The Great Picture Project of 2009....

For Christmas this year, Ryan and I pledged that we would not be getting each other any big gifts. Neither one of us really wanted anything, so we decided to get each other something "from the kids" - flannel pajamas for me and some lounge pants for Ryan. Of course, I could not stick to our pact. Ryan is the guy that has guessed almost every birthday present I have ever got him. Since he had been commenting for months about how we have so many amazing pictures of the kids, but almost none of them on display - sad, but true - I thought this would be perfect! I could legitimately pinky swear not to get him a gift and then wrap up all kinds of framed prints for him to open up on Christmas morning claiming they were actual presents to the house - brilliant! For the weeks leading up to Christmas, I was secretly cashing client checks to avoid suspicious credit card charges, sneaking off to Aaron Brothers Frame Shop every other day to get collages put together and smuggling large boxes of prints in to the garage as soon as they arrived from UPS. All in all, I replaced the 12 pictures we have in the playroom of the kids with bright metallic prints, put together four 11x14s for my office, collected about 16 pictures from various trips to the beach in a hallway grouping, put three wedding images together for another hallway and printed about seven images for miscellaneous bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. I wrapped them all up, stashed them in closets throughout the house and waited. On Christmas morning, after the kids had opened most of their gifts, I sly commented that I actually had gotten Ryan something small and then proceeded to present print after print for him to open. He loved them all - except one, in which he thinks Jake is giving you a "I am about to completely misbehave" stare. I was so excited to finally surprise him, albeit somewhat deviously. I plopped down on the couch, proud of my ability to actual pull off a rouse of this magnitude. I gloated for all of about four minutes, until I was shocked to tears to find a gorgeous diamond eternity band wrapped up in my flannel PJs. Did I mention my husband is completely awesome?

So here are some of the images I used of my family (my nephew Jackson is the front toothless cutie). I always get questions about putting together collage ideas, so I will post pictures of the actual arrangements I hung at the house at a later date this month - don't want to run out of material too early....