Merry Belated Christmas

Sam and I spent the days leading up to Christmas and after away from home.  We spent a few days in Charlotte with my family and unfortunately only about 22 hours in Southern Pines with Sam's family.  The snow fall over the Christmas holidays had us worried about road conditions, so we arrived in Southern Pines about 3 hours after we had hoped for and left about 3 hours earlier than we had expected.  It wasn't until last night that I finally snapped a picture of us in front of our Christmas tree.  If you are friends with me on Facebook, you can see the handmade tripod that Sam and I set-up to take the picture (I have lost my tripod over the past year during moving).  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed the holiday with their family!  Happy New Year's!

Mom and Keegan

I know I have posted about Keegan before; he is a special dog.  And by special, I mean not only is he loyal, lovable, playful, cute, and sweet, we think he may have some wires crossed in his brain as well ; )  For example, he likes to chase his tail like a cat and he eats any and everything.  So far we have discovered that he likes peppermint patties (and its wrapper), bird seed, tennis ball fuzz, shoe strings, pop tarts, and I know I'm leaving out some other fun items he has digested.  Everyone in the family tells him if he weren't so darn cute, he would be in a lot of trouble!  I guess that how it feels to be a grandparent - you think you're grandchildren are so darn cute it doesn't matter what parenting rules you break when you're with them - their cuteness will get them through life so the heck with following rules and being responsible : )  I got through kindergarten thru 3rd grade with a moon pie as my breakfast thanks to Nanny!  Nanny would have cooked me a hot breakfast of eggs, grits, and toast every morning if I asked, but noooo, I wanted a moon pie.  And a moon pie is what I got.  And believe or not, she would have given me 2 moon pies for breakfast if I was hungry enough.  I don't know how I digressed to talking about grandparents in a post about my mom's cute puppy.  So finally onto the picture....

Keegan and my mom

Happy 60th Birthday Father!

Okay so this post is two months late, but what counts is that we celebrated my Dad's 60th with a big bang! It was his best birthday party ever (it was his first birthday party ever!). 

We actually started the weekend on Thursday with some family gardening!  I called in the reinforcements (Mom and Dad) to help me pull out my azaleas (ugh, hate those) and replace them with prettier shrubs.  Don't worry, fellow eco-earth lovers, we replanted the azaleas in the back of house and they act as a barrier to the mud splashing against our house when it rains : ) Don't worry, I put my brother to work on his day off as well; he pulled the weeds and bermuda grass that were overtaking my monkey grass.  Thank you family for all of your help!  It was a great start to the weekend!

Before- note the 6 azalea bushes in front of the porch

After - a blue sky can make any picture look better : ) This is where I should also mention all of my husband's hard work on the grass.  He put in a ridiculous amount of hours making our front and back yard look the best on the street!  

Now onto the party!  We started the weekend out with dinner at The Admiral - Sam and I love this place!  If you are ever in Asheville you must go!  But you need to schedule reservations in advance.  I actually scheduled our party of 10 over a month out (there's only spot in the restaurant they can fit a party of 10 ).  It's a small restaurant, with amazing Top Chef quality food, but has an Asheville, hippie, eclectic atmosphere.  Lucky us, Sam and I are eating here tonight.  We didn't make our reservations until yesterday at 6pm, and the first available time for 2 was at 9pm!  On Saturday we all went up to Bernardsville, NC and did a Navitat canopy zip line tour.  Unfortunately pictures from that were taken on my cousin's camera, so sorry I don't have anything to share with you from that adventure.

Saturday night, everyone came to our house for dinner catered by 12 Bones, another must eat-at restaurant in Asheville if you love BBQ.  Everyone was pretty tired from their whirlwind visit to Asheville on Saturday evening, so it was nice to have a relaxing get together with everyone.  To satisfy everyone's different dessert preferences, I ordered a cupcake pull-apart cake.  There was 3 different flavors of cupcakes, and I thought it was a pretty cute idea.  And wasn't that nice of us to not make my Dad blow out 60 candles : )

Happy Birthday Dad!

And we did manage to get 1 family picture this weekend, and Roscoe even managed to smile (isn't he a cute dog!). 

Good News!

I heard from Sophie's parents, Sean and Naomi, and Sophie had her best night yet after her photo shoot!  Yay!  I don't know how her last few nights have been, but hopefully she'll figure out her nights and days soon.  I am so excited to share these pictures with you, because I love newborns (aren't they amazing?!), Sophie is cute, and the Tiptons sure do make a beautiful family! 

Sophie is bound to have dimples : )

See how alert and awake she was this afternoon!

Such a cute little face!

Sean and Naomi, I can't wait for you to see all of the pictures! 

Sophie Grace Welcome to this World!

I met little Sophie Grace today and she was adorable.  She actually stayed awake for the entire photo session!  Currently, Sophie has her nights and days mixed up, so her parents and I were hoping that the busy afternoon photo shoot might help her sleep a little bit during the dark hours of the day ;)  Sean and Naomi, thank you for letting me photograph your beautiful little girl!

When did Syndey grow up?!

Wow, I was shocked to see how big my cousin Sydney was at Thanksgiving!  She's a cute 4 year old who will actually look at the camera AND smile (she wasn't doing this last time I saw her)!  It has been way too long since I have seen her and her sister Olivia, who is in the 2nd grade.  Sydney will start kindergarten next year.  It was so easy to get a picture of her smiling, I love it!

Rhea and Jonathan Engagement

I love this couple!  They are so in love and they were very laid back in front of the camera.  I don't remember what they were laughing about so much, but it's so sweet that they are so happy together!

 

Jessica Claire is a photographer that I like to follow on facebook.  She recently posted that "Props only work when they are authentic to the couple.  They're just another tool to tell a story."  When Jonathan told me he wanted to pull out his table saw and nail gun, I asked him if Rhea could sit on the table saw (yeah, I'm not familiar with woodworking tools).  This works for these pictures.  This is Jonathan's life right now while he is building his own kitchen cabinets in their home.  And Rhea has to put up with sawdust for a little while longer but in the very near future the house will be complete and ready for their new family of two!
 

Here they are laughing again : )

And we're ending on a sweet note, a kiss!

Hardy Family Take 2

I want to share more pictures of the Hardy Family Shoot.  It was a fun morning filled with playgrounds, dancing, and bubbles.  I know I mentioned the cold weather in my last post, but seriously, that Sunday was the coldest day of the week!  The rest of the week was sunshine and upper 60's, beautiful fall weather!  I'm so glad they were open to a non-typical family picture.  How cute are they all going down the slide?

Kids love bubbles, and it's fun watching them blow bubbles and make a mess.  By the end of the photoshoot, Thane had spilled a whole cup of bubbles on the front of his shirt.

I think you can see this family knows how to play!

This was funny, Mia and Thane didn't want to sit on the ground.  They thought Mom and Dad looked like a better place to sit.

This is one of my favorites.  It's another one of those shots where the mom's love for her child is so evident to me.

And the last picture of the day, they ended with blowing a kiss (timing was a little off on blowing the kiss, but it makes me smile and hopefully it will bring happy memories to the Hardy family, and that's the important thing).

Big Sneak Peek

I had two photography sessions today.  The sessions were complete opposites, except for the fact that there was a lot of love involved.  And I happen to be in love with results from both sessions!  I promise to give each session their own blog post, but for now, Hardy Family and Rhea and Jonathan your sneak peeks are together.

First up is a very cute, energetic, spontaneous, beautiful family!  This was a wonderful morning session.  The family braved the cold weather with great fashion!  Their children didn't complain once about it being cold outside, and they looked great in their colorful vests, scarfs, and mittens!  It was so nice to work with a family full of smiles and they were also laid back which is a bonus when you're working with 3 year olds.  

Meet the parents, Jane and Joe.

Meet their children, Mia and Thane...A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!

One of Mia and Thane's favorite modes of transportation....their Dad.

I can't wait to show you pictures from the rest of their family session!  

Now onto the next session, Rhea and Jonathan's engagement session.  I photographed Rhea's family this summer, and her and Jonathan are now engaged!!  Congratulations!  I can't wait to see you two get married in Puerto Rico!

Rhea and Jonathan's good friends know that Jonathan bought a house about a year ago, tore it down to its studs and planned on fixing it up as soon as possible (yes Jonathan is quite the handy man, and he is doing all of the work himself).  But then Rhea came along and slowed down the construction process.  The house still isn't finished, but that's probably a good thing, because Rhea will get to put her amazing design skills to good use!  It only made sense to take their engagement pictures at this house!

One more quick story about Rhea and Jonathan...Rhea loves jumping pictures (I guess Jonathan does too, either that or he loves them because Rhea loves them).  I started figuring out the Jonathan was "the one" for Rhea right around the time The Bachelorette came on this past summer.  From the beginning I was pulling for Roberto, and Jonathan reminds me of Roberto.  If you're a fan of The Bachelorette then you know that Ali loves jumping pictures as well.  So there are a lot of reasons as to why I love this picture (I know super cheesy to be relating my good friend's love life to The Bachelorette, but I really think Ali and Roberto will last!).  Meet Rhea and Jonathan soon to be married!

Jonathan was dying to pull out his tools.  Isn't this every man's dream, a woman with a nail gun? : )

And we ended the session relaxing in their front yard, and of course Penny had to join in for a few pictures!

What a difference a week makes!

Do you remember this picture?

1 week later.....the leaves are gone, but still beautiful (at least it is against a blue sky).  Winter is coming at a faster rate in Asheville than it is in Charlotte!

Naomi and Sean...waiting for Sophie

Naomi and Sean are the sweetest couple!  They are expecting their first child, Sophie Grace towards the end of November.  Sean was really great at making Naomi relax in front of the camera.  In his words, "it was her day."  He was constantly making her smile and laugh, and the great thing about it was Sean was just being himself.  

This picture of Naomi, I love, she is very relaxed and beautiful in this picture.

I love the light in this picture, and see how sweet Sean is being!

We went to a local ice cream store, because every pregnant woman loves ice cream, right?  I just love, love ice cream and I'm not pregnant, so it seemed like a fun idea.  Naomi and Sean, I can't wait for you guys to welcome little miss Sophie to the world, I'm sure she'll be sweet just like her parents.

More fun and laughter with Nathan and Shayla

I promised more pictures of these kiddos, so here they are!  First up, Nathan and his very captivating eyes!

And these are some of my favorite images of the day.  I have a whole series of them laughing!  I couldn't have asked for better expressions or more happy children!  I was pretty lucky, because I was taking one last shot of them together, and Shayla just started tickling her brother, and an all out laughter-tickle war ensued, which made me so happy!

Who doesn't love fall?!

There's a beautiful maple tree in my neighbor's front yard.  It's so large that it overhangs in our yard as well, which doesn't bother me.  Right now, I look out my office window and see this!

Most people know yellow is my favorite color, so here's a close up of those gorgeous leaves!

Happy Fall Everyone!

Nathan and Shayla

About a week ago, I met my co-worker, Julie, at the park with her 2 beautiful children.  Nathan is a 3rd grader and Julie adopted him from Guatemala.  Shayla was adopted from China and is in the 1st grade at a Chinese Immersion School.  Shayla is a hoot!  She knows how to strike a pose when the camera is around.  It took a while for her to just play and forget about the camera.  She is definitely not camera shy!  Nathan isn't camera shy either - it's probably because Julie likes to take pictures as well, so they were both used to smiling for the camera.

Nathan was cute here showing me his football stance.  What you can't see is that he had found a 4 leaf clover and he had it in his mouth like a toothpick, and was calling it his good luck.

  I think this is such a cute picture of Shayla.  I had her doing jumps and twirls trying to get a spontaneous smile instead of her posed smile (which is still cute).

I have lots more to post later, in fact some of my favorite pictures were from the last 5 minutes of the session, can't wait to show you those!