Playin' in the leaves...

A couple weeks ago, I had the bright idea for all 4 of us to go to the park and use my tripod and self timer to take some family photos. My intention was to get a great photo for Christmas cards, but I just didn't get one I loved (don't worry - I made them try it again the next wekeend in a different location and different outfits for Jenna and I...and got a Christmas card worthy photo. You'll just have to wait a few weeks to see it when you get your Christmas card!). When I was done torturing my family with the mandatory family photo, I asked Jacob and Jenna to play with the leaves, and just started snapping. I love how these turned out!

First...the non-Christmas-card-worthy family photo (it's okay....just not what I had in mind...I don't like our mix of outfits...I don't like the shelter house in the background...plus I look squinty!)
Lots of fun in the leaves....




Jacob...throwing leaves at me! I think he was a little tired of the photo taking at this point!
Jenna...another spinning photo! There's just something about spinning photos that I like. I know I have taken a lot of her spinning! I could probably publish a whole book of photos of Jenna spinning!
One of my favorites from the day....I know there will be a day very soon when I won't be able to PAY them to lay this close together in the leaves for a photo! :)

Soccer

I'm done with sharing photos of strangers...now back to my kids! I just realized that between sharing Halloween photos and stranger photos, I never shared any soccer photos of Jacob from this season. This is his 2nd year of playing soccer. He really enjoys it, but was a little frustrated this year. Typically there are several different age brackets for the teams, but this year they combined them all due to small numbers of kids signing up. Jacob's team had only 2 or 3 boys and lots of younger kids (8-9 year olds). They did a good job, but just couldn't compete with some of the other teams that had a lot of older (10-12 year olds) kids. He still had a lot of fun and continued to improve this year. And now, we're on to basketball season.....

{Meah}

I was lucky enough to be asked by Meah's Mommy to take her photos again. I had taken Meah's photos when she was a newborn and again last fall, so I was excited to take more photos of her! Meah is now 18 months old...and on the go!!! We headed to the park and I got a work out following Miss Meah around. She is a busy, busy girl!

{Buckeye kids}

My friend Rachelle asked me to take photos of her kids plus her neices and nephews as a gift for the grandparents for Christmas. The kids were all dressed in their Ohio State gear and we headed to the golf course to take some photos. The weather was perfect and they all looked great in their scarlet and gray...so this should be easy, right??? WHEW! After taking two senior boys' photos, getting a good photo of a group of 6 little kids was a little harder than I thought it would be!

A few of the not so good photos (but I love the "story" they tell!)....

I love how the youngest is a "blur" in this one!

We're getting closer....I think we finally got it!!

Afterwards, Mom had me take a few photos of the youngest by himself. He was such a cutie and pretty cooperative considering that he had just sat for several other photos (of course, bribing him with Smarties helped a little, too!).

{Tobias}

Tobias was my 2nd senior photo session. Tobi is a foreign exchange student from Germany and wanted some senior photos taken. I picked him up (Jacob tagged along...he was nosey!) and off we went on our adventure! We started at the fairgrounds taking photos with his host family's horse. Then we went to the historical society to use some of their buildings as backdrops. Next we found an alley to use for the guitar photos. After the alley we headed to the railroad tracks for a few photos and our last stop was a wooded area near the cemetery. He even had different outfits for almost every location! I was really nervous about this photo shoot because I had never met him and didn't know what he would expect, but we hit it off right away and I had a great time with him. He was so easy to work with and was a natural! I hardly even had to tell him what to do. I think he would have let me take photos all night if it hadn't started to get dark on us. AND...the best part of the whole photo shoot was that he gave Jacob and I chocolate from Germany when we were done. YUMMY!!

Thanks again Tobi for letting me take your photos - I had so much fun!!!

{Austin}

About a month ago, I had the privilege of taking Austin's senior pictures. Austin is my cousin Steve's son...and he was my first official senior. I was really nervous about the whole thing, but I think it went pretty well. We started off at the park in Pandora to take pictures at the baseball field. Austin is a baseball player and spends a lot of hours on that field! Then we walked through the park to a bridge and later to the brick wall of the dugout of their new baseball field. Later we went to a house where Steve recently did some work and took photos there. The owner had just had a pond with a waterfall put in along with a lot of other stone and brick work. He had some amazing gardens and a lot of other neat outdoor areas - so it was a perfect photo place. Austin was a really good sport about the whole process...and I think we got some good photos of him.

A new toy....

A brand new 2008 Grand Caravan....inferno red...gray interior....fancy, touch-screen radio.....free satellite radio for 1 year.....2 DVD screens (that can play 2 different movies)......rear windows that actually go down.....built in sun shades on the rear windows.....stow-n-go seats....will play my iPod through the speakers (as soon as I get the right cord).....I can even download my own photos onto the radio system and it will use them as a screen background...a funky key....only 52 miles on it as I drove it off the lot...and best of all - it still smells new! The fancy, touch-screen radio....tuned into to "Big 80s" on Satellite radio...I will be able to change the photo on the right to display one of my photos as soon as I load them onto the hard-drive.

Can you see me in the Dodge ram head???

The funky key...a little different than usual...