2014 Holiday Mini Sessions

For weeks and weeks you heard me talking about the Holiday Mini Sessions I was going to hold at Riverdale Elementary School.  Well the day finally arrived and it was such a wonderful, fun day!  I loved seeing all the cuties out in their holiday outfits as well as capturing so many fun family moments.

I had so many favorite from this day!  I think everyone enjoyed playing around in the gym as well as being able to go outside thanks to the beautiful weather.  Thank you to all my amazing clients for being willing to travel some for these mini sessions and for showing up for such a fun time.  I will definitely be offering this again next year and am already thinking of different possibilities.  Until then, I hope these help put you in the holiday spirit!

Holiday Mini Sessions

 

I am super excited to be offering Holiday Mini Sessions this year!  This is the perfect opportunity to get great family photos as well as those fun shots for Holiday Cards.  ​Break out the tacky sweaters and hot cocoa!  I will be offering a great holiday set up at Riverdale Elementary in Strawberry Plains.  If you haven't heard of Riverdale, it's a historic building that has been restored by Connie and Wayne Whitehead and is now available as a photography venue.  Its got a lot of character and I'm excited to be able to offer my clients a new location that we can use for Mini Sessions no matter what the weather is like.  Spots are limited so please contact me to reserve your time slot as soon as possible!

There's a Monster on our porch...

It's black, it's shiny, it's BIG, and it creates amazing delicious food.  Meet our new grill.  With a lot of help from a few elves, Mrs. Claus was able to surprise Speed Racer with this beautiful monstrosity...he didn't even see it coming. As I lugged Christmas presents up the stairs from the lower garage, having just arrived home from a lovely Christmas at my parents house, I heard a cry from upstairs.  "What's this??!"

"What's what??" I asked, trying really hard not to grin like a Cheshire cat.

"There's a big box in our house....it's...it's...a grill??"

It's not often I get to truly truly blindside Speed Racer and I was enjoying every minute of it.  I began to grin remembering how he had "seen" the box of his decoy present (a poster tube, inevitably containing a rather cool poster, but pretty obvious) and had bragged for days before that he knew what it was.

He kept just looking at me, then looking at the grill, then looking at me.  After several more gapes, and silences as he let it sink in, I explained my evil plan and how many of our family members had been involved.

So last night, after setting it up the night before, Speed Racer treated me to a feast on his new grill.  And I have to admit folks, he showed me up.  It was AMAZING.  I may have to change "Dish-o-the-Week" to "Speed Racer's Grill of the Week."  I rather like the idea.

The New York Strips marinating...

Mushrooms filled with red pepper, mozzarella, and garlic filled green olives.

That's the love of my life right there.

The smell was out of this world I tell you.

The button on my jeans just popped at the mere memory.

Our delicious delicious meal, AND one of our awesome Christmas presents this year...

awesome beer glasses.

Now with my stomach rumbling, I'm going to have to go start dinner.  If only we had more steak.

Christmas Tree, oh, Christmas Tree

I woke up this morning to snow.  I'm sure many of you did.  Snow in Knoxville, Tennessee though is a big deal.  People freak out a little bit about it, and not just like, "OOO snow!" more like, "We may get stuck in our houses forever."  There was not even an inch this morning, and by this afternoon it had all melted.  There were still hundreds of cars in the grocery store parking lot...no joke.  However, it was very pretty this morning and put me in a great holiday mood. This is what it looked like on my walk to work...

...I'm a very fast walker, but the guy in front of me was movin'.  It was really cold.

And of course all the morning commuters.

This is one of my favorite statues.  It's of a man rowing a boat, but the way the sculpture is done he is rowing it into pavement, and it looks almost like he is sinking.  The irony of this is that he is right outside the building where I work, and sometimes when I walk by I feel like I'm sinking in there too.  Ahem, in a non-emo way of course.

When it was snowing on Sunday, Speed Racer and I were tackling our Christmas decorations.  It was pretty perfect, Christmas carols were playing, christmas lights were not working, and the fire was beautiful and warm.

Ah, perfection.  I mean, the lights, not the handsome redheaded man right....there.  But I'm getting distracted.  It does puzzle me how every year you can buy new Christmas lights, when they are done put them into a safe, dry box, and then the next year half of them do not work.  What is the deal??  I want answers Christmas light industry.  In the end we went out and had to buy some more...these were gonners.

Now we just need the star!

These cute little owls are some of my favorite ornaments.  I got them at Le Target when we first moved here and I just think they are adorable.  They make me smile every time I see them.

Speed Racer on the other hand...

...thinks they are weird and creepy.  It's Christmas by gosh and it's not Christmas without...Christmas owwwwwllls???  As I say with most things, "Whatevs, I do what I want."  Le. End.