occasion, and we had to photograph it. This was my best picture from the day.

My other favorite picture I took that day was this one. There were a bunch of really old photos on a table at the party and I decided to arrange and photograph them. I'm really glad I did.

We miss you grandpa.

The whole weekend of the funeral, my nephew Jackson was the center of attention.

Dad is obsessed with Jackson the most, and of course gets first dibs as grandpa, but Mandi loves all babies and had to be persuaded to relinquish him. :)

We spent a lot of time at Uncle John and Aunt Becky's house that weekend. It's a great place for big family gatherings.

I swear I didn't put an Instagram filter on this picture, it just turned out this way!

Jared had a story to tell and Afton was a captive audience.

The funeral home was decorated so nicely. Lots of amazing pictures from the past.

That big one was taken by my cousin Kim. It's one of the best pictures any of us had of him.

It's one of my favorites. It's just the perfect picture of him.

I didn't get any more pictures here after this because I just feel weird about taking pictures at funerals. Plus I was a pallbearer and had to focus on that. I'm glad that Mandi was there because she stepped up and took some great pictures that day.

I don't think anyone likes funerals, but grandpa's was really nice, and a fitting tribute to him. I'm really glad I was a part of it.

After the funeral all the pallbearers were given a shell from the guns that were fired at the ceremony. I put mine on my bookshelf, next to a couple of diamonds from Jacob's wedding.

After the funeral we had a picnic in a park, though I didn't get any pictures there either, because it was a lot of people I didn't know and the few I did were too scattered.

After that, the family all headed back to Aunt Becky and Uncle John's.

Sometime later, an ice cream truck came by for some reason, while a bunch of people were outside, and Uncle John bought everyone ice cream!

The rest of these pictures were probably taken the next day. We went back to Uncle John and Aunt Becky's after church on Sunday.

I loved this picture of Grandma and Maggie. :)

Then Jackson was back to being the center of attention.

That's all I've got. It was an emotional weekend, but really nice too.