Friday night saw me helping a very excited Weslea get ready to attend her last Father-Daughter Sweetheart Dance with her daddy.

In years past I have attended the dances myself as the photographer (and have so many photos of the memories here, here, here and here).  This year was different though as my boys were getting ready to welcome six friends who were arriving for an overnighter of movies, junk food and crazy all-boy fun.  Nine boys in this house for an overnighter?  What was I thinking?!

All we had time for in the form of a photo shoot were a couple of quick shots (during which the two of them competed to see who could make the silliest faces) until finally I saw a quick, melt-my-heart moment.  Not an amazingly spectacular photo…but I’ll always be glad to have this little memory of their sweet night together heading out for their last Sweetheart Dance.

Enter your “Hugs & Kisses” themed image into our I Heart Faces weekly photo challenge on Monday and Tuesday.  As co-founder of I Heart Faces, I am not eligible to win the challenge but enjoy participating as a way to creatively improve my photography!

While we were discussing ways to bring more focus and attention on their agency and purpose, one thing I suggested was that they could showcase photos of families that are involved in real moments…those poignant moments that make them the family that they are now that their adoption is finalized and that child is a member of their family.  I really feel that if a birth mother was on the fence as to whether or not adoption might be a choice that she’d like to make, seeing the fun interactions that other adoptive families experience might help her decide that this would be a loving option for her child as well.

Since the mom in this family loves to bake, we decided to have a “Cookie Making” lifestyle session and it was so much fun to be a part of recording those special memories for them!  I truly look forward to being involved in many other upcoming lifestyle sessions for this organization as well.

Enter your “heart” themed image into the I Heart Faces weekly photo challenge on Monday and Tuesday.  As co-founder of I Heart Faces, I am not eligible to win the challenge but enjoy participating as a way to creatively improve my photography!

Enter your silly themed photo into the I Heart Faces photo challenge this week.   As co-founder of I Heart Faces I can’t win any of the challenges, but I love to use them as a way to grow creatively as a photographer.  I encourage all photography lovers I know to join in the fun!

{This is a first glimpse at Weslea’s custom made bed that my brother-in-law built for her.  We have a few more finishing touches to do and then I’ll be writing a post about her new room that has been the perfect transition from her old, “little girl” space into her new, “I’m almost a teenager” space.  She is loving it!}

Enter your “By The Book” themed photo into this week’s I Heart Faces photo challenge.  As co-founder of I Heart Faces I can’t win any of the challenges, but I love to use them as a way to grow creatively as a photographer.  I encourage all photography lovers I know to join in the fun!

Be sure to check back later this week when I post the full session on my blog.

Enter your “Family Fun” photo over in the I Heart Faces photo challenge this week…

Today’s post will be the opposite…I’m going to share a few photos that my sister and I had the pleasure of capturing for Jess’s beautiful family!
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For the first part of their session we worked on trying to capture more posed types of images of her family.  Jess, Andrea and I are usually more candid types of photographers but she needed these images for an upcoming project she is working on so we decided to go for it.  And boy did they ever look good!

After completing that portion of the session, we headed just a few blocks away for some real fun! A beautiful indoor carousel where the kids could ride to their heart’s content while Andrea and I tried to capture some decent shots in the midst of a fairly dark building and LOTS of movement.

After munching on popcorn and other goodies, we ended the day with a few candids of her beautiful little ones as we were walking back to our vehicles.

Thank you Jess for allowing me to spend time with your family that day! Be sure to check out her family blog, The Ruby Willow, for more images there.

It’s exciting to be celebrating a new year of photo challenges over at I Heart Faces!

Like many of you, I found it almost impossible to choose just one photo as my very favorite from the past year. So, I decided to go with this image of my beautiful daughter because of the fond memories it evoked for me. This photo was taken during the I Heart Faces Dream Big Photography Workshop in San Antonio where Weslea modeled for our Red Riding Hood stylized session. It was such a lovely week that we got to spend together as mom and daughter.

As co-founder of I Heart Faces I can’t win the photo challenges, but I truly enjoy entering them as a way to stretch my creativity and grow as a photographer! Enter your “Best Face Photo from 2011″ on Monday or Tuesday of this week.

It was our year to host my family’s big New Year’s Eve party though and that was what we spent most of our “vacation” getting ready for.  We finished several complicated house projects that I can’t wait to share here on my blog and hosted a party that was super fun for the 30 people who were able to make it to the event.

To keep things interesting that night we had several competitions and fun activities that everyone was required to participate including:

-Wii Dance Party “Dance Off” – This was the biggest highlight of our night and was so much fun to participate in AND to watch!

-Hot Shot Basketball Competition (my son, Will, stomped all over everyone)

-White Elephant Gift Exchange

-And, a photo booth.

This was especially popular with all of the kids (including my big kid – a.k.a. my husband).

Wishing you all a wonderful and happy New Year!!

{This post was entered into the “Silly Holiday Photos” linky at I Heart Faces.)

This week at I Heart Faces we’re hosting a fun “Holiday Bokeh” photo challenge…it’s a non-competition one so our participants can link to as many photos as they’d like or include multiple photos in their posts. I’m looking forward to being inspired by the beautiful blurry bokeh I’ll see!

Are you not exactly certain what bokeh is?  Be sure to read this “Holiday Bokeh” tutorial that my friend Keli wrote.  It has all sorts of tips and tricks for achieving beautiful bokeh during this special time of the year.

Enter your Holiday Bokeh photos anytime before December 31st.

Does “Elf on the Shelf” visit your home? This was the first year that he made an appearance at our home and we are having a blast getting to know Ollie and seeing what antics he’s been up to after we wake up each morning.

The evening we set up our Christmas tree he arrived with his storybook and by the next morning he had toilet papered our Christmas. On the second morning we discovered that he had turned our milk green!

Since then he’s taken over our basketball game making slam dunks…

Got into the candy canes (which he kindly decided to share with the kids)…

Replaced all of our new stockings with undies…

Created a “sugar” angel…

Hid in our cupboard…

And raided the candy jar.

Even our black lab, Willow, is obsessed with him (as you can see from the bite marks in poor Ollie’s head!)

Due to Willow’s excessive show of love, the “don’t touch Ollie or he might lose his magic!” rule quickly changed to “only mom can touch Ollie each day to move him safely back to the top of the Christmas tree out of Willow’s reach!”

Ollie has added a LOT of fun to our Christmas this year and I know I’ll be sharing more of his silliness soon.

This post was added to Tidymom’s I’m Lovin’ It.