our Christmas

This Christmas was a little less Merry than years past unfortunately.  The plan as usual was for us to head first to OKC to visit with Mark's mom and family for a few days and then on to Eufaula to visit with my family for a few days.  What is with my holiday plans derailing this year??  Well, we got some very sad news right before Christmas.  Mark's dad was diagnosed with a very aggressive and terminal cancer.  It looked like he may have just days so Mark got the next flight out to AZ.  That left me with the kids and a long trip to OK without Daddy to celebrate Christmas with us.  So the kids and I changed our plans and went to visit Nanny and Poppa in Eufaula first and spent most of our time there with the exception of  Christmas day when we made the 2 hour drive to OKC to spend some time with Mark's mom and her family.  It wasn't exactly the same without Daddy.  He is back now and his dad is doing as well as can be expected which is not good I'm afraid.  We all were so lucky that we went out to visit him for Thanksgiving and had a lovely visit not knowing that he was even sick.  We have been and continue thinking about Gramps and sending lots of love out to Phoenix.

On a happier note the kids did enjoy their Christmas.  Here they are throwing out "reindeer food" (aka oatmeal with glitter) on Christmas Eve.  Notice the coats and hats, it was freezing in OK, actually below freezing much of the time, brrrr.

And Lucky for us Santa could not fit their presents in his sleigh with the rest of the kids' toys so he needed to drop them off at our house a few days early which let Daddy enjoy their surprise before he left for AZ.  All Celia has been asking for is a bike, specifically a "Barbie" bike.  Honestly, she hardly ever plays with her Barbies so I'm not sure why she wanted a Barbie bike, but that was her request and Santa very nicely obliged.  Celia also told Santa that her little brother needed a bike as well.  Poor Kye has been stuck with her hand-me-downs so Santa brought him his very own boy bike....

They both LOVE their new bikes.  I thought Celia would have a hard time riding hers.  But she is doing so well on it.  And Kye can't quite reach the petals on his.  But he has got the hang of "walking" it with his feet.  He is so happy to have a bike of his own.


And it seems Santa had room in his sleigh after all for one more ride-on for the kids.  On Christmas morning this monstrosity was under the tree at my parents' house.

They LOVE it as well.  Celia is a major horse nut anyway and had to put this huge thing beside her bed that night so it could sleep with her.  She has given it 3 different names and I think she finally settled on "Spirit".  And, yes, she's riding with a feather boa.  Shouldn't every girl ride her horse with a feather boa?  Check out what's on the TV.  My dad watches all those old westerns.  Celia is racing the horses on there.

I predicted there would be lots of fights over it and there have been.  But I also thought Kye might have trouble riding it since it's for age 3 and over.  I was wrong.

Here he is introducing himself... oh and check out his cap.  I can't get Kye to leave a hat on.  But this one?  He wouldn't take it off.  Why??  Because it's a John Deere hat like the one his Poppa has and anything Poppa has Kye wants too.  In fact, this was a pretty much a John Deere Christmas for Kye which is fine by him.  I think my dad bought every toy tractor he could find.  Kye loves them and he calls them all "Poppa".  Like if he drops one "Oh, no, Poppa" etc.  He's obsessed.

Back to the horse.  Why did I think he would have trouble riding it??  Check him out...

Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately for me) there was no way I could fit "Spirit" in my car with all the other presents we had to take home to Houston so my parents are boarding her until they can bring her down.  Until then I will be looking for a place to put her in my house.  Thanks Nanny and Poppa??

my Holiday Card

I guess I lied when I said the last post was my final post on holiday cards because I have one more, MY holiday card "session".  I had this really awesome photo shoot planned for my holiday card pics.  And just about everything that could go wrong did so that did not happen.  I even had a really cool plan B and plan C.  But every time I tried to do it something went wrong.  Like it was super hot, or super cold or Celia chopped off all her hair.  You get the idea.  Well I finally threw my hands up and decided to use old pictures of the kids.  But when I went to do it.  I just couldn't.  So I decided to salvage the pics from my plan B session.  This was the session that was SUPER hot.  It was ridiculously humid this November day that we took these.  So humid we had to have fans going to even get ready we were all sweating so much.  And the place I picked to do them was in the woods and wet and swarming with mosquitoes.  That's Houston for you.  My mom was only in town for a few days and I wanted her to get one of the 4 of us so we had to do it this day.  Kye was sick.  Celia had just gotten over this horrible eye infection that I was sure was going to show in her pictures.  Anyway, we spent literally about 10 minutes taking these because everyone was miserable and I was sure after we were done that I got ZERO usable shots.  But I went back and looked at them and with some, well lots in some cases, photoshop magic I got this card...

I designed the card in photoshop because I could not find anything online that even sort of went with our colors.  So I have to show the before picture of the four of us to show you how much photoshop "magic" went into making it usable on our card.

Here's the straight out of camera shot...

Seriously... I LOVE photoshop.

And the shoot really wasn't a total bust.  Here is one of favs of Celia.  This is a little tribute to her former long golden locks of hair...

and a few of Kye who is normally my smiley one, but was so not interested this day.  By the way, one other secret...  The cute picture of him smiling in the card?  That was taken about 3 weeks later in my backyard because I wanted one of him smiling to add.

Happy Holidays All!

the Final Holiday Card Session

Can you handle one last holiday card session?  The lovely Dillard girls were so easy to work with.  I am thinking sisters may be the easiest subjects to photograph so far.

just beautiful...

I had so much fun.  Thanks to all my families for letting me be a part of your holiday!

more Holiday Card Sessions

It may be hard to believe but all the holiday card photo sessions I took were at the same location.  Even my own photo shoot was taken not 50 yards from where I took all these family photos.  But can you tell I was going for a different look with each of these?  I love the tall grass in this set of photos.  And I am always telling Brandy how ridiculously photogenic her children are.  A photographers dream.

Mom with her girls...

the awesome threesome..

Q: what do all these cards have in common?

A:  Me!

All the photos in these cards were taken by me with the exception of the 2 that I am in of course.  I finally received the last of my family session cards so I can show you all the photos I did now.  I certainly didn't plan on doing Christmas card session this year and it was a lot of work.  But also a ton of fun and so rewarding to see your own "artwork" admired and displayed by someone else.  Very cool. 

Oh, and I will give a shout out to my friend Ally who did the design for the card on the bottom right.  Check out her Little Bears Designs site for some great custom cards.

on the Eighth Day of Christmas...

Celia's class had their little Winter Program yesterday.  The plan was for Mark to take off work, leave Kye with a neighbor and that way Mark and I could give Celia our undivided attention and enjoy her program without having to chase Kye around.  Not to mention it's nearly impossible for me to work both a video camera and my regular camera on my own.  Of course, like most of my holiday plans this year, that didn't quite work out.  Kye got a horrible ear infection so Mark did take off work, but he stayed home to watch Kye while I went to see Celia and try to both film and photograph her in the program. 

Here is my little Maid-A-Milking.  I love that she got the "green" scarf which totally matches her little holiday outfit.  Actually I suppose it's not technically a holiday outfit if it was just something she already had in her closet that I stuck a peel off applique of a tree on.  It worked though and she got lots of compliments on it.  It's hard to see in the pics, but her shirt is covered in pink sequins.  I had to go to 2 different Targets to get it in her size just because I thought it would look cute for a picture at some point.  Don't you love Houston weather?  You can't wear a sleeveless tank in mid December just anywhere.

Forgive the bad photos.  It was quite a challenge to take pictures in a classroom overflowing with parents/grandparents etc. not to mention the typical horrible overhead lighting.

Check out the unhappy little maid here in the line up.  Frowning...

A full-on pout...

I found out later from her teacher that her little partner (aka her bff Julia) had not showed up yet and she did not like being paired with anyone else.  Finally Julia showed...

Smiles now.

They did a great job with the 12 days of Christmas and I even managed to get most of it with the video camera and then these still photos as well.  I even handed my camera over to the school director to get a shot of me with Celia.  Of course she couldn't be bothered to put down the cheese crackers.  Guess she worked up an appetite skipping around the room.

It's rare I'm in the photos because I hardly ever trust my "big" camera with someone else.  First of all it's super heavy and most people aren't expecting that.  Then it usually takes a few minutes for me to explain you just simply push the button on the front of it to take a picture.  Not to mention I would have a heart attack if anyone broke it.  And Mark would have a heart attack when he got the bill to replace it.  Anyway, I like that I did it so my kids can see that I was in fact there all the time. 

Oh, and I can't leave this one out.  This is what my little guy was doing during Celia's performance.

Poor guy.  He was in so much pain yesterday that I had to take him to the minor emergency because I couldn't get in to see his regular doctor soon enough.  You know something is very wrong with Kye when he barely lifts his head off the couch all day.  He's back to his usual self today though.  Which means I have cleaning to do...

the First Holiday Card Session

 I have been waiting patiently to post more pics from the holiday card photo shoots I did for some of my neighbors.  I finally got one of their cards today so I get to post pictures from the Youngs.  It's fitting that they be the first because they were the first shoot of the day.  So excited to show everyone how they turned out...

Mom with her cuties...

And of course we can't leave dad out...

Mackenzie was an AWESOME model for me.

And little Max, awww, this has to be one of my all time favorites shots...

I love it in black and white as well so I thought I would show it off both ways.

I promise to show off the other families once I get their cards.  Oh, and I even got my cards designed and printed.  Wahoo!  They arrived today and I think they actually don't look awful after all the work I did trying to get the photos for them.  I will say I had to do some major photoshop magic to get one of the photos.  More to come on that later.  For now I hope you enjoyed this session.  I know I did.

 

the New "Do"

Mark got off work early Friday so I took advantage and left the kids with him while I ran out to do some Christmas shopping.  This is what I came home to...

While Daddy was watching football with a friend in the backyard Celia was inside giving herself a haircut with her little scissors.  When asked why she did it her reply was "It was in my eyes".  So I asked why not ask Daddy for a barrette to which she replied "he was too busy".  I have to take part of the blame though.  I let her have those scissors.  I thought I could trust her with them.  Tragically I was wrong.  At least it was only her hair and she didn't actually hurt herself.  This was the result...

These pictures really don't so it justice since it's hard to see but she even cut some chunks that are now about an inch long on the top.  You can see from the bottom picture how it's pretty thin on the top of her head.  Luckily she missed one pretty big piece of her bangs so we can disguise it with a clip for the most part. 

I was pretty upset about the hair honestly.  Especially since I was finally going to get to take my Christmas card pictures the next morning.  Yes, I still have not taken them.  This will be the third failed attempt.  First it was ridiculously hot, then freezing cold.  I never could find the perfect time.  I had this really awesome shoot planned in my head.  I promise it would have rocked, but after this hair incident I finally threw in the towel on the whole idea.  I have decided it was just not meant to be this year.  So I am just going to use pictures I already have.  At least I have lots to choose from.

So once I got over my whole Christmas card picture plan I could laugh a little about it all.  I mean she was just being logical.  She wanted her hair out of her eyes.  And I have been considering cutting her hair shorter lately anyway.  Not as short as she cut it, but in some cute little bob.  So I took her to a real hairdresser this morning and asked her what she could do with it.  She couldn't completely disguise it.  But it actually looks pretty cute now if you can hide a few of the really short pieces with barrettes.  Here's the new "do"...

She seems to like it and lucky for all of us her hair grows super fast.  In 6 months it should be close to normal.  The scissors are now keeping my knives company.  Remember the knives Kye tried to get into a few blog posts back?  I think I will try to be a little better about keeping our sharp things away from my children.  Never a dull moment... (ha, no pun intended :)

some Gorgeous Girls

I spent this past Saturday photographing some of my favorite neighborhood families.  I had a blast and can't wait to see all the finished photos.  I wanted to do a tiny sneak peek on here since I'm sure they are curious as to how they turned out.  I could have included the boys too and titled this post "gorgeous girls and boys".  Believe me they are quite handsome as well.  But gorgeous girls flowed better and I had to pick only a few to show on here for fear of spoiling a Christmas card plus I really only had time to edit a few.  I had to stop somewhere.  I took them all at the same location.  But I think they all have a little different look to them.  That's what I was going for and it's funny because each of the families were dressed to match the "look" I wanted for them.  So here's how they turned out:

My first gorgeous girl of the day...

Then a couple of gorgeous sisters...

Last but not least more gorgeousness from these sisters...

In case anyone is curious I believe most of the clothing was either from Crewcuts or The Childrens Place.  Aren't they all so cute?  I hear Crewcuts has just opened a store at our big outlet mall here in Houston.  That could be a problem for me since I have a little addiction to their clothes.  You will most likely be seeing my kids sporting some Crewcuts for our Christmas photos which I am hopefully going to take tomorrow.  Come on cloudy day, crossing my fingers.  Fingers which will be hurting after editing all the photos I got for these guys plus my own.  Ouch.

free cards and papers for my photographer and digital crafter friends...

http://www.mcpactions.com/blog/2010/11/15/free-photo-card-paper-pack/

the Test Shoot

I love taking pictures.  It's no secret.  I would love to do it for other people one day, but honestly I just don't have the time I need to really devote to the "art" of photography and running a real business so I dabble in it for now.  And sometimes I do some pictures for people by very special request.  Well my neighbors have persuaded me to take Christmas card pictures for them this year since they have missed the opportunity to use some of the other local photogs around here.  I am a total push over so I agreed to do it.  Plus, I really love this stuff.  I'm just weird like that.  So I am doing 4 different families' pictures next weekend.  Crossing my fingers they turn out good.  But of course I couldn't offer to do pictures for people without doing a little test run with my own kiddos.  So I picked out some cute outfits for the little stinkers after school yesterday and loaded them in the car with bribes of candy and spent twenty minutes chasing Kye while getting a few pictures that were useful.  I am definitely going to need at least one other adult to help me take my own card pics this year.  I was exhausted after the twenty minutes keeping up with that wild child and trying to get some shots.  I honestly felt like I had just did some old Jane Fonda aerobics.  Here's the result...

a New Neighbor...

Sometimes I get the itch to photograph someone besides my own children.  Well a month ago I decided I needed a newborn to photograph.  Now in my neighborhood newborns are like a dime a dozen.  Seriously we have one all the time.  So when I got the itch I simply asked my neighbor Roxanne who was due to deliver her third child very soon.  She so graciously agreed to let me practice on her newest addition which at the time we did not know if it was a girl or a boy.  Well, let me introduce you to my newest neighbor...

Super cute isn't he??

Since he was born right before Halloween I couldn't resist...

He was such a good baby.  Loved the heater I brought for him.  Never cried.  Super sweetie...

Roxanne wanted to me to get this picture before he got here...

and then this one after...

now there are...

and a few with mom who happens to look fabulous 5 days after having a baby...

Thanks Roxanne for letting me practice on your beautiful family.