Whew… It is actually late Thursday night as I type this, and I just finished an all day job of canning green beans. So, with another busy day ahead of me tomorrow I am throwing up a quickie post! This is a hodgepodge of pictures from our recent Gatlinburg trip…remember, the one that I forgot to take my camera on? I ran out and bought a point and shoot that turned out to be – well, not good. But, I am very thankful for the shots I got with it!

My girlies at the pool…

having dinner with cousins…

My husband, Stuart, with our girls

On the way to see the incredible lighting bugs, I hunkered down in the back of my sister-in-laws van in order to fit everyone in, this was my view from way back there:

Stu was with me in the very back and snapped this picture:

My hubs and brother-in-law (thankfully) letting me out…(I felt so claustrophobic back there!)

Bailey, Allie and Kennedy…

Bristol looking in from our balcony…

Kennedy looking cool at the pool…

Bristol thought it was SO funny to climb into this cabinet in our room!

All the grandkids

Kennedy and Owen…

My sweet Bristol just waking up…

Mimi curled all of the girls (except Bristol’s) hair one night, using pieces of fabric!

Playing in the creek – this was a favorite for all of the kids…

So, that is a few of my favorites from our trip

Happy 4th of July weekend! The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite Holiday’s – I love the cookouts, the fireworks, the parades, etc. I hope you all have a wonderful – and safe – weekend…. and try to stay cool!

Okay, I am back up and running     I ended up getting the space upgrade to work after all, so I didn’t take the plunge and purchase a custom blog…yet. I am still putting it off! Now, back to blogging where I left off….

Julie and her sweet baby boy (who is almost ONE!) got in front of my camera awhile back… I think we picked the most humid morning to do these – it was so hot! But, we still managed to get some great shots. Here are my favorites:

Emerson leaned in and planted a sweet kiss on his Momma’s cheek without being asked….and that made it even sweeter…

Julie, I love ya girl!

I am so annoyed right now. I am all out of image space here on the blog, and while I know I should probably upgrade to a custom blog I just haven’t. Instead I tried to do a space upgrade on here and keep getting error messages! UGH! I am very sorry, but as of right now I am not able to load pictures

If you have any advice for me, or have had this problem before, please let me know. WordPress support has not helped at all thus far

Also, if you have suggestions on custom blogs/hosting sites, please tell me about those too. I would love to hear your opinions!

On a happier note….IT’S FRIDAY! Enjoy your weekend!

XoXo

Marty, Lisa, Lauren, Brittany and Landon won the Giveaway I did back in January… Lisa was the lucky winner, and she choose to do a family shoot. Loved working with all of them! Here are some of my favorites:

(Before I get into these, let me just say again, Thank you to every single person who entered this Giveaway! I am sure to be doing another one in the future.)

We found an old door and used it as a backdrop for a few shots… I love it!

You may remember this shot being a favorite of mine… I posted it awhile back….

Thank you Marty, Lisa, Lauren, Landon and Brittany!

I love having these two little girls in front of my camera… this time we meandered down beautiful garden paths in pretty dresses, while Lia tried hard not to get anywhere close to the ants!

Coreen and I were emailing back and forth before the shoot and she told me she had not decided between two dresses for Selma, I am so happy she chose this one because I think it is perfect for this shoot!

a favorite:

Coreen, thank you! Your girls are beautiful and I always look forward to seeing you all…

Krew (love that name!) is a sweet baby boy only a few days old when we took these….

Love these two shots of his sweet little hands….

Derrick and Emily, he is precious…..Congrats!

Ahhh, I’m baaaack!

I spent a week in Gatlinburg, TN with my in-laws, then came home and left again for a beautiful wedding in Charleston, SC. And I did not have internet the entire time. Yep, no email, no facebook, no blogs, no internet at all. Just as we were walking out the door I decided not to take my computer, I figured I wouldn’t have a lot of time to get on it and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the computer anyway. I wanted to just relax and spend time with family. So that is what I did. We went swimming, we rode go-carts, we walked around downtown, we took a trolley ride, we explored and played in a creek, we played games, we grilled out, and I read books while my girls napped. It was great! (I finished Black Heels to Tractor Wheels and started Rebecca….loved Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, I think I laughed out loud through half of the book!)

Guess what else I didn’t have with me? …………………………………………… My CAMERA! Not by choice, I forgot it! Sigh… I could not believe it when I realized I had left it at home.  We decided that this was a good time to buy me a point and shoot, since I have been wanting/needing one for awhile now. Once we got there and got settled in we went to Walmart – the only place we could find to get one. And they really did not have a good selection. So I picked one, without being able to try it out before buying, and as soon as I took the first picture I knew it was not going to be a keeper. That thing was so slow I could have napped in between pictures. And by the time it actually took the picture whatever I was trying to capture had already moved on, stopped smiling, etc. But I hung in there and used it as much as I could, then returned it this morning! I’ll have to post a few pictures once I get time to go through them if any of them turned out.

Here are a few I snapped of Kennedy using my phone…. this first one cracks me up!

The BEST part of the trip was going to see fireflies. It is a phenomenon that happens once a year in Gatlinburg, and I heard that it only happens in one other area - in Australia, but that I do not know for sure…..   My sister-in-law saw an article on it in the June issue of Southern Living, and it just happened to be happening while we were there. So we made the trip. Not that it was really a ‘trip’ considering it was very close to where we were staying. But we had to go get our car parked a few hours ahead of time in order to assure we had a seat on the trolley, then we had to go back and stand in line, get on the trolley which took us up the mountain a ways, then walk down a dirt road, then sit and wait for total darkness to fall (about 9:30) then the fireflies started their show. And let me tell you, it was incredible! They were in sync with one another and they were a blue color – not the typical yellow/orange that you see. It was awesome. The woods would be be totally black then suddenly the fireflies would light up and twinkle throughout the woods. Then, all would be dark for a few seconds and it would start all over again. If you get the chance, I would highly suggest going    Here is one more camera phone shot I got of Kennedy – with her cousin Owen, this time waiting in line to get on the trolley.

Happy Monday!

I love capturing my girls just doing their thing. Nothing posed. Nothing planned. Just being them. I had my camera at Mimi and PopPop Browns house a few weeks ago and captured a tea party that was happening as we finished up lunch. PopPop Brown has the silliest English accent that he uses when they bring out the tea set and it never fails to make them giggle, they love it!

Kennedy takes the task of pouring PopPop more tea after he has drained his cup (pinky finger stuck out and all) very seriously…

and my baby girl with her bunny ears…I could just eat her up

Happy Monday!

Three sisters got their kids together for a shoot as a gift for their Mom (who happens to by my Aunt ) for Mothers Day. And I think she liked these, a lot!

Here we have Kourtnie, her sister Maci, Jax and baby Jesse Ray (his newborn shoot is here)

Jax was not happy at first…

But he got over it and we got some great shots

Side note here…. instead getting stressed out and trying to force Jax to smile, his Mom, Ginny just said “Go ahead and capture him throwing a fit…I’ll want to remember this one day!”  I was impressed…because it is stressful when you’ve worked hard to get your kid ready, taken time to get to the shoot, then get there and he throws a big fit. But she stayed cool and we got both the fit throwing and the sweet shots. Love it!

Maci is full of happy smiles – so adorable!

Jesse Ray got comfy and went to sleep…

Joanna, Ginny and Emily…thank you for asking me to take these for you!