Foto Phriday - 12/14/12

This is my eighty-eighth Foto Phriday post. The pictures today are from a Christmas shoot and Santa pancake breakfast. Full set with all 51 photos can be viewed here.

I did a little in-home photo session with our girls for Christmas this year with my new 5D.

Julie has really enjoyed the Christmas spirit this year. She's done many holiday crafts and her preschool will be putting on a little show next week.

Speaking of preschool, Juliana is doing really well in it. Really love stumbling upon something that she's learned without knowing. For example, while riding the light rail, she knew which side was right or left.

Or when I was talking about birthday months, she started reciting all of the months of the year in order. Or when I mentioned that something was north of here, she pointed in the directions of north, east, south, and west. We're going to have a smart and pretty girl on our hands.

Julie is also apparently very popular in her class. All of the other kids get really excited when Julie shows up and invite her to all of their birthday parties. I see the early signs of becoming a great leader.

This is the closest thing I got to a smile out of Coral. She is still such a serious baby and smiles and laughs on her own terms.

My birthday was on December 1st. This year, I wanted to have a full day at the movies. I ended up seeing five: Life of Pi, Flight, Argo, Rise of the Guardians, and Silver Linings Playbook. I haven't reviewed all of them yet, but I will. In short though, they were all good. Celebrated with a birthday dinner on the following Sunday at Peking Wok. My gifts included a new flash for my 5D to help with indoor pictures. I got the Canon Speedlite 580EX II and I ended up buying the EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM lens. Pretty sweet gifts. I also got this ridiculously large 1 lbs. Reese's from my sister-in-law. It was yummy.

Last weekend, we went to a Santa pancake breakfast event in Georgetown. Haven't spent much time there, but I'd love to take my camera there sometime for a photowalk.

The party was at a place called The Stables. It had a lot of older knick-knacks around and would be a pretty cool place for a man cave.

This was a great opportunity to not only spend time with some friends and family, but also get Santa pictures with the kids without waiting in long lines or spending a lot of money.

Breakfast included pancakes, bacon, and eggs. Then there was a candy buffet table where you could take whatever homemade confectioneries you wanted. And during the raffle, we won a giant chocolate snowman.

Juliana enjoyed making some new friends, coloring, and running around a lot. She ate her breakfast good, too.

Here is that candy buffet I mentioned. YUMmy!

Santa showed up right after breakfast was served and the kiddies crowded around him immediately. They even sang "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to him.

Juliana is always hesitant with Santa at first, but eventually warms up to him. She has been sitting on his lap just fine these past couple years.

And here we all are with Santa this year. It was Coral's first time meeting him and she did great! She stared at him for a little bit and turned her head towards the camera as if to say, "Okay, let's do this." Love that the girls are holding hands. (This picture was not taken by me or with my camera.)

The rest of this set of pictures were taken with my little LX3. This past Wednesday, our engineering team had an offsite team event at a martial arts studio. We trained on how to punch, block, and disarm. It was pretty fun. Then we had lunch from Boston's, which I never had before. After that, we sat in a little circle and hashed some issues out. Overall, a fairly productive event.

After "work," I met my family and my parents in Bellevue for dinner at Cheesecake Factory and to watch Snowflake Lane. It's a great event they do in downtown Bellevue with music, lights, drummers, and fake snow. Really puts you in the holiday spirit. To see more pictures from Snowflake Lane, my team's offsite, the pancake breakfast, or the Christmas shoot, view the full set.