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It’s here, the day children, and quite a few adults, can not wait for. Last year, I’ll admit that we didn’t do anything super special with Jamie, she was only five months old and wouldn’t have known what we were doing anyways. But this year, well this year I learned what it meant to stay up the night before Christmas putting together your kid’s Christmas presents. I know it will get more difficult to keep these things a secret as Jamie gets older, and our basement isn’t as scary as the basement I grew up in (I’m fairly certain that’s where my mom hid all our Christmas presents as a kid).

Rob and I got Jamie a super sweet little wooden kitchen from Melissa and Doug. I’ve also been working on felt food, you know the fabric kind, that way when she throws it on the ground it’s not going to bounce off and hit something else, or me, she is definitely into the throw items on the ground and go “uh oh!” We wanted something that she can grow with and that will grow with her. I wanted something that she will use her imagination with, I want my baby to be full of wonder and stories, stories that one day she will hopefully share with us.

I think the best part of Christmas is spending it with family. I love to watch Jamie run around the house following an aunt, uncle or grandparent. She will talk nonstop, not that any of us can actually understand the gibberish coming out of her mouth, but she looks so earnest when she talks that we all can’t help but gibber back. I love being able to share this time with family.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, may it be filled with joy, love and your own families!

Feel free to take a look at how we spent ours.

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Can you believe we only have one week left before Christmas? One week. Seven days. Are you ready?

When I was a kid, Christmas meant that Santa was coming, we would get toys under the real tree in our house on Christmas day and on Christmas Eve we would have our church’s Christmas program. My favorite one was the Christmas color it joyful. Perhaps that’s because I’ve always been an artist, I would get into so much trouble for doodling on the edges of all my assignments, I’ve realized that I cannot help the fact that if I have a writing utensil of any kind in my hand, I’ll be drawing.

Anyways, back on topic. Christmas. The meaning of Christmas has changed so much since I was a kid. I loved writing to Santa about all the things I wanted, and unfortunately never got, but I also loved driving around after our Christmas pageant, my dad would be driving, my mom would be in the passenger seat pointing out all the Christmas lights, as if we couldn’t tell where to look all the time. I miss those days. There aren’t as many people decorating their houses anymore, stores are setting up Christmas displays months ahead of time, and the radio station has been playing Christmas music for over a month now.

What I love about Christmas now is that it is time for us all to spend time together as a family. It doesn’t matter what kind of presents we get, if any for us older kids, right? It only matters, at least to me, that Christmas is spent with my family and the people I love the most. I think Jamie is going to have fun this year, we splurged and got her a little wooden kitchen. Now she can help “cook” at her own kitchen while I’m making dinner, plus I’ve been working on some felt food for her, I may not be that handy with a sewing needle, but knowing that she is playing with stuff that I’ve made, is so exciting. I can’t wait to spend the day with her and Rob. I think that she will have more fun just playing with the two of us over any other toy.

I’d love to know what Christmas means to you, let me know in the comments!

As always, a post is nothing without a picture, so here is my little office manager, testing out some backdrops for me and some new presets I’m testing out.

Sue was the first to snatch up a spot at our October mini sessions. She said it had been a while since she and Tim had gotten pictures taken of the two of  them. I was happy to capture the love they have for each other. The morning dawned crisp and cool, of course it’s October in Wisconsin. The light was just perfect. I wanted to get up a few of my favorites from their session.

Enjoy!

What an exciting weekend! It started out with me meeting the ladies for lunch at the Garden Party Cafe in downtown Baraboo yesterday. I will admit I have never been to the Garden Party before, but the food was amazing. I took a few shots and totally forgot to take a picture of our desserts before they were demolished.

After lunch, we went over to Rob’s parent’s house to make Christmas cookies. Yay! Who doesn’t love a good dose of sugar for Christmas?

And of course, who could forget the onslaught of snow this weekend? It’s gorgeous outside and if any of you have been out I’m sure you’ve been shoveling/plowing for quite a while this morning just to get out of the house, the snow is so bad. I love the snow.

Well, really snow and I have a love/hate relationship. I love how it looks, how it blankets the world in white and everything is fresh and new, but I absolutely hate HATE driving in it. Thank goodness for four wheel drive or I would not have gotten down our unplowed street this morning to get to work.

I hope you all are having a wonderful day, I think we should all go out and play in the snow, but unfortunately, it’s no good for snowballs.

This was my porto ravioli and it was so amazing!

After we finished with the cookies, I drove downtown to see how it looked, and then decided, since I had the camera anyways, to pull over and take some shots of the square at night. I love these two that Rob captured.

This is how it looked when we got up this morning, I really didn’t want to go to work in this, especially since the roads had not even been plowed yet.

I have to thank all our brides and grooms for being so patient with my blogging, and if any of you would like to practice your parenting on a slightly cranky sixteen month old, give me a call and I’ll get even more done. I don’t get many offers for her, poor kid is teething again (at least that’s what I think is going on!).

All right, on to the fun stuff, right? Rob and I shot Stephanie and Daniel’s wedding way back in July (yeah, I am that behind on blogging my weddings). The got married at St. Martin’s down in Cross Plains and when we arrived, we had a first. The groomsmen were all assembled and ready for pictures, how awesome is that? Super awesome because it never happens! All but one of the groomsmen were Daniel’s brothers, his missing brother is overseas and we did get to “see” him later on at the reception via laptop, it was really great. I’m tearing up just remembering that night, so moving on, shall we?

The girl’s flowers were gorgeous, even after the flower girl tried to demolish her flower ball. One thing that I loved, was that all the granddaughter’s on Daniel’s side wore matching pink polka dotted dresses, they totally fit in with the hot pink theme of the wedding. Stephanie even surprised me with her magenta heels, which I totally love.

Stephanie couldn’t wait to head down the aisle and get the ceremony over with. She was super excited and utterly gorgeous in her lace covered gown, how I love lace. Daniel was in all white and definitely stood out amongst the black clad groomsmen and hot pink vests. July is the month of hot pink for us! I’ll admit that my favorite color is green, but hot pink makes me all girly and full of smiles. I know, it’s a goofy fact for me.

We hit up Ski Hi for some quick shots of the rolling Wisconsin hills behind the bridal party, Stephanie wanted to remember Wisconsin since they are moving out East. Then we headed off to Wisconsin Dells for the reception at the Wintergreen Resort.

The food was delicous, the cake was amazing and it was the first time that we have been at a table completely alone. I swear we don’t smell, but we grabbed a couple empty seats up front – the entire back side was packed. We did have the perfect vantage point for the speeches, toasts and kissing. During Michael’s speech, he joked that Stephanie had to marry the “ugly brother” and everyone just cracked up. Stephanie and Daniel are so great for each other, the were full of smiles and little glances all day.

The DJ kept the dance floor packed, even the kids got into the music. I’m pretty sure that they were dancing better than I can! It was amazing how well the whole family got into the music at the reception.

Congrats and best wishes on your new adventures, Daniel and Stephanie!

Ceremony: St. Martin’s Catholic Church, Martinsville Cross Plains Wisconsin

Reception: Wintergreen Resort, Wisconsin Dells

DJ: Jukebox Bandstand

I’ve got a bit of time since Rob is taking care of sassy miss Jamie right now, so I’m going to put up this quick little blog post from one of our mini sessions from October. It was a bit of a chilly day, but my cousin Mart brought her hubby and two gorgeous little ones out to see me! I love to capture my own family members, it makes me really step up my game.

Our session was quick, full of the sun shining down and so much love! Little misses B and B are just too cute for words! I love big B’s hair, her curls make me so jealous of my own rather wavy locks, they never do what I want. And then little miss B has got the cutest little smile that makes her eyes just slit right up, it is so adorable! Just take a look and fall in love yourselves.

I love this next one, I don’t get enough shots of myself with Jamie and love to capture some Mommy and baby, or big kid, time together.

I love miss B’s hug.

She is totally hiding her teddy graham from me, I love it!

See what I mean about the cutest little smile?