On the Second Day of Christmas

I forgot to get some special items for today's activity(dangitdangitdangit!),

so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

In the mean-time,

let me show you some shots of our Stake's Nativity that we went to last night!
When you first walked into the church,
there was a children's "hands-on" nativity set up in the Primary room.
Lots of cute activities for the little ones.

This was in the gym.
You walked in and were blown away by all the lights and gorgeous center display.
(the pics don't do it justice)
There were displays of Christ's life all along the side walls.

I especially loved the Sacrament table(left) and the famous "I stand at the door and knock" picture...and someone made a life-size door!

It was really cool.

Here's Jesus's tomb.
You can see the "Mary" that stood outside greeting people-they also had a roman soldier right before this display (by Christ's death).
I tried to get Kevin to take a picture with him,
but he refused.
There were nativities allllll over as well.
It was truly spectacular and a beautiful set up.
Someone really planned well.
There was also a live nativity set up outside with a real camel, donkey, and sheep!
It was a fun family activity to kick off the true Christmas spirit this season.

...........

In other boring news,
I have been playing around with our camera,

and reading up on some of the cool pictures you can take around your Christmas tree(thank you Pinterest).

We don't have a super fancy DSLR (it's a Canon PowerShot SX120 IS),

but it does give me some freedom.

I'd say it's like a "transition camera",

from your basic point-and-click to the full-blown DLSR(that i long to own someday..).

Anyways,

here's some fun shots.

If ONLY I could figure out the right setting/aperture to make Tank come into focus...that would be a cooler picture.

And then there's the billions of cute photos you can take,

if you try doing your own custom Christmas tree bokeh.

I know really,

very little about this photography biz,

but want to learn more.

YouTube and Googling tutorials have been my best friends(that's how I learned most of Photoshop).

Not that I want to be a pro photographer,

but I would LOVE to be able to take awesome pics for my family/our scrapbook/blog,

and have my kids enjoy looking at them down the road..I think mainly I am just a sucker for a good crisp picture,

and I want that here.

:)