Sharing: A Military Family Photo Session

Today, was a beautiful Sunday, and I spent an hour of it capturing some beautiful shots of an amazing military family. Thank you for your service to the both of you!
Please contact: jenjenmurphy82@yahoo.com to schedule your session today :D $50 flat rate for the month of november-december - includes up to 100 HIGH resolution images EDITED on CD to print at your discretion!

The tooth fairy, school etc.

This morning the tooth fairy visted the little old house that houses the girl with the missing front tooth. First tooth to erupt, and first tooth to exit.

Weeks ago, the little blond hair, blue eyed chubby faced girl comes to me and presents me a show of her wiggly tooth. With picture day being a few days away, I tell the little cutie to see if she can hold it in a little longer. (I know, bad mommy).

Picture day comes and picture day goes.

Last night she comes to me and says, "Mommy, can we pull it out now"?

I look, and try to remember when it was safe to pull, sadly, my only memory of having a tooth pulled was by my childhood friends dad, who saw me relentlessly gnawing at a salami sandwhich. He said, "come here girl", and the next thing I know he yanked it out and handed it to me.

I thought...
and I said, "let's let it fall out on it's own baby".
(Thinking, crap don't fall out today the tooth fairy doesn't have anything to give you).

A few seconds later I am eyeballing an ebay auction, she's asking for a piece of my chocolate, I say, "go head". I lose my auction and in the same second, she's handing me her tooth.

Whew, that was crazy!

So as she went to bed, I sent Daddy off with 15 bucks and said, "here get her a little barbie or something". He came back with a barbie and earings, I wrote a little note and snatched the tooth replacing it with the gifts from miss tooth fairy.


Now my daughter is one less tooth and feeling grown. HAHAH, gotta love kids. And by the way, meet "turtle":


In other such news, I even turned 28 on the 4th, and made everyone a big dinner. I used the birthday money from family to get the kids new clothes. Here's what I got on sale at Gymboree for MiMi:


I figure it will be a cute Thanksgiving outfit with a longsleeve shirt. Right now Gymboree has an extra 20% off everything, plus when you spend 50 you get gymbucks, seriously, when they have their sales it's worth shopping bc it ends up being cheaper than shopping at wally world.:D I LOVE! and too bad I just spend all the money before the sales or they'd be set.

Another weekend comes to an end..

The weekends always seem to rush by.

Always.

For months as our farmhouse bed (that we made following the plans over at knock off wood) have remained untouched. We were undecided on what stain to do the bed.

I toyed with keeping it original and pine.

I thought of black...

but, ultimately, with the blue walls, I decided white would be the way to go, nice and crisp and clean.

So I imagine I'll visit lowes this week and purchase white wood stain and see where that gets us.

Now, what bedding? What theme? So many decisions.

Other than the never ending indecision factor, we ventured the outlets yesterday. Nothing good at all. The gymbo outlet was all last years line and ALL FULL RETAIL PRICE. Imagine that. I am however in love with the gingerbread girl line from last year, and so splurged and spent 30 on a cute dress for mimi. Only now I realize I should of just shopped the clearance section on gymbo's website and used the 30% coupon AND spend enough to get gym bucks. oh well, getting out of the house and having a change of scenery was the important thing here. hehe

My house is nearly clutter free, I am contemplating bringing the kids old clothes to once upon a child, but I remember how cheap they are, esp. with name brand clothes. BUT, I don't have time or want the headache that involves dealing with ebay, nor do I want random craigs listers coming over to spend 1-2 bucks a pop, so, once upon a child it is. Cheap or not, this clutter needs to be gone.

Clutter drives me nuts..

and in some ways I had to admit I can have hoarding tendencies, which, ironically enough, watching show scared me and made me realize, even if I am a minimal pack rat, I never want it that out of hand, nd so I found myself last year FINALLY parting with old baby clothes etc.

I mean look at it this way, the clothes aren't the person, or the baby, the baby is the child you have now that you should look at, and know that you're taking THIS moment to treasure and hold onto them. Not the old blankets and spit up on clothing.

Don't get me wrong..

I still kept a few things, but for the most part I think less is more.

A few from today's photo session : 1 year Smash the Cake

Today I photographed baby E, for her 1 year birthday photos. Smash the cake is my new fav. to do. So if you're in the area and feel the need to get some done, PLEASE message me, I only charge 50 bucks, that includes my time, and a full resolution cd to print at your discretion :) My images print up to size 20x30 :)

ENJOY:)

Best gift ever..

Remember my blog about my friend, Jillian giving me her coupon code for a free 8x8 hardcover Shutterfly photo book?

Well it's heeeere! And I LOOOOVE it sooo much!! So much, infact I want to make more, soon anyway :)



I have to put a disclaimer, that I CAN NOT take a photo of a photo, so excuse that the focus is off, but TRUST ME, I am not lying, because if I didn't like it I would tell you the truth. It is HIGH resolution quality, it printed JUST like I see the photos I take on my computer screen. I couldn't of asked for a better book! So, as you look at these, just keep in mind that the photos I took of the book are bad, it is GREAT quality in person :) They normally retail for 30 bucks, but there are coupon codes all over the web, retailmenot.com is a good place to look.
(These are all photos I took myself)







I want to make one of Ethan's 1st birthday "smash the cake" session I took.

Sharing some photos from today

Today, while I was being bitter that it's so far into fall (my favorite season) and it's still in the upper 80's here, I snapped a quick photo of my son. From this photo you can't tell in the original he was leaning on my leg as I sat in my usual spot (the mama recliner) and he put on his halloween cowboy hat, because for some reason or another it's his new fav thing to wear.

You can't tell that he was waving his arm bout with my daughter's clear beaded costume jewelry (that looked like something I won't even mention aahhaha). And so I took to the cropping. I am a fan of off centered crops. I am also a fan of upping the color and making things pop. I think I love this photo a ton, because it's random, and it's up close and personal.

And then I took it outside to photograph the bird house in my maples. I bought this on sale at Joann's some time ago, and I am surprised it hasn't rotted from the diverse weather scheme we have had lately over the years.


It's beautiful, and it looks like fall but it doesn't feel like it. Maybe next week..

I had this wonderful idea for the pottery barn hacks I have seen everyone do with the mini pumpkins. I was going to spray paint three, and tie diff ribbons on each, and they were going to sit in this bamboo tray I bought at the dollar store years ago and make a fabulous centerpiece..

Only, two of my pumpkins decided I burned a candle too close to them prior to my idea and they kind of imploded. No lie, they imploded. Inside out, goey and gross. yuck.

I still loved the one I did manage to save



Other then that, I finaaaally ordered the kids fall photos off snapfish. I can't wait to get them, even if by the time I recieve them it will be late for family, that's why I chose to do some UN costume like this time:


&


Works for me, they can stay right up right on through Thanksgiving until Christmas time when I'll need to do more anyway.

And my thoughts on that? Well, do any of you watch AMC's Mad Men??
I am in love with the 60's fashion and have all intentions of doing the kids a Mad Men inspired children's Christmas photo session. Gosh, I really am addicted to Mad Men. I didn't discover it until July of this year when I was at my sister's in Cali allll alone in her apartment while she was in the hospital and I was chanel surfing (not familiar with the out of state chanels) something on AMC grabbed my attention and kept it. YES, me, short attention span as all get out. It whisped me in and held me. I thought it was a movie at first, I was beyond captivated. Then some minutes later I realized it was a tv series marathon. It was parts of season one and most of two, and when I got home season 4 had started soon after.

It was THAT good a show that I didn't care I missed all of the previous seasons, I jumped right into 4 and fell in love again.

Now that seaon 4 is sadly over (crrrrries) Doug has ordered me season 1 - through on netflix. I am going to have a fantastic time catching up;) it's like watching prequels. hehe.

But back on the topic of photos, my gorgeous friend, Jillian gave me a code for a free shutterfly photo book. Normally I am too cheap to spend the 30+s&h & taxes on just myself so I was tickled pink she gave me her code and let me have it:D when all was said and done it only cost me under 9 bucks for s&h. I can't wait to get it, and it will arrive before my birthday.

Seriously, I always say I am unlucky, but this girl just made my entire day/week/month :D I am so ecstatic!!! <3 I rarely do prints for myself but this time I get a whole nice hardcover book. YAY!! Jillian, you are THE BEST :D