For my sister . . .

My too cute, adorable, sweet, happy niece! One day all of my stuff was out, and they came over for me to babysit them. Since I was already in the "zone," I did a very mini mini session of my cute niece! But even with a less than 10 minute session, baby and I got some cute ones for mommy . . . Enjoy Brittney, who happens to be my best commenter on this blog and one of my great supporters! Love ya!






Lizard tongue!!

Have a happy, silly, fun day!!! :)

Yep I'm a little biased . . .

I think this kid is the cutest EVER!

But what can I say? I'm a Mom! It's part of the job ;)

But seriously, how could not look at that sweet face and not want to squeeze those precious cheeks?

One of these days I'll actually get around to doing another session with my little guy. For now I just cling to the few seconds he'll hold still for me while I have my camera out. It just so happens that he was tired and he's actually sitting in my husband's lap --- that's the only way he didn't escape! Of course he still refuses to look at that big black camera . . . but you all should know me by now . . . most of the time I prefer that! It seems to truly capture the person.

I am so wishing to enlarge this one and put it on a yummy canvas print . . . find more space on my wall . . .

Have a great day everyone!

Tickle Monster :) --- Personal

Yep, this month has been crazy busy. I didn't realize that 2 family reunions would take so much out of me, and I didn't realize that I'd have so much fun that I didn't want to come back to reality. But yes I'm back to catch up with a lot of sessions. There are 2 fun weddings to blog soon, along with a bridal session, engagement session, and any other session that I realize got slipped through the cracks. Check back later this week for lots of great stuff!

Since I am still basking in the glow of spending so much time with family lately, I wanted to share a picture that I finally got of my family that I've been imagining for over a year now. I took one similar, and I wanted one of my family sooo badly. After taking some pictures of my husband's family. I decided to hand my camera over and give it a try. Thanks Teresa, my sis-in-law, for capturing this moment!

I seriously am the ultimate Tickle Monster Mom!!! . . . . . All the time!!! :)

I seriously prefer these kinds of pictures over traditional ones any day!!! . . . . but that's just me!

This picture just really captures my family! Any spare minute I have with my baby, I am chasing him around the house, wiggling my fingers, capturing him squeeling in delight, and tickling him until he can't stand it anymore! Nothing could give me any more pleasure than hearing those giggles and seeing that ear to ear grin. I've taken mental pictures of that moment many times. Those are some of my happiest times as a mom.

Thanks for letting me share! And thanks for being patient with me as I was taking time off to create some of my own memories with my family. I hope each of you are having a memorable summer and showing lots of love to those who are special in your life.

Jenny & Brandon's Wedding!

My friend Jenny is now married! (well ok, she's been married for over a month now, but I'm still excited!). So maybe some of you remember that VERY rainy day at the end of April? Seriously, it wasn't just sprinkling, it was POURING!!! I was getting very nervous for the pictures afterwards. I was thinking to myself, "It's a very good thing that we did groomals beforehand." And that was very true. However, we were very blessed because literally 5-10 minutes before they came out of the temple, it completely stopped raining! It really was a small miracle (big to me!) that day. But of course that day prompted me to get a "rain-coat" for my camera (which I had my bro-in-law get while we were in the temple). Now maybe I'm ready for any kind of weather. But I was so grateful that we were able to do pictures of everyone without lots of umbrellas and wet hair :) It was a very fun adventure!

Well here are some pictures of Brandon & Jenny!

As you might have noticed in the first picture, these two were way practiced on the "dip and kiss." Jenny trained him good :) And I absolutely love the expressions found on the right hand side of this picture (especially Grandpa taking a picture too!)

That's my funny friend Jenny and her cute personality!

I seriously love this family! I love this next one of Jenny and her brothers.

And they are VERY protective! :)

Ok, so my personal moment in this post . . . Jenny & I! Seriously I love this girl! She's the best! Our friendship started in 9th grade, as I was the "new girl" to the school. I feel like I'm a pretty good judge of people. And I was drawn to Jenny as my friend. I just sensed her goodness and happy spirit. We have had some great times . . . she was one of the few friends who would totally be ok with "imagining" our future husbands and giggling while we described how they'd be. We both were romantics together, and it's so fun to see who we now ended up with! I don't think we could have imagined how great our husbands are - 'cuz they're pretty amazing! I'm just so happy that I had the opportunity to still be Jenny's friend and have the opportunity to take her wedding pictures and see how happy she is with Brandon.

Ok, here we are together as friends!

Ok, now on to a couple favs of just Brandon & Jenny on their wedding day!

A little different edit:

It was an amazing experience being able to be there to see Brandon & Jenny seal their love for eternity. Brandon scored big! And also I am so happy for the awesome guy that Jenny got! I wish them all the happiness and love possible!

Brandon is a goof! But perfect for Jenny!

This was at the very end before they headed to the luncheon. Jenny looks great in that suitcoat!

Ok, now the night before for their reception, I was the "un-official" photographer. Their reception was incredible! It really was for being in a church cultural hall! Jenny had her aunt help out with lots of the details and it really was a beautiful reception! So I did take some shots, especially of some of the details! Let me share with you what they did:

Candy table! (I sort of wish I'd come early to get the full effect of this table . . .but these couple shots will have to do):

Ok, so I'm bragging for Jenny's aunt, family, friends, etc. or whoever made these: They had PAPER, yes paper, flowers! Jenny's aunt taught them how to make tissue-paper flowers, which they spent months beforehand making. I could not believe the detail that was involved with making these, and not to mention the quantity in which they had these at the reception!!! It saved lots of money, was totally gorgeous, and could be kept for many other occasions because they will never die (of course unless a two year old or something gets their hands on them ;)

Isn't that so cool?

And get this . . . they hung this real tree branch with those paper balls from the ceiling too! It turned out really cool!

And look at the decorating involved: they brought this cute picket fense, pillows, white bench, trees, pictures, and lamps to make the line look so cute. Of course I snagged a picture of the couple.

Jenny and her Dad! I have high respect for her dad too. He was always rooting Jenny as well as me on during our high school basketball games. He and his wife are so great at supporting their kids with all of their sports. They never miss a game! Like I said before, I love this family!

Mother of the Bride. Tender moment too.

I actually really liked this bouquet toss picture! It might be my favorite to date! Lots of action ;)

End with my favorite dancing pictures

Seriously it was so fun to be there and capture one of my best friend's wedding! She is so happy and of course that makes me happy too! Hope you enjoyed your sneak peek Jenny & Brandon!

And the Winner Is . . .

A big THANK-YOU to all of you who posted wonderfully nice comments on my contest post! It made my day (or week). It was so fun to hear from you all and even some people out there who I've never met. It's always nice to meet new friends.

Ok, so unless you're super anxious to look at the end of this to see if it's you or not, have fun reading my super creative way to pick a winner! Yes, I could have just put all of the names in a hat and picked one. BORING!!! I had to make it FUN for me! So with the genious help of my husband and son, we had a little fun on Saturday picking a winner! And yes, of course I documented it. At least the interesting parts.
Ok, so for your enjoyment, here it is:

Step 1, 2, & 3.My superly awesome husband who is a computer programmer, came up with a program to choose the contestants. It was a program which randomly picked people from a list. The first time we picked 12 people from the list (approx. 1/2 of the people), then we picked 6 from the 12, then 3 from the 6. There was the first boring, unforgiving part. But it was only fair to make it completely random, and most of you got many chances in the program to get picked. So I think it was fun for my husband to use his talent in my fun contest.

Step 4: Our 4 contestants were my son's awesome wind-up cars that he got for Christmas. But you might ask, why 4? Aren't there 3 contestants left? Well my husband came up with the 4th . . . the REDO Contestant! All 4 of these contestants were randomly assigned to the 4 cars (using the program).

Step 5: John winds up the cars all together, and Caleb gets to pick the winning car. But it can't just be the first one. No, it can't be that simple. He has to pick that car twice before it can be named the winner.

And yes, my son just had to pick the REDO contestant: TWICE!!!! (and just so you know the REDO contestant was a different car both times.)

Here's his mischievious smile that he started the contest from the very beginning again:

I thought this process would be quick, but no. Caleb wasn't sure what we wanted him to do once my husband wound up all the cars. We literally spent 5 minutes once, trying to convince him to get us a car. We of course couldn't show him how to do it, so it wasn't like we were favoring one contestant over the other. Eventually, he picked up a car. It was funny because I thought he'd tend to pick the same car or two each time, but every time it seemed as though he went for a different one.

After 2 Redos with different final contestants, he finally chose the winning car twice. He picked the car which I thought would be the least likely (due to the girly look of the car):

So the judge has chosen:

Drumrolls please . . . .

...

...

Thanks again everyone, and thanks for letting me share some of my fun contest pictures!

I am now starting to book for this spring. March is already looking quite busy with some pre-wedding stuff and a wedding. So if you are looking for pictures in the springtime, please call or email me soon!

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween everyone! This afternoon I took Caleb just outside of my house to do some pictures of him in his Pirate costume. Originally, I wanted to do a puppy dog costume because he knows how to bark, but after seeing the pictures that we got, it's a good thing I stuck to the cute pirate costume I found. Caleb was a good grumpy pirate. It wouldn't have been as cute as a grumpy puppy. I have this very first picture's success to thank my brother, Joshua, for helping me get him to smile because this is my one and only smiling picture I got out of my efforts. But pirates aren't always the happiest of people, so maybe Caleb was just keeping character ;)

These next two just make me laugh: He's just like his daddy, not too fond of photo sessions. It's like he's saying, "Do we really have to do this mom?" He is also exhausted as you can tell by the finger in the mouth. He is currently taking a nap now so he can be happy this evening, but by then my precious light will be gone! So this is just something that he had to do.





I really like this next one!

Any ways, have a fun safe Halloween evening! Don't eat too much candy! What did you or your kids dress up as for Halloween??? Make sure to get pictures ;)

Patriotic!

PATRIOTIC:
(You can vote by leaving me a comment)

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