The Harris Sisters

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Circus Themed Family Photo Shoot

If you follow us on Facebook or on Instagram, you know that The Harris Sisters take nearly every opportunity we're together to get family photos. We thought we'd share some tips and tricks we used to take photos the last time the whole group was together.

Spring is approaching, so for this photo shoot we had a concept that was based loosely on Mother's Day and a celebration of mothers in general, which is why we incorporated all the kiddos into the shoot. (You'll notice we snuck Daddy into one of the shots, too, because you just can't pass up an opportunity to get a photo of Granddaddy with all the grandkids when you've got everybody in the same place at the same time.)

The theme of this photo shoot was the circus! Why? Well, because as a mom, you've always got some sort of three-ring circus going on - you're performing a balancing act (schedules, play dates, dinner, school activities, sports, plays, dance rehearsals and recitals, scout meetings, the list goes on!), jumping through flaming hoops for your kids, keeping all the plates spinning, and you'd bend over backwards for any of your kiddos.

Most days, it's a High Wire Act AND you're the Ring Master AND the Strong (Wo)Man all rolled into one. To paraphrase The Greatest Showman,

Motherhood IS The Greatest Show

Oh, this is the greatest show
It's everything you ever want
It's everything you ever need
And it's here right in front of you
This is where you wanna be (this is where you wanna be)
It's everything you ever want
It's everything you ever need
And it's here right in front of you
This is where you wanna be
This is where you wanna be

How To Plan Your Own Circus Photoshoot

Make a Shot List

We started off with list of photos we were interested in getting during this photoshoot.

That way, we had a plan and we wouldn't miss out on any of the photos we wanted while we were all together and in costume. Our mission was to get photos of:

the sisters
the sisters and all the kiddos
all the kiddos
Daddy with all the grandchildren
individual shots of each sister with her children

What to Wear for Your Circus Themed Photoshoot

When we plan photoshoots, we are all in charge of our own clothing. For this particular shoot, we decided on a color scheme and then kept each other updated with photos of costume choices as they were purchased. None of your circus themed outfits need to be particularly expensive.

For example, both boys, who are the Strong Men in our circus, are wearing black and white striped shirts that were purchased at a thrift store. They both already had plain black basketball shorts and black Converse tennis shoes.

Donna's Ring Master costume was also pieced together from items that she already owned: a white button down shirt, a vest, a bow tie, a red blazer, black shorts, fishnet tights, and black boots. Deanna found the red top hat at an estate sale to complete the look.

Lexi's costume is a repurposed dance recital costume. Misty crafted her own feather headdress. Other costume pieces for Showgirl costumes can be purchased from Amazon, Etsy, or eBay.

And make sure to shop your local theater company or your closet too for other costume pieces and accessories!

Make Sure to Add Props and Accessories

You'll notice a few extra details in these photos, and they weren't difficult or expensive to add at all! See if you can spot these circus themed props and accessories:

trunk
circus stand (this is a planter painted and turned upside down)
large ball (this is an exercise ball painted with a large star on it)
umbrella for the Tight Rope Walker
accordion
Ring Master's cane (this is a wooden dowel painted black with silver tips)
tattoo sleeves for the Strong Men

A Million Dreams

'Cause every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
A million dreams, a million dreams
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it's gonna take
A million dreams for the world we're gonna make

We hope this post inspires you to plan your own circus themed photo shoot for your family. This was a fun one for the Harris Sisters to do. And remember: Life's a circus - enjoy the show!

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday, February 3, 2020

Baking for Charity

My oldest son, Aidyn, is a member of a service organization through his school. Members are only required to do two hours of community service each school year, but Aidyn and I found a project that we thought we could continue throughout 2019.

The project that piqued our interest was baking desserts for a local Hospice Center. They accept homemade cookies, brownies/blondies, dessert bars, cake balls, mini muffins, sheet cakes, pound cakes, and dessert breads year round.

What does the Hospice Center use the desserts for?

They use them every weekday to host Tea Time for the patients, families, and visitors that are at the hospice home.

How many desserts do they use daily?

If they measure it in terms of cookies, they use approximately 8 dozen cookies every day - 8 dozen cookies a day equal 480 cookies a week! (And that's why they've reached out to students in Aidyn's service organization for help.)

So, we set a goal to make as many cakes for them as we could throughout the year.

Glazed Cherry Breakfast Cake

Aidyn was in charge of picking the recipes, and this was a wonderful learning opportunity for him as well! (It's not often that a teenage boy gets THAT MUCH time in the kitchen baking with his Mama!)

When I bought the ingredients, I always bought two sets. We would get out two mixing bowls and set the recipe in between them. I would let Aidyn "do the driving" and tell me what ingredients to get out, what order to add them, how to mix things, etc.

We would donate the cake that Aidyn made, and we would keep the cake that I made. And Aidyn, of course, was learning how to follow a recipe and how to bake in the process!

Over the course of 2019, Aidyn was able to donate 7 cakes and he logged 21 volunteer hours for his service organization.

I've posted the recipes for all of these cakes on the blog (in case you're looking for some tasty cake recipes):

The first two cakes on this list are cakes that we have made before (in layer form), but the others on the list are sheet cake recipes that were new to us and we tried specifically for this project. (And, boy, were they winners!) For the two layer cake recipes, we followed a few steps for how to convert a layer cake to a sheet cake and they turned out perfect.

Mississippi Mud Cake

Baking for Local Charities

This is the perfect time of year to decide to get involved and bake for a charity that is local to you! You can talk to people at

nursing homes
children's homes
women's shelters
homeless shelters
churches
soup kitchens
food pantries

to see if they might be interested in baked good donations and what types of homemade food items they might accept.

Before you get started, make sure to contact the organization and ask if they can accept a homemade food donation. If so, then ask if there are any requirements (like how to package or label the items, or if there are any ingredients that you should not include, such as nuts).

Other Local Charities to Try

Keep in mind, some charitable organizations might not be able to accept food items to consume, but they might host baking competitions and/or bake sales as a fundraiser for their organization. If you might be interested in putting your skills to use in that way, make sure to check with local charities that are near and dear to your heart, such as:

hospitals
cancer centers
animal shelters or rescues
police departments
fire departments
schools

Charities That Accept Baked Goods as Donations

If you don't have a local charity that accepts homemade baked good donations, look into baking goods for service members:

Angel Bakers Team The Angel Bakers Team is a team of highly dedicated Soldiers’ Angels volunteers who support our service members by sending a one-time care package, monthly, of homemade goodies for our deployed military heroes.

Toasted Coconut Sour Cream Cake

Whether you're interested in learning some new recipes or expanding your baking skills, or just looking to make a difference by donating your time and your talents, I hope this has inspired you to put your talents to use!

Now you know some resources you might be able to donate some baked goods, so you're all set to bake some treats to donate this year!

Happy Baking!

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Harris Family Christmas Traditions

This year instead of writing a parody of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, I thought I'd write about our family traditions. Some have been around for ages, and some are newer ones that have developed over the past few years but are sure to stick around for years to come.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas Parodies

This is a Harris Family tradition that dates back to the days of yore (back to the 1900s as the boys like to say). These were originally created with good old fashioned pencil and paper while sitting at the kitchen bar on Christmas Eve night.

They DO take a little time to go over the highlights of the year, put them in some semblance of an order, AND make them rhyme. So, even though I didn't have the chance to pen a fresh one for you this year, I found a few scans of two original, hand-written ones from 1996 and 1997!

Seems like 1996 was a banner year, as Mama and Daddy apparently called the police on some suspicious looking neighborhood activity whilst wrapping presents on Christmas Eve night! Never a dull moment in the Harris household, I tell you!

The Legend of the Burn Barrel

If you were reading closely in the second parody above, you might have caught the second tradition: the burn barrel. This is something that we Harris Sisters have always joked about, especially at Christmastime. Have an entire living room full of crumpled wrapping paper, tissue paper, and bows? Never fear! Daddy will burn it in the burn barrel! Of course, we grew up in a different era when burning trash was not discouraged like it is now.

Over the years, we have moved the actual unwrapping Christmas presents to my house instead of Daddy's house. But we have never let that interfere with the legend of the burn barrel. The grandkids are all familiar with it. Instead of feeding it with wrapping paper as we did growing up, Daddy keeps a pile of kindling and logs outside just so that they can make a fire in it when we visit at Christmastime. The legend lives on! Here are a few photos of us around the burn barrel.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

If you look closely at the t-shirts we're wearing in the photo with Daddy above, you'll see that they say "Fun, Old-Fashioned HARRIS Family Christmas" and they feature the station wagon with the infamous giant Christmas Tree from the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie.

We watched this movie every year at Christmas growing up and we still love it to this day. Misty had these t-shirts custom made for us one year and they were a big hit.

Deanna and John have a set of the Moose mugs that are featured in the movie. Perfect for drinking egg nog:

And so do we (don't hog the nog, man!)

But we also identify with the next door neighbors in the movie, Todd and Margo.

And Daddy? Well, he wears his custom Griswold 00 Blackhawks jersey at Christmastime to celebrate! In this picture he's holding his absolute favorite gift: chocolate cherries. We wrap them like Mr. Shirley's L-Shaped Christmas gifts that he receives from multiple employees. (Who the heck even knows what those gifts even were?)

But nothing tops the year we planned an entire Christmas Vacation Themed party. That was a hoot!

Eat at a Mexican Restaurant

OK so this is a newer tradition that has sprouted up over the past few years, but we are running with it! It might be one that our children continue with their own families. My boys certainly ask about it every year, so it is firmly planted in their heads already!

Every year The Harris Sisters converge on our hometown of Roxboro, NC in the days after Christmas to visit with Daddy, see the Christmas decorations downtown, visit the small shops on Main Street, and start our official Harris Family Christmas celebration.

Harris Sister Misty's daughter, Emma, has a birthday on December 27. So, we have taken to going out to dinner at the local Mexican restaurant. We get to have a wonderful meal as a family and celebrate her birthday at the same time.

You might notice that we check in with you guys on Facebook in these days and post pictures of what we're doing. If it ever looks suspiciously like we've got a bar behind us in the photo, well, we do!

Feliz Navidad, Peeps!

Take a Group Family Photo

Even though some members of your family may have traveled a long way to visit, and even though not everyone may be able to stay for the same amount of time, we figured out a long time ago that there's no better time to take a family photo than when everyone is together for the holidays.

We usually choose to take our photos outside for the best lighting (and to avoid piles of presents, wrapping paper strewn about, etc., in the background). We will take them inside if there's rain or snow, but we find that with a group as large as ours, we can spread out more and just get an all-around better photo outside.

And we always take the photo with whomever was able to attend. No excuses of "so-and-so wasn't able to make it this year, so we're not taking the photo" or "I didn't know we were taking a photo, so I don't like what I'm wearing." Guess what? 10 or 20 years from now, even the most fashionable person in that photo will question his or her fashion choices/makeup/hairstyle, but everyone will be glad you were in that photo.

We use a digital camera set on a tripod to take the photo and we set it to automatically take 10 photos so that everyone who did come can be in the photo (no one is missing from the photo because they were taking it). If you have the camera, but not the tripod, you can buy one on Amazon for cheap!

And these photos make great gifts too! We usually collect the photos we take throughout the year and compile them into a calendar for Daddy as a Christmas present. If you get one great group shot, you could also frame it as a gift.

We try to make sure that if we don't get a group photo at Christmas, we get one in the fall when we visit each other. We shoot for at least one or two group photos a year. We take different combinations (whole group, Daddy with daughters, Daddy with grandkids, etc.). Here are some group shots we've taken over the years - you'll notice how our family has grown!