A Merry Christmas

Jon, Lily and I had a very good Christmas this year and enjoyed seeing a lot of family and friends. We hope everyone else had a good holiday as well and has a happy new year.

To see photos of all the events (ranging from making Christmas cookies for Santa to opening presents on Christmas morning), click HERE.

To see a slide show of some of the photos, click below:

To see some video clips from the holiday, click below:

A visit with Santa

We took Lily to see Santa Claus this past week and were very happy with the results! Last year, she wouldn't get near Santa without hysterically crying, but this year she was more than happy to sit on his lap and ask for a present. She even told him all about Caesar and Daphne!

Another Wedding Weekend!

The Fortneys trekked down to Georgia this past weekend to attend my sister's wedding to my now brother-in-law, Bill Mallalieu. It was a beautiful ceremony and great reception! Unfortunately, neither my pictures nor video came out great due to lighting issues (and, well, operator error). But you can see some of what I salvaged below.

Here is a video clip from the ceremony, along with some still shots toward the end. Bill's daughter is the one singing:

And here is some video from the reception (mostly of Lily dancing!):

Happy Holidays!

Jon, Lily and I have had a great start to the holiday season, beginning with Thanksgiving. We went to Smith Mountain Lake to spend the day with my parents and Grandma. We had some wonderful food (including, I have to brag, my awesome pumpkin cookies!).

Then we enjoyed our first snow fall, which I think Caesar enjoyed the most:

Jon and I also went to his company's holiday party recently too, at one of the nicest restaurants in Charlottesville. I don't think I've ever eaten such good food!

Finally, we went to church this Sunday at Jon's mom's church, where many members of the family, including Lily, joined to sing Christmas hymns. It was really a great experience to hear them all together. I just hope Lily gets some musical talent from my mother and Jon's, because she is in trouble if she takes after either of us!

Here is a short clip from church. I will have a link to the entire event shortly:

Hunting Trips and Baptisms

I'm getting a little lazy, now that I'm almost 7 months pregnant, so here are two events for this one blog post! The Fortneys have been busy lately. We all went on a hunting trip in Highland County recently with my parents. We had a good time, even though Dad and Jon didn't shoot any deer.

Here are some pictures:






That same weekend, we went to Lily's cousin's baptism. Anna was baptized last Sunday, and she looked adorable! Here are some pictures of the event:

Happy Halloween!

This year, Lily dressed up as a princess for Halloween, and she just loved her dress and wand! We took her to an SPCA event for the day, complete with treats for both children and dogs. Seeing the little puppies all dressed up was probably more exciting to Lily than the candy and games. Here is a picture with one of the dogs:

And here is Lily playing pin the nose on the pumpkin:

And here are some other photos from the day:

Skyline Drive

With fall foliage upon us in Central Virginia, we took our annual trip to Skyline Drive this weekend to see the beautiful changing leaves. Lily enjoyed running around outside and playing in the grass, while Jon and I enjoyed taking way too many pictures with our new camera! Here is a little slide show from the day: