Wendy Vonsosen | Danville CA photographer

Hope Toliver | Tulsa OK photographer

Jobrina Hofleit | Goodyear AR photographer

Wendy VonSosen | Danville CA photographer

Hope Toliver | Tulsa OK photographer

Jobrina Hofleit | Goodyear AR photographer

Wendy VonSosen | Danville CA photographer Hope Toliver | Tulsa OK photographer

Jobrina Hofleit | Goodyear AR photographer

If you have made it this far, thank you for enduring my rambling! This month, our pictures are of us on Christmas eve! They are grainy, because the light wasn’t good, and my nephew is in several of the pictures as well, but I will claim him too! And Christmas even with my siblings and parents has always been a tradition and is one I want to document and remember! Plus, my husband actually sat still for a few pictures, so I decided to use these rather than taking the kids out and trying to get something else for this first month!

Thank you for taking a peak into our world and I hope you will check back the first Thursday of each month for this post! I love that I have 12 other photographers who will be pushing me and holding me to my comittment to document my time with my family! And I love that you will be checking to see what we have been up to! So let me know that you will be checking in by leaving a comment, and then check out the rest of the amazing photographers in my group, starting with my friend, and one of a couple of people in my group who I have actually met, Hope Toliver | Tulsa  Senior & Family Natural Light Photographer – She has three precious girls, and I am sure you will love what she has to share!

This week, I instantly thought of these pictures when I saw the theme! I love these pictures and I have intended to post them for quite some time, but I never did. (Just like many others that I like!) These are from a get together that I was lucky enough to attend with other members of The Bloom Forum.

Lilah- is the daughter if the amazing and talented Sara Tegman who came down from St. Louis. She was precious and SO sweet to Charlie who was the baby of the 7 kids who were running around! Hard to believe that 30 minutes prior to these pictures these two little ones were strangers. I wish sometimes that we were all as willing as a 5 year old to help out the “strangers” in our paths! Charlie was delighted to have someone helping him out! Especially someone who wasn’t trying to beat him up two seconds later like his big brother often does after helping him out!!

Be sure to check out Debbie’s blog to see what she has to inspire us this week!

One of my favorite things about living in the south, is my kids ability to spend time outside almost year round. It is rare that it is TOO cold to be outside! It can often be too hot to do much that doesn’t involve water in the summer, but there are plenty of things that we can do to keep cool and still be outside!

I have really enjoyed seeing both of my boys discover the world around them throughout the different stages of their infancy and toddlerhood. It is such a joy to see them engage with the different aspects of nature and learn about them and learn to love them.

These are a couple of shots from our beach vacation that really show their love and excitement of the environment they got to spend almost two weeks in! Luke really enjoyed all the animals (crabs, dolphins, fish, etc) and loved finding feathers on the beach. This is the first year that Charlie has been able to walk when we were at the beach, so he was really discovering the sand and the ocean and sea oats for the first time. He loved the wind, and when it would pick up, he would always exclaim “it’s WINDY!” So my take on nature this week has a beach spin to it, but I am so very glad to be back in the loop.

Be sure to check out Melissa Deakin and see what has to share this week! I love her work and can’t wait to see what she has for this week!

Big sister Miss “P”

….. and of course little brother “C” – he always makes me laugh!

So here is “looking in” my backyard. This is a very typical summer morning, this ones just happens to also be Luke’s special day, so I actually got out the camera to document the day, and I am so glad I did, because these are the details I want to remember always!

Kate is on vacation this week, so I get to link  to a different fabulous photographer from my group of friends at The Bloom Forum! Be sure to see what Kelly Whatley | Coastal Bend photographer is “looking in” this week! She always has such a neat perspective on our themes!

abstract

— adj
1. having no reference to material objects or specific examples; not concrete
2. not applied or practical; theoretical
3. hard to understand; recondite; abstruse
4. denoting art characterized by geometric, formalized, or otherwise nonrepresentational qualities

I tried photographing several different things. several different ways. Nothing was working for me. So I finally decided the most outside of the box thing for me to do was to let my kids take pictures with my camera. Any of you who know me well or know my children know that this is a huge stretch for me! But apparently, they have a much better grasp of abstract than I do!

(don’t worry, I had the camera strap around my neck and let them take turns putting the camera up to their eye and push the shutter button. They LOVED it!)

Now go see how Kate Williams – Southeast Wyoming family photographer interpreted “abstract” this week!

Our theme with my 52 week group- is “time of day”. Probably my favorite time of day at my house is NAP TIME! Because most every day, I take a nap when my boys do! And YES, my almost 5 year old still takes a nap every day! And even if he doesn’t (he almost always does)- he must stay in his room during nap time.

But one of  the necessary times of the day leading up to nap time is PLAY time!! That is the time of day between lunch time and nap time. When I encourage and push my boys to play as hard as they possibly can so they will wear themselves out and take a really good nap! At least 2 or 3 days a week, after I pick Luke up from preschool, we will go to the park for play time. It has become a favorite time of day for the boys and for myself. We will often meet friends at the park and take lunch with us to eat there. We have so many wonderful parks in Clinton. There are at least 3 that we really like within just a few miles of our house! So since nap time isn’t much fun to take pictures of, I am sharing with you my boys favorite time of day which leads up to my favorite time of day!!

Be sure to check out Kate Williams – Southeast Wyoming family photographer , she has become one of my favorite photographers to follow! I know you will love what she has to show us this week!

If only life were so easy that if we converted things to black and white, we could see all the true emotion and the way things really are.

This is my little sister and my nephew. I love this picture. I love the happiness in their eyes. These are two of my favorite people in the world. And two people who I always want to know all the happiness they can. They both deserve it. I do know that being a two year old and being the mama to a two year old, can often have lots of ups and downs, but I am so glad to have captured one of the great moments between them and be able to share it with you!

I love you two!

If you have been following my fellow photographers from the Bloom forum and I on our 52 week journey, then you will notice that we have changed things up! I will be linking to a different photographer for the next few months. So the order will be a little different, but you can still follow the links of all the photographers in the circle until you make it back to my blog. So, be sure to check out Gigi’s site of Life and Lens and see what she has to share today. Her photos are always amazing!