FINALLY.....

A day off school! HURRAY!!! I have been counting the days for a couple weeks now. ...so excited to have 5 days off! I have a big to do list for the next five days and can't wait to get some of it done:

• Sleep in (already accomplished that one...but I definitely plan on taking advantage of it daily!)
• drag the Christmas decorations up from the basement
• take a Christmas card photo of the kids
• do some creating - stamping and scrapping
• wait for the cable guy to come
• sit around and "play" with all our new cable channels and DVR
• start reading Twilight
• watch more episodes of Friday Night Lights
• decorate for Christmas
• upload all my Christmas tunes onto my iPod . . . including my NEW Harry Connick Jr Christmas CD - can't wait to listen to that one!!
• order Christmas cards
• make some of these little ornaments with Jenna
• watch some of the Holiday decorating shows that are on HGTV this weekend
• RELAX!
• take photos for the photography class I am taking
• start our Christmas countdown
• start our trip to Texas countdown
• take some photos to put on this blog....it's been photo-less for 2 posts now! Yikes!!

Just us....

After several photos of family sessions, I decided to take a break and give a quick update on our family instead. . .

• Basketball season has officially begun. Jacob is playing on a 5th grade team at the Y and has already had 2 games. Chris has been practicing for a little over a week and is fully into basketball coach mode. I always hate the beginning of the season adjustment and the end of the season burn-out the most. The middle isn't so bad (remind me of that in January!).
• Thanks to Cheryl, I am fully addicted to another TV show. She came over last week and brought season one DVDs of Friday Night Lights. Why haven't I watched this show before? I am offically hooked!
• I have started Christmas shopping...and really have a pretty good start. Jenna and I went last Friday and got quite a bit done. Chris and I are planning to go this weekend to do some shopping for the kids. Our weekends between now and Christmas are pretty busy due to basketball games, so we need to squeeze in the shopping whenever we can!
• It is FREEZING here...and we have even had a dusting of snow on the ground and rooftops. I'm so not ready for cold weather and snow. Yuck!
• The only good part about the cold and snow is using our fireplace. I absolutely love our new gas insert!
• My most exciting news of the day . . . We just upgraded our cable, so we will finally have digital cable...and most importantly DVR. I'm so excited!!
• As of next week at this time, we will be off school for 5 days. I CAN'T WAIT!!
• I had an appointment with the rheumatologist on Monday. She said right away how much better I looked. She commented on how tired and exhausted I looked before. Basically things are a little better so I will continue the medicine I am on. I still experience achiness daily, but it is not as severe most days. There are times when it really gets bad, but if I continue to limit myself and take it easy then I do pretty well. She also prescribed an additional medication to help me sleep. I still have a hard time sleeping all night and still feel exhausted when it's time to wake up. Hopefully the side effects aren't too bad and I can actually take this one (the last one knocked me out!). I don't have to go back until March!
• And a Jenna funny . . . Her teacher recently put out a telling notebook where the kids could write their "tattling" instead of constantly telling her. Jenna wrote in it yesterday and basically said "I can't go to the movie (PTO sponsors a movie the Saturday after thanksgiving) because my dad has a basketball game". Ummm....I don't think the notebook was meant for a place to tattle on your dad Miss Jenna!

{Werts Family}

Last week I had yet another family session. Tiffany suggested that we meet at her Dad's horse barn...and it was the perfect photo taking location. I may have to borrow it again sometime. We were fighting the sun and had to keep moving the whole time so we didn't lose daylight, but we still managed to get lots of photos - including several clothing changes. I started with photos of Lainey and Camdyn and later dad joined us for some family photos.

{Pazitka Family}

I met the Pazitka Family and took their photos on the same day as the Pittner Family. The two families are friends and Vickie was kind enough to arrange photos for both families. They have two gorgeous little girls who were a little shy and not too sure of me at first. But within a short time they warmed up to me and were ready for lots and lots of photos.

It's Tuesday....

....and that means my weekly get together with Cheryl and London. Last Tuesday I had to cancel since we still had flu germs spreading around our house. Instead I met Cheryl and London in Van Wert on Wednesday evening for some quick photos and then dinner at the Chinese restaurant. I love these photos from Wednesday. I really wish I would have had someone to take photos of me with Jacob and Jenna when they were itty bitty and brand new. I'm just so excited that Cheryl lets me cuddle with London and take tons of photos of him so I can get my weekly baby fix.

{Pittner Family}

Vickie is one of my sister Jill's best friends from home. I took their family photos last year and she contacted me earlier this fall for a repeat session. In fact, we even went back to the same location in Stow. It is one of my absolute favorite places to take photos -I wish we had a place like it here! We had perfect weather, lots of fall leaves, and cute little boys dressed in cute sweaters. What more could you ask for?

Just a friendly reminder . . . .

Miss Jenna showing off her brand new haircut and fun election shirt (compliments of Old Navy for $1.00 - can't beat that). She wore it in support of our school levy. Cross your fingers that it passes today!

Jacob and Jenna.....and a fun new location....

Living in a small town, I tend to use the same locations over and over. A few weeks ago - after our visit to the pumpkin patch - I decided to try a new location I had spotted. Just as I was getting ready to take Jacob's photos, the man who owned the business (and the building?) drove up (in a fun car!). I checked with him to make sure it was okay we were taking photos there, he gave us permission and then he gave me a brief history of the building. I took photos of both kids and then used the great older car the man had driven. It made a great backdrop, too! This location also gave me a chance to use some fun actions in photoshop - kind of old school or grungey looking. This spot will definitely be added to my list of favorite photo locations. I can't wait to use it again.


Warning....LOTS of photos below. I had a hard time narrowing them down to just a few favorites.

Trick or Treat....

We actually had trick-or-treat last Saturday, a week before Halloween. It was really cold and windy, but we braved the weather and went trick or treating anyhow. The Chiles' met us at our house for our annual Halloween photo and then we all went trick-or -treating around our neighborhood. 4 more neighbor kids also joined us, so we had a big group this year. Sadly, this may have been Jacob's last year trick or treating. Right now he says he is not going next year because he will be too old. YIKES!!! When did 6th grade become old??



My little cheerleader and skate boarder . . .

Jacob had so much fun picking out his outfit (compliments of Target). He especially loved his shoes - blue converse tennis shoes - which you can't really see in the photo.

Jacob, Jenna, Cade, Gage, and Dane (aka The Chipmunks -Simon, Alvin, and Theodore) . . .

Trick or treating at our neighbor's house...Getting treats from the firetruck . . .

The spooky house. . . the kids weren't too sure they wanted to actually go up to this house, but they finally got brave . . .

Our turn....

Two weeks ago it was my turn to be on the other side of the camera. Nicole and I had arranged a family photo swap, so she came to take our family photos. As much as I don't like having my picture taken, I loved being able to sit back and watch Nicole in action to see how she handles a photo session, posing, getting clients to cooperate, etc. Other than a little plotting between Chris and Jacob (you'll see in the photos below), everyone was really cooperative (even Chris...the poor guy had to go way outside of his comfort zone!) and put up with Nicole and I and our photo obsession! On Friday, I got the CD of our images and I love them! Here are my favorites.

We started out in one of my favorite alleys:

Proof of Chris and Jacob's plotting (take a close look at their hands - silly boys!)...

This photo just about pushed Chris over the edge, but he was a good sport. I had seen a similar photo and wanted to try it with our family. I love how it turned out!

Then we went in search of some fall color. . .



My main purpose in having our photos taken was to get a great family photo to enlarge BIG and hang above the fireplace in our newly remodeled living room. Now I just have to narrow it down and pick one. It's not going to be easy! Any suggestions?? Right now I'm leaning towards one of the first two.

THANKS Nicole for capturing such great photos of our family. I love them!!!