My mom's family

My Grandmother Camuso passed away September 23, 2010. We love and miss her so much. My grama was an amazing person. I do not have the time it would take or the writing ability to do her life justice. She had 14 children, 11 boys and 3 girls. The fact that she survived having 11 boys is amazing in itself. She and my grampa were very strong in their Catholic faith, and I am sure they are together now. I will tell you more about my grama in days to come.

 Uncle Tim, Chris and Aunt Mary

When my dad called to tell me grama had passed away, I started making arrangement to go to her funeral. I really wanted my family to be there to say goodbye to her and to see our extended family. Nathan and I ended up driving 10 hours Friday evening. We arrived at my grama house at 2:30am. My parents were there and heard us pull into the driveway (we had the truck, it is hard to miss the sound of our beloved truck). My parents were excited to see the kids and the kids were excited to see them. My aunt Raegan (who is only 5 years older than me) heard us come in too. She could not resist coming downstairs to see the boys and meet Aurora. No one went to bed until after 4am. Thankfully my parents got up with the kids and we slept until 10.
Throughout the day family arrived at my grama's. It was wonderful to see my family that I have not seen in so long. We are a very close family, we always have been. Most of my aunts and uncles live in PA, but as the cousin's have grown up, we have moved so we are spread all over. We still try to get the whole family together every 5 years. I look forward to that time.

Nathan, Uncle Joe and Uncle Paul hanging out.

Aunt Raegan, Teresa, Bailey, Aunt Megan with baby Aurora, and Paytan.

 The 3 girls: my mom (Sue), Mary and Pat.

We had a family viewing for my grama Saturday night. And 2 public viewing on Sunday. Nathan had to be back to work Monday morning, so we left PA at 7 on Sunday evening. I missed my grama funeral. I am very sad about that, but I am glad we went as a family and got to see everyone and say goodbye to my grama.
I took my camera, but only got a few shots an hour before we left.
We love and miss everyone. Hope to see you soon.

Hanging out at the fire pit. Everest spent most of his time here, chopping wood, unloading and loading wood, and moving wood.

Uncle Bill, Uncle Snare, Owen and Adam.

Alicia Horst Photography take 3

I warned you there were a lot of good pictures and it is very hard for me to choose only a few. There was only a small window of opportunity that Leaf was not screaming and Alicia captured them beautifully. Looking over these pictures, you would not know about all the crying that went on during that day. Everest had fun hamming it up, although he was getting a little jealous that we were putting so much effort into getting Leaf to stop crying.

I am glad we got a few of Leaf with his fingers. It just wouldn't be Leaf without his fingers.

 

 

It is amazing to look at these pictures and see how much my boys have grown in 6 months. Leaf has gotten so much bigger and is talking. Everest has grown at least an inch and has matured.

Alicia Horst Photography take 2

Family

I stressed over what we should wear for our photo shoot. I got a couple different outfits for each of us. We started off with black shirts and jeans, and that is all the further we got. We had fun and it turned out perfect. When we have the baby, we want to do an outdoor shoot with her sometime. She has a nice studio though, her wonderful husband Kendall and her dad Jeff (Nathan’s best man in the wedding), built it for her.

During the session, Leaf wanted to take a snack break, so I sat down and nursed him. I knew Alicia would not mind, she was a lactation consultant and helped me out when I was having trouble nursing Everest in the beginning. To my surprise, she asked if she could photograph me nursing him. I was delighted. We do not have many pictures of me nursing the boys. It is such an intimate and beautiful thing, but at the same time, we do it so often, we don’t think about taking photographs of it. I love these pictures.

 

 

Thanks again Alicia.

My little reindeer

Sorry I have been absent for so long. We did not have an internet connection for a few weeks. (which makes blogging and email, a lot more difficult). We are up and running again, thanks to my wonderful husband. I am slowly catching up with the blog and all my emails =)

Christmas this year was very nice. Here are my little reindeer on Christmas day. (Why are my kids faces always dirty in pictures?)


The reindeer family.
Leaf surprised Grami with a big pot for brewing beer. It is just his size!
Leaf had another surprise for us. He started walking Christmas eve! Of course, it was a little wobbly at first because he had to have his fingers in his mouth instead of out for balance.
No, I am not purposely favoring my younger child...Everest rarely lets me take his picture anymore. He always looks away or makes a really goofy face. Does anyone else's 4 year old do this?

He was cool enough to get his picture with aunt Teresa (after 3 or 4 shots), doing his VERY favorite thing....playing with Legos! He can not get enough of them. We build and rebuild and rebuild again.