This post is late because, well, we’ve been busy this morning. Busy with things like drawing pictures for Aunt Holly’s birthday (Happy Birthday Holly!)…..

Seriously, that tongue? I love it!

Then we searched everywhere for Mr. Elf (who is currently hanging from the shower curtain) then we left for awhile and are now back home, with a pile of things we need to be doing. But, I wanted to sit down and blog a quickie post because I am not sure I’ll blog till after Christmas sometime. And I wanted to say a big MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all! I hope you have a wonderful holiday with friends and family.

 A couple more random shots of the girls… I walked in the living room to find them snuggled up like this watching one of their shows last week:

I asked them to smile hoping to get a sweet picture of them together smiling. And this is what I got…

I guess I should have asked them to move their eyes down towards me AND smile. Oh well.   Then Bristol got silly and attacked Kennedy!

 Happy Monday everyone! I will be back after Christmas sharing some photoshoots with you. AND, sharing a Giveaway with you…so stay tuned!

So, I have all these fabulous idea’s for a Christmas card that I want to do with the girls to send out to our friends and family. I dream up all kinds of stuff. Then realize I’d be better off to just try to get a good picture of them. Telling myself the whole time that it may not go as planned (hence the reason to forget most of the fabulous idea’s) and to stay calm and not get my hopes up, and definitely not make a big deal of it.
You see, I have a slight problem executing photo shoots when it comes to my own girls. I dream of a great shoot including all the cool stuff I want. I don’t want them posey, or un-natural at all. I don’t feel like I am asking too much…I just want them together, looking happy, in whatever set-up I decide on. I want it to be fun and cute. But, it just doesn’t seem to be that simple.
Yes, they are 1 and three, not easy ages to shoot together. But, I manage to do it for other people.

So, with a good, positive attitude, and no high hopes. We set off for Take One.

Kennedy was all cheesy and ready.

Bristol was in no mood for it at all. She plopped down and had this ‘don’t bother me look’ on her face…

And it just got worse from there….

So we gave it up and tried again another day. It didn’t go much better. A lot of crying and not wanting to change clothes went on. Basically not wanting to do anything I suggested while getting ready, for that matter. I was over it before it even began. But, determined to get a good picture, I put a smile on my face, packed my Shootsac with Candy Canes and smarties and told my husband (who was thankfully here this time), to deal with Kennedy because I just needed her happy. We talked it up, told them how much fun it was going to be. Blah, blah, blah.

We ran out right before the rain hit and snapped as many as we could. The next day while going through the pictures, I was totally disappointed. My Mom happened to stop by and I showed them to her asking if I should even waste my money on a card this year. She laughed as she looked at the ‘better’ ones and said “Barbara, honey this is real life. You just have to go with it!” And so I did. I used these next four pictures and called it our Christmas card

The finished card looked like this:

So, Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Hopefully they will one day outgrow this phase of refusing to co-operate with me on shoots…Meanwhile I’ll just enjoy my candids that I capture of them. Which I love, by the way. Here are a few of Bristol I shot recently…

Kennedy jumped in that last picture there. And while technically there is nothing right about it, I love it just the same

Have a wonderful weekend

We did this shoot on a perfect fall afternoon. Monica picked out a gorgeous location…we drove to a field then walked around the edge of it for awhile, crossed over to a cow pasture, walked a bit more till we got to this area that simply made me swoon! It was perfect

Monica, thank you so much for asking me to capture your family – as you are today. XoXo

It really is true, Christmas is just better with kids! I can be a real kid about Christmas, I love the season, but now that the girls are a little bit older, it is even better!  Kennedy did a gingerbread house for the first time this year. And once we got started I wished I had bought two just so I could do my own! I really encouraged her to do it her way, and tried not to offer too many suggestions. She absolutely loved it and I loved watching her do it

First..we had to wait for the icing to set up…

I really thought Bristol was going to want to help, but she only lasted a few seconds and was over it!

Happy Monday!

They have talked about doing this for awhile now, getting the whole family together for pictures, and they finally made it happen a couple of months ago!  Trying to get everyone’s schedules to work together when planning a big shoot is never easy, but always worth it in the end.

Here they are – parents, kids and grandkids – in no particular order…

Thank you all for asking me to do these for you

“Mr. Elf” came to stay with us about a week ago. He will be here till Christmas, flying back to Santa at the North Pole each night to give a report on how the girls have been that day. Every morning we look for him and find him in various places. Here a few of the places we have found him:

Honestly, the whole thing is so much fun and I can see us doing it when they are teenagers! For more info, you can check out Elf on the Shelf.

I’ll leave you with a video of Kennedy ‘rocking’ over the weekend

Well, Turkey day has come and gone (I hope yours was fabulous!) and Christmas is right around the corner! Yay! This time of year is always busy, for everyone. And for me that means not much blog time. My blog seems to take the back-burner this time of year. I absolutely love this season, even more so now that I have kids. (just seeing all the Christmas lights that decorate houses as we drive down the road is a huge excitement!) And while this may sound cliché, I am going to say it anyway… I honestly want to make an effort to simply be present and enjoy the season and all that comes with it. So, with that in mind, please forgive me if I get slack here in the blog world

Speaking of Christmas, and considering it is Miscellaneous Monday, I thought I’d share the fact that my cousin makes delicious cinnamon buns and yeast rolls, and, she is taking orders till December 15th! She sent me these pictures while making some the other day (just to make me drool I guess!) and so I decided to share them here…just in case you want some to help make your Christmas season a little extra special

If you do want to place an order here is some info:
They are available in singles, four packs, or any quantity you need. You can order them with cream cheese icing, pecans or raisins. They are $1.50 ea, or call her for pricing on large quantities. Yeast Rolls are also available by the dozen. Her name is Paulette.

Happy Monday ya’ll!

I had good intentions of getting a full post up today, a family shoot, but it just hasn’t worked out. I love this time of year, and I am about to get my hands into pie crust for apple pies, cookies dough, and a few other things. All for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Instead of sitting in front of the computer for too long, I have decided to say a quick Happy Thanksgiving to you all and then simply enjoy this day, this season.

I hope each of you has a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving… and Thank you my clients, my family, my friends, and my blog readers for your support and love. It is truly appreciated!

And as I always say…posts are better with pictures, so I pulled these out of some random files taken recently…

XoXo

In my opinion, taking pictures of my own kids is much harder than taking pictures of someone else’s kids.  Not sure exactly why, but I just find it harder. Remember the cute pictures I took of Kennedy and posted on her Birthday? Well, I loved them, but they did not come easy! She is currently going through the ‘fake smile at the camera stage’ and I had to work extra hard just to get a real smile… Add in the chasing her around, talking, silly faces (which I do love, by the way!) and the negotiation on what shoes to wear (she wanted flip flops and I wanted ‘winter’ shoes, I won but then when our neighbor came over she took the chance to run in and change!) anyway, it was a challenge just to get some good pictures.
Check out the fake smiles:

that picture above, to the left, she was trying to tell me how she was going to pose, and her legs had to be just right   If you want to see some of the ‘good’ shots from this shoot you can check ‘em out HERE.

I hope you have all had a fabulous Monday…since it is almost over now

Blue eyes, blond hair, these brothers are adorable! …..Silas and Canyon

Their Mom jumped in for a couple of shots…

in the left picture, Silas was ‘helping’ Canyon look my way! haha!

These last two are similar, but I loved them both, so decided to post both