Cuteness

Once again, my grand intentions of blogging about various things in our life have been foiled by our life. The thing that's been keeping me busy the last couple of weeks--besides laundry, cooking, cleaning and volunteering--is editing pictures of a couple of the cutest babies ever!

A couple of weeks ago I did a photo session with my friend Leigh Ann's 6-month-old munchkin--the beautiful E. Claire, also known as Emerson. Leigh Ann is well-known among her friends for making fabulous gourmet cupcakes, so when she saw a cupcake costume for Emerson, it was a no-brainer. She then got the awesome idea to make cupcakes to match Emmie's outfit and use those in a photo session, so that's what we did! We attempted to make a studio with said cupcakes on their back patio, and while the light wasn't very good at the time of day we had to shoot, there were still a few good pictures. These are just a few of my favorites.




About the time I was almost finished editing all of Emmie's pictures last weekend, we had the pleasure of going to KC to hang with our friends Vikkie and Brett, at which time I got a few shots of their lovely family and sweet boys. It was great to spend time with them, and Vikkie fixed us a fantastic dinner, part of which I've already tried to replicate at home. I think the pictures turned out okay, and I'm in LOVE with little Abram's cheeks! He is the most expressive little guy, which I believe I mentioned back in May when I did my first session with them! Could these kids be any cuter?





Oh, and the rest of the family is pretty adorable too. :)


Speaking of adorable, I couldn't resist sharing this video I saw this morning on Petfinder. Holy cow. Cuteness overload.

Go Muppets

Tonight while we were watching Modern Family (which I thought was an especially funny episode, by the way), we saw a commercial for the new Muppet movie that is apparently out or coming out soon. That reminded me of this video, which I saved to a blog post back in August because I thought it was funny enough to share, and then apparently promptly forgot.

I was a huge fan of the Muppets as a child and wanted to be Janice every time I'd "play Muppets" with my brother or friends. Now I think I'd rather be Animal, because I love the way he drums. Either way, today was the perfect day to watch this again because it was a doozie of day with a massive amount of stress, drama and tears. The cure? The Muppets and OK Go!!

Senior Session

Over the summer I spent several Saturdays walking with women from our church in the "Weekend Walking Women" growth group that I organized. One day as we were walking through Prairie Park in Lawrence, one of the women in my group mentioned that she thought it would be a nice spot to take her daughter's senior pictures. I inquired about the session they were planning, thinking that maybe we could talk cameras if she was a photography hobbyist like myself. I was horrified when she then said she was just planning on taking her daughter's senior pictures with her point-and-shoot camera. I immediately offered my free photography services, because the thought of a senior girl having less than desirable pictures to hand out to her friends (do seniors even do that in this digital age?) broke my heart!

We ended up not taking the pics over the summer because it was so ridiculously hot, but last weekend the weather was absolutely perfect and the leaves were just starting to change, so we headed to Rim Rock Farm just north of Lawrence. Rim Rock is the cross country course of KU, and since this senior is a cross country runner, she has run several meets there. Her coach called another coach, and pretty soon we had permission to shoot at this beautiful location. I had driven by there on a couple of occasions but hadn't ever actually been on the course, but it was absolutely gorgeous--just the perfect location for a photo shoot!

I had a great time with my friend and her daughter as we walked almost the entire course looking for beautiful picture backdrops and taking advantage of about every one we found. My subject was beautiful and sweet and a great sport, even when I know she was getting tired of smiling! She was also a great sport about just changing clothes in the woods and tolerating the two local dogs who joined us along the way. It was kind of a pain because they kept trying to get into pictures, but it was also kind of fun to have them as escorts all over the course!

I was pretty pleased with the pictures we got out of the session, because the light and the setting were just so great and my senior subject was just beautiful. Of course, as usual, I took entirely too many pictures and had very few bad ones to delete, so I ended up sending them a link to 130 or so pics to choose from, which they didn't seem very happy about! In fact, they didn't seem overly thrilled with the pictures at all, which was kind of disappointing. Well, I shouldn't say kind of--it was really disappointing! I wanted them to be thrilled with the results--someday I want my pictures to be worth charging money for!

Regardless, I thought my first senior subject was gorgeous and worth sharing. Here are just a few of my favorites, although there were many others that I absolutely loved. If you are on Facebook, you can see a few other of my favorites here! If you have a whole lot of time on your hands and a lot of patience, you might also be able to see the full set of pics here!

Our Church

Clearly I've been an absentee blogger again, probably much to the dismay of my dad but not many other people. I will admit life has been a little overwhelming for me lately, and when I have free time I often just get lost in another world by reading. Now that I'm all caught up on the silly but fun Janet Evanovich series, I guess it's time to get caught up on my blog.

There's been so much going on in our lives I don't really know where I would even begin if I was actually going to try and get caught up. One of the things that's been keeping me pretty busy is our church. I mentioned back in April that we'd started going to Eastlake Community Church, and soon after that we got really involved really quickly! We became members in May, just after I joined the kids team, where I teach in the K-2 classroom. Chad joined the set-up team, which means that he arrives at the school that is currently our church house at 6:30 several Sundays a month. I also recently joined the prayer team, so I have the privilege of praying for the needs of our attenders throughout the week. I lead an activity growth group over the summer, and we're currently recruiting people to join another growth group we're leading as a couple starting in just a couple of weeks.

It probably goes without saying after I just described all of our involvement, but I absolutely love our new church. The music is just fantastic every week, the pastor is super funny and engaging, the message is life-applicable and full of scripture, the people are loving and unpretentious, the church body is incredibly diverse, and the environment is casual and relaxing. Not that I was ever opposed to "normal" church, but I've come to really love a place that is very "unchurchy." I love that anyone off the street who has never stepped foot into a church in their life could come in and feel comfortable and loved. Everything about our church is designed to make newcomers feel welcome, regardless of where they are in their spiritual journey.

You can watch all sorts of videos from and about Eastlake on their Vimeo page, but there was one video that I just really thought explained the who/what/why/when of Eastlake really well.



I could probably go on and on, but let me just say that it's really nice to be excited about going to church each week. As one Eastlaker recently said, it's a church you're excited to go to and disappointed to miss!