I adore these 2

for several reasons. One, we had so much fun on our three, yes three, photo shoots. The first time we lasted about 20 minutes and decided that the weather -- mainly gusts of 30 mph wind -- was not going to cooperate. The next time we had a blast but I was a little unhappy with how fast we lost the sunlight (and I love some setting sunlight) so we went back a third time to get it just right. We laughed so much that it didn't feel like work...at all. I also adore Melissa because she was Mackenzie's kindergarten teacher. She was straight out of college and I knew right away that we were going to love her as Kenz's first teacher. By the end of the year I swear every single student in that class wanted to go to Texas A&M where their teacher had gone. Mackenzie would come home and tell us that when they did something good they would get an A&M sticker or drawing on their hand. We joked that we were going to send her to school with a University of Texas longhorn symbol on her cheek and tell her to tell her teacher that she had cleaned her room really good that weekend:) (Just for the record neither I nor my husband are Aggies or Longhorns, heehee!) Mackenzie indeed had an awesome kindergarten experience and I'm so appreciative! I think it's so important that the kindergartners learn that school and learning can be fun. And now Melissa has moved to 2nd grade so I'm hoping that Cassidy gets her next year. *Crossing my fingers & toes*

Well, school starts back tomorrow and the kids were in bed by 8:30. I won't mention the fact that they kept coming in to the study to tell me they couldn't fall asleep. One would come complain and I'd send her back to her room and 2 minutes later the other would come in. It was like they were tag teaming for their whine fest. I had to finally pull out the punishment that really works around here..."The next person that gets out of bed and comes in here to tell me they can't fall asleep is going to clean house after school tomorrow." It worked! Haven't seen them since. They may still be awake in there, but I get credit for being a bedtime stickler.) This past summer I got so tired of hearing, "I'm bored." I tried several things to break that cycle and finally started using a 15 minutes of cleaning if I heard it and it's amazing how non-bored they became.

I hope everyone is having a great start to their New Year! Enjoy your sneak peek guys:)




I lost the sun the first time in the field, so this time I was hoping to catch some sun flare.











Bring it on...

100% Pure Sweetness

is what she was. She was just so laid back and happy. Hope you enjoy your sneak peek:)

Family Shoot

I'm usually mostly a color picture kind of girl, but my friend Jennifer here is 99.9% a B&W picture kind of girl...so here you go:) Hope you enjoy!





Ok, ok, I had to throw in a couple of colored pictures:)

Part 2, Cosmo, and a special leaf

This is crazy...I'm sitting here and I can hear my kiddos playing the wii. There wouldn't be anything wrong at all with their joyous, playful sounds except....except that it's 11:30 at night and they should really be in bed. The problem is that neither my husband nor myself are bedtime sticklers. When some of our best friends, The Jones', stayed with us in November I was so impressed because Rob (the dad) said that it was time to get the kids to bed (and it was pretty early). I mentioned that I was impressed and Kristen (the mom) said well, he's a stickler on bed times. Chad and I laughed and announced that that was our problem...neither of us are sticklers. I get busy working in the study late at night and he gets busy doing whatever he's doing and before we know it it's way past bed time! They do get to bed at a somewhat decent time on school nights but there's definite room for improvement. So check back with me later in 2009 and see if I've been able to stick to my resolve to become a better bed time stickler.

The pictures on this post are more from December sessions that I didn't have time to do sneak peeks of. And also a couple of our new baby Cosmo. Then there's one of the beautiful red heart leaf hanging in our backyard. It has a little bit of a story. We added a pave stone patio last June and pulled out a palm tree from the corner. I wanted to add another type of tree but it needed to be a small tree. I already knew what I wanted, a Redbud tree. We went to a local nursery in search of one but all of the ones they had weren't very pretty. We found out that they grew more in a back area and they offered to show us. A worker took us in a golf cart to the back and as soon as we drove up I saw "the one". We snagged it, took it home, and planted it. A couple of months later Hurricane Ike came to town. I watched in horror as my new little hand-picked Redbud tree swayed back and forth in the strong hurricane winds. I didn't know if it would survive. It did survive but wasn't left with many leaves after it was all over with. About a month ago I noticed it had 3 leaves left on it. Two of them were brown and about to fall off, but this one, I noticed was perfect. A deep red that is shaped like a perfect little heart. I keep expecting to see it gone, but it's been the lone leaf for about 3 weeks now and just keeps hanging on to the tiny little tree.

December Sneak Peeks Part 1

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We spent time at my husband's grandparent's farm about an hour out of Dallas. It's always fun to go somewhere with wide open space. The kids love the farm adventures and getting to see their relatives at the annual Christmas Eve get-together. Of course we had our trips to Walmart (we act like we've never seen a Walmart when we go there) and anyone that knows me knows that I despise Walmart!! Between our family and my in-laws that went we took 5 dogs (mind you, city dogs) and let them experience country life. I think most of them thought it was for the birds, Ha! Cosmo was the only spoiled one that got to stay inside where it was warm. My husband surprised me with a Wacom tablet and I can't wait to try it out. We came back Christmas Day and then spent time with my family. My sister and brother-in-law are in town from South America so it was an especially nice Christmas this year.

Here's a few of my favorites from photo sessions that I didn't have time to do a sneak peek for before Christmas. I'll add Part 2 next.

One More

One more blog post and then I'm taking a break until after Christmas. I had to skip over some sneak peeks because I ran out of time and had to go straight to sending out proofs so everyone would still have time to order...whew! I'll try and add some favorites after Christmas.

This little cutie did so good for her pictures and just look at some of her accessories...adorable.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!