{Scenic} An end of the year Adventure

One of the things you probably don't know about me, unless we've been friends for a while, is that most of my friends growing up were guys. Still to this day one of my best friends is a guy, who isn't my husband (and yes he's aware, and okay with that). We've actually been friends since kindergarten, about 23 years now. This past week we went on a little end of the year adventure, I took some shots, he took some shots (both with different equipment).  I came home with a bag of 'goose & duck' to learn how to cook and a few images to add to my collection & expanding portfolio.

Probably my favorite one from the day. 

 

{Sneak Peek} My Family - holiday portraits

One of the most difficult jobs I get each & every year is taking our family portraits. It's not that I couldn't give that job to someone else and I'm sure eventually I will, but I really love this challenge. It takes a little planning and an extra dose of patience, but in the end it's totally worth it.

This year I started the 'plan' with a little inspiration from Pinterst for our clothing. Out of the previous 6 Christmas card photos we wore black/red and/or some variation of the colors, with the only exception being the year we announced Grace's *girl* status, which we wore pink/black/grey for. We ended up going with an earthy, neutral sort of 'John Deere' color scheme (which if you know me well or have been to my house, you know that I've got a small collection, so it's not all that surprising).

 

Once I had all my clients images caught up and ordered, I decided I better get going to get our photos taken.  About a week before Christmas I said, 'Today is the day', and without an actual shooting place in mind we set out to make some other deliveries & just happened to be going the 'back way' and when we drove past a place I'd been wanting to shoot forever and the lighting was perfection, I knew we had found our place. 30-45 minutes later, we ended up with these, mostly taken on the tripod with the camera timer, as my remote has decided to malfunction outdoors, the couple of me with the munchkins were taken by the hubby.

I must say these are probably my most favorite family photos to date. I love how they came together and even with shooting via the tripod, for the most part, everyone, is paying attention.

{Real Life} Happy Everything

This greeting is actually coming a little late, but with all that is Christmas, here's our wish for you.

I really LOVE how our card come out this year. Everything about it, from the photos, that we ended up shooting in a place I've been wanting to shoot at forever,  to the shaped Christmas-y text (which just so happened to be inspired by several things I saw floating around on Pinterest, a great source of inspiration, not only for everyday, but especially for the 'creative' side of me).  

I'll be back later this evening, with a look at the rest of our photos and to announce the winner of the Black Friday give-a-way!!! 

{Sneak Peek} The Jones Brothers

These little cuties get to come visit every couple of months, partly because I'm Auntie, but also because we like to torture them with photos.  This session is probably went the smoothest of any and all it took was a little semi-bribery.  I simply told Little B he could cooperate, even though he hates pictures, or we could make it take, all.day.long.  He quickly obliged & was so cute, hamming it up with his baby brother. I think he really does like to have his photo made. 
I also did a something a little different than my 'normal' style of shooting all outdoors, on-location.  I set up my little portable studio in the kitchen (which, made me decide my house, is just 2-sizes too small).

Anyways, here's a few (okay, more than normal) of my favorites.

{Real Life} Kiddos PJ Party

One of the things we do with our kids for the month of December, well, not even a whole month, but from the 1st until Christmas is a countdown calendar, with a special activity each day.  Some days we make projects, some days we bake cookies, some days we 'relax' & have slumber parties by the lit up Christmas tree.  On this day, we had a couple friends over & had a pajama party!!! 
I blew up the air mattress, stuck it in front of the tree & the kids had a free for all jump fest.  We took a few photos & then they watched a short Christmas movie while eating popcorn, chocolate covered pretzels & an assortment of other things thrown in a bowl.
I'm pretty sure it was one of the funnest things we've done this December and hope that next year we can do it on a little bigger scale, with lots more room!!! 

I love these shots and the best part was the fun for everyone.

  Normally I wouldn't keep the blurrs, but it really sums up the afternoon. Pretty sure that all the kids were beyond ecstatic that they were allowed to jump on the 'bed', especially because they could jump from couch to bed without any trouble at all! ;)

 Thanks to our friends M&E (of course their mommy too) for joining us.
 

{Sneak Peek} Dustin & Raine

I talked with these two during the summer about doing some 'western' inspired images and then Dustin's horse decided he was better suited on the ground than on his back, so we post-poned...for a while.  I'm so glad we finally go to put this shoot together. We ventured around their property, down by the creek, up with some old equipment.  It was lots of fun. Thank you guys so much.

 This one, although not exactly ready for the wall (needs a little fine tuning to get the weed out of Dustin's eye) cracks me up. The horse couldn't have picked a better moment to try & grab a bite. ;)

 Another one of those fun moments...

 I really,really love this one.

 Oh.my.gosh.  If only the car was complete...and not a blast back to the Flintstones era, complete with 'foot' pedals.