2017 Lindsey Family Slideshow

Listening to Tom Petty

Happy New Year, friends!

2017 has been a wonderful year, filled with family time; some fantastic school experiences, including fun field trips and a graduation; lots of extracurricular activity; and some travel. All of that made it hard to curate and select a few photos that would fit a single song... one that is barely over three minutes.

William George has spent the last 18 months or so in a serious Tom Petty phase. He knows the songs... he knows the videos... he knows the band and the music. When Petty passed away unexpectedly on October 2nd, the song for this year's slideshow was determined. Although the song has a line or two that would normally be disqualifying for a family video, we are choosing to overlook it and ask that you do the same. George really didn't understand the passing of this artist, but he knew on some level that there would be no more new songs. "Wildflowers" was the only choice.

We wish you the happiest of New Year's and the very best that 2018 has to offer.

A look back at 2017:
Music: "Wildflowers" by Tom Petty

Photos: All photos by Cathi Lindsey, with the exception of a couple by Skip Lindsey and a couple by friends.  

Equipment/Tools: Nikon D5000; Nikon D810; Sigma 85mm/1.4; Nikon 50mm/1.4; Sigma 24-70mm/2.8; iPhone 5; iPhone 8 Plus; Photoshop Elements 12; iMovie

Christmas Day, 2017

William George was the first to wake on Christmas morning, and Skip heard him start coming down the stairs at 6:03am. Because my mom had spent the night on Christmas Eve, she was able to intercept George and stall him until 7:00am. We had to do our yearly pose a the top of the stairs, and then we did a little riff where I had mom pretend to knock them out of the way to get to the tree first. HA!

Santa had indeed stopped by and been much too generous in leaving behind many things we needed and several things we had wanted.  

Pixie watched on the whole time, remembering when she was the "it" gift sensation three years ago.  

Grandparents were much too generous, as usual.  

Finally, some love was shown to Pixie in the form of an homage.  

We had our traditional brunch, and Gran and Poppa left later in the morning for Atlanta. We tried to restore some order, examine gifts, play with some things and, later, prepare for dinner.  

Christmas, 2017, you were amazing!

Christmas Eve

December always go by soooo quickly, and we were shocked when December 24th finally arrived. We prepared our ham, mashed potatoes and loaded deserts in the car to celebrate at my mom's Christmas gathering. 

We had a delicious meal with family, visited, celebrated and opened a couple of presents.  

Mom/Grammie stayed home to visit, but would join us later. Lauren had us on a very strict schedule in order to have everything completed so that we could all be in bed when Santa arrived.  

After unloading the car, our first order of business was to decorate the gingerbread house. One of these years I am going to build the house first and let it set, but this was not that year. We ended up decorating the roof only (as is our way), and being happy about it.  

After laying out snacks for Santa and saying goodbye to Zippy, we left snacks for the reindeer.  

We also pressed the "Santa Stop" ornament on our tree, to signal that we were ready for Santa to come to our home. 

Since Pixie knows Zippy and Santa personally (from being born at the North Pole and delivered by Santa three years ago), she really wanted to stay up, but Lauren vetoed that plan. She also strategically limited Grammie and George's liquid intake so that there wouldn't be an excess of restroom visits during the night.  

She takes the rules verrrrry seriously.  

Finally, we read The Night Before Christmas and the Christmas story and turned in for bed, all the while tracking Santa as her criss-crossed across South America and made his way into Canada.