...New Year's Eve...Eve?...

Hey everyone! Was Santa good to all of you? I hope no one ended up with a lump of coal in their stockings this year. Me and my family had a nice Christmas together and this was certainly a fun year with Addyson. She really enjoyed everything about the holiday. From the lights, to Santa, to opening presents, she was in awe of it all!

This was a very crafty Christmas for me. Since getting Photoshop earlier this year, I have really been trying to learn all the different things I can do with it besides just editing pictures. Thanks to the help of all the awesome members of Two Peas In a Bucket scrapbooking forum I was able to make some really personalized gifts this year. Here's a look at them:









My husband's family really loved them and my most favorite comment was from Brad's niece...."This is my favorite present this year!"

I did one for my mom too...



And this is a non-picture one, but I think it looked great once it was framed.



I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!

...Santa is coming to town!

I hope you've all been good boys and girls this year! Are you ready for the jolly fat man to come down the chimney tonight? My daughter is super excited...although we don't have a chimney for Santa to come down...I guess he'll just have to use the back door! LOL

I can't believe Christmas is almost here. It just seems like yesterday I was talking about all these things I was going to do to be "prepared" for Christmas this year. You know, so I wouldn't be running around at the last minute like a crazy person....well, I'm the crazy person AGAIN this year...that's how I roll LOL

Anyway, I wanted to post some pictures from my last portfolio building session for 2008. I was excited to do this pictures for a dear friend and her family. I decided to go to Kleb Woods Nature Preserve. They have a section that has an old farmhouse and shed with old tractors and stuff. Her boys are into tractors, so I figured if nothing else, it would amuse them while we tried to get some pictures.





This is an example of one of the neat tractors in the shed out there

My friend's sister and her new family came out too, here's a peek at their new bundle of joy






This picture was going to be a gift to their parents...I think it's pretty good for the amount of kiddos in the mix ...LOL


I want to wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!

....Party of Five....

In the early part of this month, I had a photo shoot with a really cute family of 5. Little did I know, the smallest family member would be such a challenge. This little girl did not like to smile...for the camera. She would smile in between shoots when the camera was out of sight, but as soon as the camera started to creep up to my eye, the smile was gone in a flash. Either way, this little girl is a doll - see for yourself!







More pictures to come of my last photo shoot for 2008... For now though...if you aren't done with Christmas shopping, you better get out there...we're only 3 days away!

.....Newlyweds......

I had the pleasure of taking some photos for my cousin and her new hubby a few weeks ago. They were so much fun and made me laugh hysterically! Thanks T&R for the opportunity!

The session was at Rock Creek, what a pretty place. Thanks Jenn for letting me know about it!



This was a new angle for me ...literally...

...I need to play catch up...

It's been so hectic since the holidays have rolled around that I've been slacking off on posting the portfolio building sessions that I had over the last few weeks. I took photos of this next family the weekend after Thanksgiving...and bless their hearts the weather was so cold and the wind was horrific....but thankfully, the results were still beautiful...






Stay tuned for more postings later....

....Cookies for Santa........

Christmas and baking cookies seem to go hand in hand with me and my family during the holidays. This past weekend, I got to share the fun of baking cookies with Addyson. We went to my mom's house since she has a lot more elbow room in her kitchen than mine. We ended up having a cookie baking marathon and I'm still trying to recover. The bulk of the cookies were baked on Saturday, but Addyson fell asleep before we were ready to decorate the cut-out cookies. So, I saved some dough so that we could bake cookies on Sunday. She had a blast...and she was a really good helper. She had the important job of sprinkling the cookies after they had icing on them. She also like licking the sprinkle shaker.... Please be advised, these cookies were not distributed to others outside of our home LOL

If you've never looked at the Pioneer Woman website/blog...run, don't walk to the nearest computer and check her out...these next couple of shots are Pioneer Woman-esque cooking shots... (I love her!)





Addyson is getting excited about the first batch of cookies coming out of the oven...


Addyson loves her some M&M's...so she was super excited to decorate with them...




My sprinkle assistant trys out her first cut-out cookie



Please feel sorry for me...I have to clean up this mess!


This is what happens when you've taste-tested WAY too many sprinkles!

...Go ELF Yourself...it's Fun!

This is the second year I have Elf'd my family and I love it so much...it's the only time I can actually see myself skinny!! Check it out: http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/GkR53zQtyMy0qe94z0V0
FYI - I just saw a snowflake outside my office window in the Galleria... so it's making it's way from Cypress!

...a family...a turkey...and chaos

That about summed up my Thanksgiving. Well, let me explain. Trying to be a good citizen, I thought it would be neat to have a big family picture of my husband's family and since we would all be together on Thanksgiving..what better opportunity..right? Well...I never knew what an ordeal it would be to get everyone to participate. I won't go into all the particulars, but the end result was great and I'm happy that I was able to get everyone together for this and I'm glad that we got everyone to smile...well most everyone :)



This shot was fun for all the cousins. I thought I would give the hay bales a whirl..after all, they were just sitting there doing nothing...the hay bales, that is, not the cousins. LOL




Shhh..don't tell anyone, but I want to be like Martha Stewart or Paula Deen I baked this apple pie and it was good - no one got sick! LOL...I love to cook/bake and I'm a closet Food TV addict :)

...trying to get caught up

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since my last post...so I'll try to get back up to speed. I wanted to post the pictures from session a couple of weeks ago with a cute couple and their sweet baby girl. These were taken at Meyer Park in the Champions/Spring area: