Dada: “What were you doing?”

Liam: “We were fighting Sam!”

Dada: “Do you think I want you fighting Sam?”

Liam: “I wasn’t the one fighting him. I was the one blocking him so Nate could get him.”

This is one of the numerous old gas and electric fixtures original to our house. Sometimes, it contains a compact fluorescent bulb, and other times, the finger of a jitterbugging ghost.

front

back

The front of the card this year was all taken in one shot - there was no Photoshopping necessary other than for the border and the text. In years past, I’ve had to take the best elements from several pics and combine them all into one shot. This time, after the turkeys were wrapped up and trundled off into the front yard, all that Jill had to do was stand behind me and yell over my shoulder, “Hey boys, you know what we’re having for dinner tonight? Spaghetti and POOPballs!”. I found out later that she’d been saving that one.

Liam and Nate looked at one another for a beat, then burst out laughing, and Sam joined in simply because the other boys were laughing, and they were holding his mittens. So, poop joke = mirth, togetherness, and what can easily be mistaken for brotherly love.

*sound of camera clicking*

The back was done in Photoshop with the help of my Intuos4 PC Tablet. Initially, the cards came back from the printer and the yellow snow looked lime green. So we had to order another set pronto. Unfortunately, after a week of waiting for the mistake to be corrected, those cards also arrived with lime-green whiz. In the end, we decided to send them out anyway. It was either that, or we were going to have to hang onto 500 holiday postcards until St. Paddy’s Day.

As usual, my part in all this was mostly that of a Photoshop Puppet and Printer Liaison.

It was all Jill’s idea.

(To be visited by the Cards of Christmas Past, click here)

Extreme tall angle

“Hey Dada?”

“Yeah, buddy.” I answer automatically, typing without looking up.

“I love you.”

I stop typing. Smiling now, I turn to him. “I love you too, Nate.”

After a slight pause, he holds up his finger. “But did you see my booger?”

After a hard day hitting all the area parks and playgrounds, it’s nice to sit in the Ice Cream Shop and relax with some “Birthday Batter” ice cream and a few peppermint sticks.