I still have a few handmade Christmas gifts that I haven’t shared yet. I blogged over at The Trendy Treehouse about possibly making this gift for my husbands secretary and I was so pleased with how it turned out. I also bought some enamel paint and made a monogram mug to go with the little bag. Helen told me that she really liked the gift and planned on using the bag for her Bible (it really is the perfect size for a Bible and a notebook). I also made the same thing for my best friend Julie but it didn’t make it through the mail….ugh! bummer! I will have to make her another one and TAKE it to her personally!

We had a dinner guest last Friday. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve had anyone over for dinner. I was very excited to cook up a big meal and try some new things. I know that having guests for dinner for the first time is not the time to try new things…but I guess it’s okay when you know the “things” will work. I made our standby pork tenderloin in the crock-pot (1bottle teriyaki, 1 cup honey, 1/2 cup ketchup, 2Tbls lemon juice, 1 tsp garlic powder and onion powder, cook on low for 7-8 hours or high 4-5 hours (i recommend low and slow)). I tried a new appetizer and a new way (to me) of doing green beans and we also had baked potatoes. I also made a DELICIOUS dessert (but didn’t photograph it) if I may say so myself. So here’s a little random cooking post on my photography blog. Naomi kept saying that “the kids needed a paper to tell what they wanted”. I said “do you mean a menu?” and she said yes, so she wrote out what we were having! So sweet. And our dinner guest is the one who brought the beautiful yellow tulips from yesterdays post! so sweet. I’ll post the “recipe” for the green beans and the appetizer by the photos of them! Hope you can have a dinner party soon and make some delicious food that you only make when having company! I know I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Appetizer: Garlic bread with tomato slices, basil and mozzarella cheese. Cook the bread at 475 for 5 minutes, then add the tomatoes, basil and mozz cheese, put back in oven till the cheese melts. I cut the bread before cooking it all but you could probably cut them in half afterwards too. This was DELICIOUS and I will totally be making this again sometime…hopefully soon!
Pork Tenderloin!!

So I just cut the ends off the green beans, cut the strips of bacon in half and rolled about 6-7 green beans in half a piece of bacon. Lined them up in my baking dish and then sprinkled some brown sugar, salt and pepper over the top. I put it in a 350 degree oven for about 20minutes. Temp and time varies I guess. I just eyeballed it. These were really good too!

What delicious things have you been cooking up lately?

The shortest distance between two people is a smile.  ~Author unknown

Keep smiling – it makes people wonder what you’ve been up to.  ~Author Unknown

If you don’t have a smile, I’ll give you one of mine.  ~Author Unknown

These flowers brought a smile to my face.
Hoping I could help you smile today!

{Jackson, TN child photography, family photography}

I couldn’t believe it when Micah asked me to take his picture with his sisters before church on Sunday. I couldn’t believe it when Hannah willingly sat down with her brother and sister and had her picture taken. I couldn’t believe that everyone got along, had a great time and actually enjoyed a quick mini photo shoot before church. It was SO cute because Hannah would sit down next to them, I’d take a few pictures and then she came over and looked over my shoulder to see the image on my screen. She gets it. I know that she gets more than I give her credit for but its just fun to see what she gets. She would then go and sit down someplace else, thus all the different arrangements of the kids. I took a bunch of photos in a span of 5 minutes and got some great snapshots. It was pretty dark so I had to use the flash! So don’t judge. Really would love to invest in a lens that would allow me to NOT use my flash! Are these BEAUTIFUL portraits that will win me accolades? By no means. Are these portraits that will grace the covers of magazines? Not a chance. Are these snapshots of my kids at this point in our life that I will treasure forever. ABSOLUTELY. Here are a few of my favorites…and then some pretty good outtakes after the good ones!

LOVE this one. Hannah’s like, who are you people!

I told them to squeeze close together…not exactly what I meant!

Make sure to take pictures of your kids when the moment strikes.

They may be grainy, have flash shadows, and not prize winning portraits. But they will be cherished and treasured for YEARS to come!

First of all I wanted to say Happy Birthday to my mom! She’s all the way over in Hong Kong and I miss her terribly…but we are so fortunate that they have chosen to do mission work during the age of technology. We get to skype with them quite often and it’s like they’re right here…they even got to watch a Packer football game on skype from Greg’s computer on Sunday. Happy Birthday mom! Love you so much and we can’t wait for you to come back to America so we can see your face without the pixels or blurriness!!! LOVE YOU!!

These photos are from 2009 and the first photo is the reason we used to call Micah “pirahna boy”

Onto the handmade Christmas presents…

I first saw this idea for clothespin people on pinterest…then followed it to the etsy store of whomever was pinned. I loved that the clothespins she made we bright and colorful and looked cute. I wanted to take it a step further and personalize the clothespin people. I had posted something about them during our 12 crafts of Christmas over at The Trendy Treehouse and Tracey from Alaska contacted me about making one for her family. I was very excited to do so. She told me a little bit about her family and we talked about what everyone should wear but mostly she just gave me creative liscense to create this for her. I was happy with how it turned out and I think Tracey liked it too. I then made another one just because I was on a roll and wanted to make one for our friends family…the one that the dresses and tie shirts were for, the one with seven children…yeah, that one. I really enjoyed painting these clothepin people and adding the details and making it personal. I’d love to make one for your family…or as a gift to give. I’ve got them listed in my etsy store.




I have more handmade gifts to share but it will have to wait for Monday! I am going to spend the weekend with my family and away from the computer!

Have a blessed weekend! Hug your loved ones and cherish each moment that you have with them, even the hard to tolerate moments, just think, this too shall pass. And I’ll try and take my own advice

I showed you these dresses yesterday, they were part of the package that I sent to our friend the Kings. They have seven children, two of them are our godchildren and since I knew I was going to be making at least one dress and one tie shirt I figured “since it’s early enough (it was october when I started) I might as well make something for all the kids” and I am actually surprised at myself that I got them done and mailed BEFORE December even started! yay me! Y’all better write down that I was early once on your calendar because it may never happen again. Anyway, I made those three dresses, then I also made dresses for my girls and one for my niece Kiley. Then when I realized that I never gave Emily her birthday present I figured I’d make her a matching skirt (she’s 13). I also made these same dresses for my other nieces but just got them in the mail to them yesterday! So, in total I made 8 dresses and one skirt with this same fabric (oh and one doll, which I’ll show you tomorrow). I think you can tell how much you like a certain fabric if you work with it over and over and don’t get sick of it. I really like this fabric but I’m ready to move on! I got some really cute fabric for a new dress for Hannah that I’ll show you tomorrow!

Here’s grandma and her girls!We tried to throw Hannah and Kiley into this huge basket for a photo, we knew it wouldn’t really work but thought we’d give it a try!!
Can’t wait to use that basket for some newborn shoots!

Here are all the cousins in their matching outfits! All the boys wore their shirts to church…it was so cute!
Silly faces!
Emily was such a trooper, I had to go buy elastic while in Indy and I purchased the wrong kind so her skirt had to be pinned! Pretty cute kids hey?!

Tomorrow I will show you the dolls I made for Hannah and Kiley!

{Jackson, TN Lifestyle Photography}

I love capturing the everyday moments in life. I want to make sure that I take time to capture some of the everyday moments in the life of this little family. Hannah loves to eat, there are not many things that she won’t eat. She LOVES her graham crakers and I’m so glad because that ends up being my go-to snack for her. She tends to get a little crabby/restless when she’s hungry so I just put her in the highchair and give her a cracker and then I’m able to finish whatever I might have been working on before she insisted that I hold her . The light was good the other day and I wanted to get some photos of her new tooth so I started snapping away and got many great captures of this everyday moment. Just be warned that this is an image heavy post! Enjoy!

This is the “give me a cracker lady” face.

And this is what I call Hannah’s “stink eye”…I think she wanted her cup at this point.





She is such a sweet little girl! So blessed to have her in our lives!!!

And I’m pretty sure this is the best shot I got of her teeth! 15 months old and 2 teeth! Hopefully she’ll keep em a long time then!