Gotcha!

Finally, a picture of Zachary that isn't blurry or have half of his face cut off! He's been on the move so much lately that it's been hard to get a good picture of him. He used to run away from the camera, but now his new thing is to walk right up to the lens grinning ear to ear. It's really cute, but the only problem is the camera won't focus with him so close. Yesterday, I decided to grab my camera and just sit in his room with him for a little bit to see if I could get a decent shot of him. After many clicks of the shutter, I was finally able to capture a picture I was happy with. How can anyone resist that crooked little grin and wrinkled up nose?! :-)

Newborn Portrait: Sarah

I photographed Jeff & Allison's brand new baby girl, Sarah, back on July 13th. (I know, I can hear you now saying "That sure was a long time ago!") Hey, cut me some slack, I've been taking a blogosphere vacation...better to post late than never, right?! ;-) I took these pictures shortly before we started packing to move, so I didn't get a chance to post them then, but she was so adorable I wanted to be sure to share them with you.

Ryan & I photographed and videotaped Jeff & Allison's wedding several years ago, so it's been nice staying in touch with them and seeing this beautiful family grow.

Wedding: Sarah & Matt

Sarah & Matt were married one month ago today on September 8th at Sarah's parent's barn. What a beautiful place for a wedding! Teri & Brad, I'm telling you, if you ever need to make some extra money, just start renting out your house for weddings...you'll make a fortune! :-) This was a fun wedding for Ryan and I, since he was able to come along with me as a 2nd shooter. Whenever we're both photographing a wedding, we always turn it into a little competition to see who can get the best shots. And yes, Ryan, I posted one of your pictures (see last photo) on the blog and several more made it into the slideshow! ;-)

**SEE SARAH & MATT'S WEDDING SLIDESHOW**

Wedding: Heather & Derek

Okay, back to business now! :-) Things have been so busy around here that it's been awhile since I've posted any of the wedding pictures or portraits that I've been taking, so over the next week or so I want to share some of the photos that I've captured over the past few months.

Here are a few photos from Heather & Derek's 7-7-07 wedding. I posted their engagement photos awhile back. They had a beautiful wedding at Pretty Place overlooking the mountains!
There was a beautiful dove release after the wedding ceremony. The doves were provided by A Spirit's Wings White Dove Releases. Contact Julia Gaunt at (828) 582-9115, for more information on a dove release for your special event.

More fun was had at Heather & Derek's reception held at the Greenville Marriott.

Happy Birthday Elaina!

Elaina is 7 years old today! If you'd like to wish her a Happy Birthday, you can leave her a comment here or send her an email.

Settling In

Hopefully there are still a few of you out there who are still faithfully checking my pitiful attempt at a blog. You've probably been wondering if we were moved to another country by the Witness Protection Program or something, but no, we're still here in good old Taylors. We closed on our house 4 weeks ago today and are finally getting all settled into our new home. Things have been even more hectic than usual since the move, but I figured I better make myself sit down and type up this post before anymore time passes.

The move went pretty smoothly, but I don't want to see another U-Haul truck for a really long time! I've only found one casualty so far, broken glass in one of my family photos, so I guess that's not too bad. We had Two Men and a Truck move all of our heavy stuff. That had to have been the smartest decision we made! I think we'd still be trying to move stuff in if it weren't for them. They did a great job moving my "baby" (my roll-top desk). It's huge and it's heavy! I heard someone say that it would probably hurt them before it would get hurt, but I was holding my breath the entire time they were carrying it...I could just see it laying in pieces all over the sidewalk. It came through without a single scratch though! :-)

It seems like everything's been non-stop since we moved. Besides trying to get unpacked (I'm still stumbling over boxes in every room!), we've been doing some "fixer-upper" work around the house. We've also been busy trying to catch up on work that we got behind on through the house selling process. Elaina's first day of 2nd grade was on the Monday after we closed, so that added to the craziness of it all. You would think that I would have more time with her in school, but somehow it seems to be the opposite. She's enjoying school though and it's amazing to see how much she's learning in just the first few weeks. Here we are on the morning of her first day back at school, bright and early! It had been a long weekend of moving and unpacking to have to wake up to the alarm at 6:00 in the morning!

Ryan's parents came down from Iowa to help watch the kids during our move. They were such a big help keeping them occupied for us! I don't know how we would've done it without them! Of course, Zachary decided the morning of our closing though that he didn't want to stay with Grandma & Grandpa, so we had to take him with us and I had to hold him while signing all those papers!

Here's the big 2nd grader showing off her new backpack. I was amazingly organized through the move and made sure her school clothes and supplies were where I could easily find them, so she actually made it to her first day of school in matching clothes! I was not as organized, however, with our own stuff, since Ryan's parents had to go buy sheets for our bed at around midnight the first night that we were in our house because I had no idea which box our sheets were packed in! :-(

I leave you with the most adorable picture I've taken since we've been here. Zachary loves our new family room where he can throw his toys all over and we don't have to worry about keeping it clean for house showings! :-) Here's how I found him one night after he'd been playing with his new discoveries, toys that had been packed away since we put our house on the market several months ago...it was like Christmas!

All packed up...

...and ready to go! This has been a busy week trying to get everything packed and get utilities switched over and all that fun stuff. We're getting the moving truck tomorrow and will have everything out of the house by tomorrow night and will be closing on both houses on Friday morning. We're so excited to get into our new house!

Here are some pictures from the past few days that I wanted to share.

I tried my hand at giving Zachary a haircut for the first time the other day...amazingly it was halfway straight! :-)

This is his new way of pretending to talk on the phone. He sticks his finger in his ear and says "bye". It's so cute! He also uses whatever toy is in his hand as a telephone. Do you think he sees his mommy on the phone too much?! Elaina has been wondering why we haven't gotten a "Sold" sign put up, so I told her she could make us one. She did a great job! Now everyone will know that this house is SOLD! :-)Here's the last picture of the kids sitting on the front porch of our "old" house. This house holds many precious memories, but we look forward to making many more memories in our new home. Okay, I just teared up as I typed that. I've been so busy through this whole process, I haven't really had time to think about the fact that we're leaving our first home. We closed on this house on Elaina's first birthday, so she opened a key to the house as one of her gifts. That's always been a special memory for me. We're now just a little over a month away from her 7th birthday, so I guess she'll be getting a new key this year, but we're hoping there won't be any more keys for a long, long time! :-)