Gabrielle's Wedding

This past weekend, we celebrated my beautiful niece's wedding. She and I are six years apart and we grew up like sisters. It was such a special day for our family and we are beyond thrilled that she found such a wonderful man who could take her to the temple.

One regret that I have from our wedding day is that we do not have good good wedding pictures. We had a photographer that was recommended to us and he really did not know how to take pictures at the temple...so you can imagine what was top on my list for Gabrielle. My beautiful and extremely talented friend, Marielle, took their wedding pictures. You can see some of their wedding pictures on her website: www.mariellehayes.com

Just a few memories from 2010...

You can tell who is the joy of our lives. We are thankful for a wonderful year!

Gingerbread Houses

J had a gingerbread house party at her preschool. Miss Susan is such a wonderful teacher and she is always doing something fun and special for the kids. She invited the moms to come. It was such a privilege to come to this little party to see J in action as well and to see all that Miss Susan had done for them.

Friends

I had my first trial run photo shoot with our friends just before it got too cold. I was very nervous to say the least, but you have to start somewhere, right? Aren't they a cute little family? My wonderful friend helped me edit the last picture for them.

The playhouse

You might remember a post from several months ago about the child size china cabinet that is special to our family. A few too many projects took over and I did not get to finish this when I wanted, but it is now repainted with new hardware. The doll bed in the corner was my mom's and grandma's. For the playhouse, we have turned the closet under the stairs into a little play space for J. I always dreamed of having a playhouse as a little girl and since I never had my playhouse I have always wanted to build one for my children. I still have that dream, but the closet is perfect for now until J grows too tall. She loves it!

"Who took the cookie from the cookie jar?"

We had J's friends over for a little cookie decorating party and their moms brought fondue for lunch. What a treat!

"Baby A"

There is no end of what you can know in the world of photography and I am so excited to learn new things all the time of how to take better pictures. Truman surprised me on my birthday the year that J was born with my camera so that I could capture the special moments with our baby who was and is such a miracle in our lives. I take pictures of our family moments often, but I only wish that I could have known how to take better pictures when J was born. There is nothing like a newborn baby and oh how the time goes by way too quickly. I was so fortunate to take the above pictures with my sweet friend who has been wonderful to give me some lessons on what she knows with photography and we were able to take our other friend's baby pictures. I have been so excited that I have a couple of friends with new babies so that I can practice taking baby pictures.