a daisy

I found this post hiding in my drafts folder recently... back in the spring, after getting all of my flowers planted I decided to take a few shots of my one daisy that was actually growing. (I plant these things every. stinkin. year. but they never do very well...probably because they need a lot more sunshine then our tree-covered backyard can give them.  Oh well, I still like them...while they last.)
Anyway, I thought some sunny springtime photos would be nice as we start off February... just to remind us that we are only a couple months away from the joy that is sunshine and warmth, and fresh blooming flowers. :)







One of these is actually the background on my phone right now...it makes a pretty good wallpaper I must say!  I don't think I'll ever get sick of looking at, or taking pictures of daisies.  They are by far my favorite flower, and I just think you can't go wrong shooting them!  Especially when you get some nice water droplets on the petals.  :)
I'm thinking one of these might make a good canvas to hang in my office which I'm currently redoing...

another (year) bites the dust

I have always been a photo album nerd.  I have tons of them.  Just a few months ago I was at my mom’s house, and I found a cabinet full of all the albums I made growing up…there are at least 20 of them.  I used to have a disposable camera on me at all times, and all the prints I got would always go straight into an album. 

Even once the digital world came around, I was still always diligent about ordering prints and filing them away in an album every year. I have a shelf with at least 5 albums on it now, which just covers the past couple years, and a box somewhere with I couldn’t even tell you how many more albums inside.  Not to mention the separate albums I have from vacations, our wedding, our honeymoon…  See what I mean? Photo album nerd.

Anyway, over the past year or so I have gotten bad about ordering prints.  (I think part of that is because the number of photos I take has significantly increased…)  And any of the prints I did order, well, those have started to accumulate into quite a large pile.  So, after seeing the idea on several other blogs and on Pinterest, I finally figured out how to solve my problem.

A yearly photo book!  I already upload my pictures to Shutterfly on a (somewhat) regular basis, so all I had to do was drop them into one of their templates, tweak a few things, add some text, and viola!  Not to mention they were having a sale, so the whole thing only ended up costing around $20.

I basically just went in chronological order, and made a page (or in some cases a couple pages) for each event, adding a little text here and there.  Here are a few of the pages (most of which you will recognize, because I’ve blogged the pictures already):

 

This was one (of 6!) pages from our vacation to Texas in July.  Highlighting our crazy zip lining adventure, as well as the 4th of July.

This is my concert page… in July we saw 311 (if you do not know by now that this is my favorite band, you must not pay much attention…) and I also saw the New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys with my mom and cousins.  It was a boy band dream, let me tell you.

 

And as you can imagine, miss Lexi makes a few appearances in the book. :)  The session we did in August was one of my favorites, so I had a hard time picking just a couple of pictures to include…

These pictures are from a Royals game we went to with our friends Ash & Zach (who you may have seen before on here…) and also the Chiefs home opener game on 9-11.

And of course I had to do a spread for Halloween.  I don’t think I ever blogged these pictures (they aren’t my best work…what can I say…party + point & shoot - does not equal high quality photos!), but as you can see we had some interesting characters attend the party we went to.  Snooki and The Situation even made an appearance!

 

And then on the back cover I had to put a few “family photos”.  Of course we don’t have one with all 5 of us together (I don’t think that will ever happen…) but at least when I look back through this album I’ll be able to see how cute all of our furbabies were in 2011!

I am now planning on keeping this tradition up and making a new book each year in January.  Although I still have an entire shoebox of pictures from 2010, and even some from 2009…I have yet to decide if I will just ditch the prints and make a 2010 photo book or if I’ll actually fill up one last album (or two.  or three.  I have a lot of prints in that box…)

I’ve already looked through this book at least 10 times.  And I will probably look through it another 10 times before I move it off the coffee table and onto the shelf with all of the other photo albums.  I just love it, what can I say!  Did I mention I was a photo album nerd?

Lexi ~ 2 years

ok, so technically she is 2 years + 1.5 months.  close enough.

on an unseasonably warm day last week, we finally squeezed in Lexi’s 2 year session.  Amazingly, we were able to run around outside, without coats, and we had lovely sunshine to work with.  Not your typical January in Kansas, that’s for sure.

We actually ended up at Wonderscope Children’s Museum – we originally went to Old Shawnee Town…but it was all gated up.  That turned out to be a good thing, though, because the outside of the Wonderscope building is a great place for photos!  They have so many colorful walls, and fun things to play on.

Before we get to the 2 year photos, lets take a quick trip down memory lane…

Here is the little munchkin at only a few weeks old:

And at one year:

And now, at two.  She is growing up so fast, it's unbelievable.  But she just gets cuter by the minute, and thankfully my camera is there to capture it all. :)

        

I had so much fun with this session…nothing like spending an afternoon running around outside with my favorite two year old. :)  Especially when we get blessed with such beautiful winter weather.

And to top it all off, I leave you with a kiss! :)

just a typical Thursday in January…

you know… just hangin’ out at the park… in short sleeves… and sunglasses…

yeah, that’s just a typical Thursday afternoon in January around here (HA!)

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!