I would like to introduce you to my family

by Fiddledeedee on March 7, 2011

After nearly 5 years of blogging, I’ve never posted pictures that show the sweet faces of my family. For many reasons. We’ve now come to a point that we feel comfortable doing this using a video slide show type of media.

I put this video together MYSELF using a video format called Animoto (they are now an affiliate). You can upload your own pictures, (and movie clips), add text, choose your music (or upload your own, pick your theme, and the program puts everything together for you. And no one had to die needlessly because my head did not explode from ALL THE TECHNICAL.

There is a free version, which allows you to put together a 30 second video. But we all know that brevity is not my gift, so I did upgrade. I will be using this format more often in blog posts to bring certain stories to life.

Anyhoo, I’m awfully excited to be able to share this blessing known as my family with you. And I did cry tears all over my keyboard as I watched my children grow before my eyes.

{ 59 comments }

1 kelli @living in grace March 7, 2011 at 2:35 am: I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!
2 chris March 7, 2011 at 4:26 am: Thank you very much for sharing that. Absolutely Smashing!
3 Tanya March 7, 2011 at 5:09 am: Beautiful! Thanks for sharing!!
4 Melissa K March 7, 2011 at 5:30 am: Thank you for allowing us a peak into your family’s life. Your children are a lovely combination of you and your husband!!
5 Karen March 7, 2011 at 6:28 am: BRAVO!! Loved it!
6 Bethany March 7, 2011 at 6:45 am: That was very sweet! I was most interested in what Jensen looked like after reading all his escapades.
7 Debi March 7, 2011 at 6:49 am: Thanks for allowing us another insight to your world. You have a beautiful family. And love MMMMBop, by Hanson.
8 Llama Momma March 7, 2011 at 6:55 am: What a beautiful family!! Stunning! Thank you for sharing.
9 Jenny March 7, 2011 at 6:59 am: Wonderful! I loved seeing it!
10 Devyn March 7, 2011 at 7:11 am: Your family is so beautiful!!!!! Wow!

And by the way, choosing “Mmmbop”? The song that defines my childhood and has been stuck in my head alllllll weekend?

You have NO idea how many points you have earned with me.
11 Connie March 7, 2011 at 7:20 am: Beautiful family! Thanks for the video!
12 Dawn March 7, 2011 at 7:45 am: Deedee,
Thanks for sharing. It was so much fun to see what everyone looks like:) What a beautiful family.
Love, love, love it!
13 Kimberly Sheppard March 7, 2011 at 7:45 am: You have such a BEAUTIFUL family! Thank you for sharing! I so enjoy reading your blog!
Kim in Alabama
14 Joanie March 7, 2011 at 8:05 am: Excellent! Impressive family and you did a great job on the presentation. May God continue to bless you all as your years increase!
15 penni March 7, 2011 at 8:18 am: Wow, I want to do one of those now! That is just beautiful! Your kids are gorgeous and so are you and Fiddledaddy!! Just a beautiful family! Thanks for sharing!
16 Lori M. March 7, 2011 at 8:23 am: Lovely, just lovely! Thank you for sharing, DeeDee! (Now to get rid of this earworm…)
17 kim March 7, 2011 at 8:25 am: ♥♥♥ it! thanks for allowing us a glimpse of your beautiful family!
18 Lynn Maire March 7, 2011 at 8:28 am: WOW! I’m so impressed with you ability to put this together and with your family. All – beautiful.
19 Kay March 7, 2011 at 8:30 am: Loved meeting kids. You have such a beautiful family! : ) And I loved that EPCOT pic thrown in there..how appropriate to add the Happiest Place on Earth. Love it! : )
20 Jenna March 7, 2011 at 8:47 am: B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L Family.
21 Karen March 7, 2011 at 9:05 am: DeeDee, you did such a great job with that!!! It was so sweet to see how much the kids have grown over the years. You have such a beautiful, happy family!
22 Stephanie March 7, 2011 at 9:11 am: Lovely! So wonderful to have faces to put with the stories you’ve shared over the years! Loved the slideshow!
23 Wendy Darling March 7, 2011 at 9:18 am: That was so COOL!!! Thank you for sharing that with us. I am definitely going to have to check into doing one as well. God has blessed y’all with a precious family.
24 Kayla March 7, 2011 at 9:25 am: I am going to have to check out Animoto. Thanks for sharing as I am one of those strange people who love to look at photos. I don’t even need to know the people in them! You did a wonderful job. Now, I just have to scan my hick-a-billion pictures and I will be all set.
You have a beautiful family! (The picture of Cailey with the flower in her hair? I actually said awww out loud. And I am home alone.)
25 Julie March 7, 2011 at 10:00 am: You have an ADORABLE family!
26 Valerie at Home March 7, 2011 at 10:15 am: Awesome job on the slideshow and such a cute family! I can see the attraction for E and K
27 Dawn W March 7, 2011 at 10:16 am: So cool to finally see the whole gang after feeling like I know them through your words. Gorgeous family!

I appreciate the info about Animoto, too. I have some short video/picture clips that I want to do for my son’s graduation party so this may do the trick!
28 joan jones March 7, 2011 at 10:22 am: Thoroughly enjoyed meeting your children, and I do want to see more of you and Tom in the future.
29 Elle March 7, 2011 at 11:10 am: What an honor! Add my gratitude to the voices above.

My husband is still in the “show no faces” mode. Maybe after I’ve blogged five years he’ll allow it.
30 Sturgmom March 7, 2011 at 11:19 am: Absolutely gorgeous!!

I can imagine that you did cry- I do every time I go back through iPhoto. But that also may have something to do with the overwhelming task of sifting through thousands of photos, knowing I should do SOMETHING with them, but being too overwhelmed to start.
31 Lisa Smith @stretchmarkmama March 7, 2011 at 11:26 am: Yaaaaaaaaay! So sweet!
32 Marsha March 7, 2011 at 11:28 am: So precious. It made me cry watching your kids grow up … and I can’t believe I haven’t even met them!! It has been way to long since we have seen each other, my friend.

Loved seeing your family. Thanks so much for posting.

Love and misses….
33 jen March 7, 2011 at 11:55 am: Thank you DeeDee. Beautiful. Tears. I love looking back at the photo albums, amazing how much I forget.
34 Tater Mama March 7, 2011 at 12:01 pm: Your family is as beautiful as I thought they’d be! That was a great video!
35 Brooke March 7, 2011 at 12:53 pm: That was FUN! As I watched the pictures, the stories you’ve told over the years got faces which adds even more personality to them!!! What a delightful family you have.

I do have to say that your “hiding of the faces” over the years has been creative and amusing.

The slide show was fantastic! It looked like a pro did it! Are you sure you didn’t put even one little coin in “the jar”? I will be going there to check it out! Thanks for sharing all the coolest sites with us!
36 Judy in Mi March 7, 2011 at 1:52 pm: Can’t wait to see it when I have something better than phone. In line at Soarin now!
37 rrmama March 7, 2011 at 4:52 pm: Beautiful family! Thank you for sharing your pictures.
38 Inna March 7, 2011 at 5:31 pm: What a beautiful family!
39 Destiny March 7, 2011 at 6:21 pm: Sweet, indeed!

So sweet — excuse me while I blow my nose — I’m all choked up!
40 k&c's mom March 7, 2011 at 6:24 pm: Oh, Happy Day! What a beautiful family. Yours was one of the first blogs I started reading, and I’m so glad to finally get a visual of your sweet kids. Thanks: this was a gift.
41 Angie March 7, 2011 at 6:27 pm: You have a beautiful family! Your children are lovely and a blend of both you and your husband. Thanks for sharing the photos…
42 Kelly March 7, 2011 at 6:35 pm: How awesome! It was like meeting a pen pal for the first time.
43 Jana March 7, 2011 at 8:29 pm: You have a beautiful family! Thank you for sharing!
Blessings
44 Katrina @ Callapidder Days March 7, 2011 at 8:30 pm: Awesome — loved this and loved meeting your beautiful family!
45 Marie March 7, 2011 at 9:18 pm: Thank you so much! I smiled the whole way through!
46 Kate March 7, 2011 at 10:21 pm: How cool is that! Thanks for sharing your beautiful family with us.
47 Kat March 7, 2011 at 10:45 pm: How cool! Loved it!

Hugs,
Kat
48 JennyT March 7, 2011 at 11:10 pm: Way to go, DeeDee! We’ll just have to start calling you “Techno-Babe!” Loved putting faces with the stories you’ve told about your family. May God bless and keep you. Thanks for sharing.
49 amanda March 7, 2011 at 11:21 pm: So, is that the actor husband we can’t know about? HAHA
50 Joanna March 8, 2011 at 2:22 am: Aww! Nice looking family!! Loved it.

I just hope I don’t have that song stuck in my head. I can’t find my wooden mallet.
51 LoraLynn March 8, 2011 at 10:39 am: So lovely to meet all of your people. You’re all beautiful.
52 Gretchen March 8, 2011 at 10:51 am: What a GORGEOUS family! So happy to get to see them all.
53 Lisa March 8, 2011 at 2:46 pm: That made my day! I can’t tell you how nice it was to meet your family, and the pics are awesome. The video…I am so proud, and I believe I might give it a shot! My problem is most of the young years for my kids are actually in pictures (you know, those pieces of paper with images on them.) The thought of going through them to find great shots for a video sounds like all sorts of memory lane fun, but scanning them into the computer…yawn. Maybe I can finagle one of my girls to do that part
Thanks for sharing!
54 Rhonda March 8, 2011 at 7:37 pm: So very happy to meet all of you. Your kids are just adorable! I just had to tell you, as I clicked on your video and heard MmmBop, my son (he’s 12) immediately ran over to check out what I was doing. My daughters were 12 and 14 when he was born and BIG Hanson fans. His first word was, yes, mmmbop.
About a year ago my daughters dug out their old Hanson CD’s just for fun, and Jimmy fell in love Hanson. It’s all I hear, all over AGAIN! Apparently they have made some new music recently, and they have been resurrected in my house. What goes around, comes around.
55 Shannon Smith March 8, 2011 at 9:37 pm: I am SO excited to see this post! After years of reading your blog, I finally get to see pictures!!!! WOOHOOO!!! And I must admit, I cried watching it. (My kids know me well, I guess. They just said, “Oh, Mommy are you crying AGAIN???” and went back to torturing each other).

Thank you for the beautiful pictures. You have a gorgeous family, and I am so happy to finally put faces with their names – much better than my mental pictures.

This made my day!

I will miss the stocking head pics, though… just a little.
56 Kim March 9, 2011 at 8:00 am: Loved “meeting” your family Emme looks so much like you! And Cailey favors you as well. But Jensen. Well Jensen is the spitting image of his daddy You have a beautiful family!
57 Lori A. March 9, 2011 at 8:49 am: Beautiful family…thanks for sharing!
58 Steve Cauble March 9, 2011 at 10:42 am: DeeDee: Amazing job and unbelievable photos! The kids are so grown up! You and FiddleDaddy look ageless–I’m jealous! You have a beautiful family–so proud of and for you. Blessings
59 Teresa March 10, 2011 at 6:49 pm: Thanks for putting faces to all the names I’ve been reading about all these years. You and your family are absolutely gorgeous!! And thank you again for your DW wisdom. Looking forward to our trip to Florida! Come see us if you’re ever in Austin!