Loving Light - My Holiday Card Photos

Since I didn't do Holiday Sessions this year I got to focus on my own family photos for our card.  And by that I mean spent slightly more than 10 minutes on them this year.  I think I spent 30 minutes taking these.  That's about all my kiddos could handle.  Really they are pretty awful about taking pictures right now.

When you first start learning about the best lighting to take pictures in photographers will tell over and over to "find the shade" and "avoid the sun".  But once you start learning a little more about lighting you realize that some of the most fabulous photos are actually soaked in dreamy sunlight.  I am obsessed with that dreamy sunlight lately, in other words, backlighting.  It's not easy to master and I am still learning it with practice and patience.  So this year I rounded up the gang complete with my almost teenage niece and headed out to an empty field in our neighborhood just before sunset to get these "dreamy" images.  And I love how they turned out. 

Celia was probably the most cooperative of the bunch, or rather least uncooperative I should say.  She posed for me for a good 5 minutes then was so done.

This guy on the other hand, not so much.  Lucky for me I'm not a fan of overly posed photos.

Is that light not FABULOUS? 

I've been sort of taking a break from my photography lately, but these images have really sparked my interest again.

Brunch with Santa

We had our brunch with Santa at Redstone this past weekend.  We love this event.  There are tons of things for the kids to do like making crafts...

Balloon animals...

train rides...

Seriously, do these bars look natural on him?   Really, he is being quite the little mess lately...


and of course Santa.  This Santa is so good.  We love him.  Celia hasn't been scared of him for a couple of years now.  She tells him she wants "My Little Ponies" a total shift from the Barbies she's been telling me for the last month that she was going to ask him for, great.  Santa has some exchanging to do.

Kye was still not sure what to think of this big red dude and looked a little like he was going to pass out.  In fact, Santa had to remind him to "breathe".

(Isn't it cute how they both have their hands in their pockets?)



But he managed to hold it together and pose for a picture, sort of.

Stills looks a bit in shock, but I'll take what I can get.



A Trip Back in Time

I'm totally in the middle of editing my Christmas card pictures, but I'm taking a break to post pics on here from our trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival.  We've never been before and I was planning on taking the kids when they were a little older, but when I renewed my zoo membership this month they gave me 4 free tickets to the festival so I thought we would try it out.  We only needed 2 tickets so we invited a few friends along.  Of course it being in Texas and all I think this is supposed to be the biggest Renaissance Festival in the country.  It was huge and pretty cool.  Adults and kids both agreed we had a good time.

Since we're not taking family photos this year maybe I could use this one for my Christmas card?  :)  It would save me a ton of time.  Yeah, right, like I'm going to do something easy like that. 

This guy was at the entrance, but there we're so many people dressed in major costumes.  You could tip them to take a picture with them.  Seriously, this guy was tame compared to some.  I got tons of ideas for future Halloween costumes.  These people take this stuff seriously.

Here's one of my absolute favorites of the day.  This is what I want to be next year for Halloween...

There was so much to see.  We didn't even have time to make it back to the children's part.

Side note:  I do realize that Celia is in this crazy dress in half my blog posts.  You would think she doesn't have a closet overflowing with super cute clothes, but she does.  She just loves this dress and wears it all the time.  I have to hide it from her so she will wear her other clothes.  One of these days I'm going to accidentally misplace it permanently. 

ok, back to the festival...

One of the highlights of the trip was this theater performance where our neighbor got pulled up on the stage to be what turned to be a main character in their show.  He was a really good sport and the kids were cracking up, well until he was up there a little too long for his daughter's taste.  She started getting sad at the end thinking they were going to keep her daddy.

The parade went on forever.  The costumes were awesome.  Some I seriously can't show on here because they were a little too skimpy on the material.

Watching the jousting...  I was so impressed with this stadium.  I could do some really cool photo sessions at this place.  Too bad it's not closer to Houston.

Our fairies.

And this is what a ridiculously tired little boy looks like past his naptime right after his daddy stole a bite of his pretzel.  Time to go home maybe?

We left shortly after I took this picture.  It was a long walk through the festival way in the back of the parking lot to our car each of us carrying a tired child.  But it was worth it.

Halloween Part 3 - Trick or Treat

One last Halloween post... 

As usual our neighborhood didn't disappoint this Halloween.  Our neighbors had all the families over for a pre trick-or-treat party where everyone could hand out their treats, hang out and eat dinner before the actual candy madness begins. 

Tons of cute little goblins were there...

The whole crew...

One little "Bad Guy" who wouldn't wear his mask, big shock there...

And you'll notice he's in full character in those pics...stealing a crown from a princess (he thought he was being so stealth and didn't realize I was taking his picture)...and bleeding (notice his eye) in the other pics from a wound inflicted while hiding out in the bushes, no joke.  He so fit his costume.

He here he is after I told him it was time to go get some candy...

I missed getting many shots of them actually trick-or-treating because for some reason I got stuck chasing both of them by myself while my umm husband sat back at the neighbors' drinking beer I mean handing out candy. ;)  I did manage to get this shot of my cool neighbor as she realizes she has nearly the entire neighborhood of children ringing her bell.  Then being the super cool neighbor she is she invited the whole lot in to the see her salt water aquarium, brave woman.

Halloween Part 2 - The Amazing Sparkle Spider-Girl vs The Bad Guy

Can't forget to post my little comic I did this year.  If I had to do a superhero costume then I also had to do a little photoshop magic and turn the pics into a comic strip.  Always looking for new challenges in photoshop and this was not easy.  But seriously it's cute, right? :)

Halloween Part 1: Costumes

Boy have I been bad about blogging lately.  I blame it on my house and all the projects I have been doing in it lately.  But I have been meaning to share these Halloween costume pics for a while.  So the story behind the costumes is this... Celia has chosen her costume for the last 3 years now.  And this year she kept telling me she wanted to be spider-man of all things.  I kept waiting on her to change her mind.  All the creative bones in my body just cringed considering every kid and their dog (literally) dresses as a superhero for Halloween with Spider-man probably being the most popular.  I tried to get her to change her mind with no success.  So instead I set out to make her one unique "Sparkle Spider-Girl" costume.  And you know I don't do "store bought" costumes.  I went to work creating a costume with the most glitter and sequins I could fit on it without going overboard.  I think it turned out pretty cute....

Then there was her brother who I knew didn't care what he was and was probably going to throw off anything I put on him anyway.  What better costume for Kye then "A Bad Guy".  So he was the bad guy to his sister's superhero and man did that costume fit him.  He LOVED being the bad guy.  The first time I put these gloves on him he wore them for 24 hours straight even sleeping in them.  How cute is my little thief aka "The Bad Guy"?

While my mom was in town I took them out for a little photo shoot.  This was the first time I have ever taken them to take pictures where they were having so much fun they didn't want to leave.  Seriously, all I had to do was tell them to act like they were fighting and running from each other and they were in heaven.  Kye could have acted that scene out all day long. 

It only took me a few minutes to get all the pictures I needed.  If only Christmas card pictures could go this easy.

Sassy Celia

When I picked Celia up from school earlier this week I was greeted by her "twin".  They had been doing life size self portraits.  It's a good thing she wore her boots that day.  It just wouldn't be Celia without her cowgirl boots.  She always picks out her own outfits and much of the time I wonder about her fashion choices.  This day was particularly bad.  She originally had on pink shorty shorts with the tank and the boots, seriously.  I persuaded her to change into pants.  But this is Celia... looking pretty sassy here with her pink hair.

a Hypothesis

I have been taking a break from my art lately to do some other things so I don't have any of my pictures to put on here.  But I thought I would share one of Celia's.  We were on our way to school this morning when she started explaining to Kye that there had been dinosaurs on the land before humans got here ("real live ones") and that now they had all died and were extinct.  She asked me then what had killed the dinosaurs.  Of course I told her no one knew for sure and that there were several theories.  But most importantly I asked her what she thought might have happened to them.  I believe it's incredibly important to make sure my kids have inquisitive minds, that they never stop asking questions and coming up with their own ideas on things.  Celia's answer?  She thought a giant volcano might have killed them all.  I thought that was a great "hypothesis".  I'm thinking it could have come from a discussion she and I had about the city of Pompeii a few weeks ago along with all the science shows she watches with Mark.  I just LOVE that she's thinking.  And this was the best part... she all the sudden got so excited and said I have a surprise I'm going to make for you Momma.  I had forgotten about it and when I picked her up from school she asked if I was excited about my surprise and I said of course.  This was my surprise...

This was her artistic interpretation of her dinosaur hypothesis.  So cool.  Oh and the hearts by her name according to her is "just her thing" lately.

"Those who know how to think need no teachers"

- Mahatma Gandhi

summer at the Rippy Ranch

A few more from this summer at Nanny and Poppa's in Oklahoma.  I was really lazy this year and didn't take many pictures.  I promise to be better next time.

oklahoma...

Just a few of my favs from this summer in Oklahoma.  I am behind as always in editing.  These are from June.