ho ho ho-liday wrap up

I have quite a few pictures to share from this lovely holiday season (which, by the way, can you believe it's almost 2012 already?! holy cow!), so I’m going to just put it all together in one big wrap up post.  Kind of like a present…just imagine it all tied up with a bow :)

So lets get this party started!

The holidays start in this house right after Thanksgiving, when the tree goes up.  After a marathon Black Friday, I managed to dig our tree out and get it all set up and decorated.

 

I personally cannot wait for the day when I have a bigger house and the room to set up several trees.  Matt on the other hand is not quite as excited for that…and I just can’t figure out why…

 

Once we (I) got the house all festive, it was time for the annual Family Christmas Cookie Decorating Adventure.

 

My cousins and I had a blast as always, and ended up with a pretty festive selection of cookies:

I of course came home and did some additional cookie baking and decorating of my own.

 

Along with these sugar cookies I also made Caramel Popcorn and my all-time favorite, Chocolate Covered Pretzels.  I swear I took photos of all the goodies I baked, but the popcorn and pretzel photos have disappeared… Just trust me when I tell you that they were pretty and very yummy. :)

Aunt Terri gave each of my cousins and I one of these adorable cookie trays.  When its not covered in cookies it also makes a great decoration in the kitchen. :)

After all of the baking came lots of shopping, wrapping, crafting, more shopping, more wrapping and more crafting all in preparation for the big Christmas weekend.

And then I failed as a photographer because I didn’t take a single photo on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  Can you believe that!?!?  I guess I was just too busy enjoying all of the family festivities.  On Christmas Day I was totally bummed thinking that I didn’t have a memory card with me (another major photographer fail, right!)… I later realized that I actually had 2 memory cards with me the whole time.  Awesome.

But we had a wonderful time with family, and were so lucky to be showered with amazing gifts.

 

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is.

I FINALLY GOT A KITCHENAID STAND MIXER!  I put one of these bad boys on our wedding registry (over 2 YEARS ago now!) and I finally got it.  Although I had to spend all day re-arranging my (tiny) kitchen’s countertops to make it fit, it now fits in just perfectly!

I got another great gift that I am super excited to play with…

Can you say A-W-E-S-O-M-E!  Once again this will require some re-arranging to get some use, but I am planning a nice little “craft corner” in our second bedroom/office, so as soon as I can get my butt in there and organize, this puppy will be getting a ton of use!

And thanks to my wonderful husband, I am now the proud owner of a Keurig Coffee Maker!  I also get 2 awesome girls adventures with my BFF (a cake making class and a girls night out) thanks to our guys working together for our gifts this year.  How clever are they!

In my usual fashion, I also want to share one of my favorite gifts I gave this year…

Not the best picture, but it says “THAMES” which is the family name on my mom’s side.  I have seen these letter art pieces floating around for a while, and I decided to try my hand at it.  I love how it came out, and my mom’s side of the family loved them too!  I also made one for a wedding gift recently, and another one for my sister-in-law for Christmas.  Now I want to make one for myself!

So there you have it.  Christmas in a nutshell!  It really was a great holiday season this year, even if it did sneak up on me and go by in the blink of an eye.  Next up is New Years Eve, and then we’re on to 2012!  I am hoping to spend a lot more time on my photography in 2012.   So hopefully that means this ol blog will see a lot more action!  I hope you’ll come along for the ride :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone, I hope 2012 brings great things to all!

party like a two-year-old

A few weeks ago we celebrated Lexi’s 2nd birthday.  If you couldn’t tell, it was a sailboat themed party.

Lexi’s other Aunt and I helped her mom plan this shin dig…and I must say we did a pretty darn good job!

We had quite a spread of food… and of course everything had to fit in with the theme. :)

   

The sweets table was a big hit too…surprise, surprise.  I took it as an excuse to make some sugar cookies with royal icing. :)

 

The birthday girl had a blast…which of course is the most important part!

 

As you can see, she dressed appropriately for the event (as did her teddy bear!).  I certainly learned my lesson – next year a photo session with the birthday girl needs to happen before the party begins…and before she gets into the cupcakes :)

But don’t worry, I’m planning a 2-year session with her soon, and I’m sure the sailor dress will make an appearance.

   

And I’m sure no one will be surprised at the gift Aunt Brooke gave Lexi…

  

Every 2 year-old needs their own camera! (and this Aunt clearly needed a higher shutter speed for this picture…)

I learned more than one lesson from this party…

I thought I would try putting my camera on aperture priority for this (since it was indoors, a cloudy day, so pretty low light, and being a party rather than a portrait session I thought having my settings at least somewhat on auto would help), but unfortunately being as low-light as it was, that meant my shutter speed was pretty low the whole time (which = camera shake, which = blur).  In-camera I couldn’t see the blur very well (I noticed it on some shots, but most of them looked ok), so I didn’t realize that I wasn’t getting sharp images until too late.  It’s not like all of the pictures are completely blurry, so of course it could have been much worse, but for an OCD photographer like myself, I always strive for sharp images.  Lesson learned!

Either way it was a great party, celebrating an awesome 2 year-old!

The Moss Family

I hung out with my favorite 2-year-old and her family for some photos recently. 

It was a fun afternoon at the park…the dog park to be exact. :) 

Enjoy my favorites from the session…

   

the moss family ~ sneak peek

I hung out with these guys at the park last weekend for some family photos…here is a sneak peek :)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some turkey to eat over the next couple of days…

Once I’m nice and full, I’ll be back with the rest from this session :)

lexi ~ little farmer

As you saw in Monday's sneak peek, I hung out with Lexi the farmer last weekend to get some Halloween photos. 

 

 

I love that she is now at the age where she understands the concept of me taking her picture.  And as you can see, she already knows how to ham it up :)  That’s my girl!

Here are a few more from our session...enjoy!

 

 

 

Although we started out the session with a few images looking like this…

 

…I ended up with some of my favorite images of all time.  Like the two below. 

 

 

 

Is she adorable, or what!?

 

I still can’t believe how quickly she is growing up, but I am thrilled to be able to document her throughout each stage. :)