Celebrating 9....

Jenna had been planning her birthday party for months and was so excited when her big day finally arrived. She got to celebrate a day early since we left to go camping on her actual birthday.

Jenna had decided early that she wanted a hot pink and zebra birthday. She's not a big cake girl, but decided that cupcakes would be okay. We found these cute cupcake wrappers and then she and I made the cupcake toppers. I love how the whole thing looked!

Blowing out her candles....

Jenna and the friends she invited to help her celebrate her birthday. She has such a great group of friends!

Playing on the swingset after cupcakes and gifts....

Jenna wanted to do a photo shoot with her friends for her birthday. She bought each of the girls a big flower for their hair at Sam Moon in Texas and gave it to them when they arrived. We took all the girls to one of my favorite photo spots and took photos of each of the girls with Jenna and then a group shot of her with her friends.

Jenna's turn...

I always try to squeeze in a few photos of Jenna during our Texas visits. I love getting the chance to take photos of her in new locations.

A few from Salado....

and cowgirl photos with Carsyn and Payton in Weatherford....

and a few of my favorite little cowgirl.....

Carsyn and Payton

During my visit to Texas, Brenda and I planned a photo shoot for the girls. We decided to do cowgirl photos of them....and Brenda found the perfect location in Weatherford. We headed out before it got too hot. The girls were all super cooperative and loved posing in all the different little spots we found.



Carsyn will be 7 years old in August and is so sweet! She and Jenna can go months (this time it was a year) in between visits and pick up right where they left off. Everytime I see them together it breaks my heart that we don't live closer so they could get together more often.

Payton is little miss personality. She had me laughing the whole time I was there and is always saying the funniest things. She was all about taking photos and was a perfect model for me!!

My favorite!!! I love how their boots totally match their personalities!!!

Brenda also wanted some photos of herself. She has been living in Texas for 15 years now, so we said these were her 15 year anniversary photos. After looking at these photos I am pretty sure I officially don't like her anymore. I think the style genes and sparkly eye genes and of course the skinny and a little bit taller genes bypassed me and went straight to her. So not fair!

Another favorite (do you know how ridiculous I would look if I dressed in a similar outfit and tried this same pose??? Again...so not fair!!)

Luke and Mia

One of my favorite parts of going to Texas is being able to take photos of my nieces and nephews. It always makes me sad that I don't live closer and am not able to take their photos more often....but we always manage to squeeze in some photo time!

For Luke and Mia's photos we went to Salado - one of my favorite places to visit near Jill's house. I could definitely move to that area and never run out of places to take photos in Salado - it's just such a neat town with so many fun photo spots!! Luke and Mia were the perfect models and I love how their personalities totally show in these photos!!

Luke celebrated his 7th birthday while we were visiting. It's hard to believe that he used to hate having his picture taken by me and hide from my camera!

Miss Mia turned 3 in March. She kept us entertained while we visited...and I could have followed her around with my camera all day!

More Texas....

I got a little distracted last week with Jenna's birthday, feeling sad about Kramer, and packing to go camping for the weekend and never got to finish up posting photos from our Texas trip. I have a few more fun photos to share over the next couple days....and then I'll move on to birthday and camping photos!!

While we were visiting Jill we spent part of a day in Salado, browsing the shops and taking photos of Luke and Mia. At the end of our visit, we let the kids play in the creek!

Jill's friend was kind enough to let us come hang out on her ranch for a couple hours one evening. If it wasn't for the snakes, I would absolutely love to live on a ranch in Texas and have horses. I could have stayed there for hours just snapping photos!!

Jenna and Luke got to ride one of the horses!!!

Jenna's new cowgirl boots.....she was so excited to get them!!

Mia and Jenna just loved this puppy.....

After visiting the horses and dogs, we walked up the lane to see all the mama and baby goats....

Later in the week we all went to the Ft Worth Museum of Science and History. The kids really enjoyed it...and it gave us a cool place to spend the day!

Digging for dinosaur bones......

Hook 'em horns!!!

Jenna and Carsyn imitating the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit....