little guy from back in October that I named Mr. Speedy look here and I can say that without a doubt he still holds that title! He’s as cute as ever though and we all got our workout for the day (especially his mom). Hope you enjoy the sneak peek:)

Another precious little boy. He was pretty little but fully awake for the majority of the time. Once we were outdoors he snoozed away. I loved some of his looks. It was almost as though he tolerated all of the poses so we could just be done and he could go home. Hope you enjoy your sneak peek:)

Doesn’t he totally look like he’s humoring us? Like, let’s just get this over with people.

I’m calling it now. Mr. Taft here is going to be the next big name in the racing world! He lives on our street and anything with wheels and he’s on it and he’s going f a s t! I mean FAST. And he’s been like that for as long as I can remember. Luckily, he was really good for the pictures and didn’t use his speed to get away from me:)

We had quite the adventure for this photo shoot. We started out at an abandoned house with a barn that I had spotted the day before. We also wanted to take some pictures at my usual field so I mentioned that I didn’t feel that comfortable there with only she and I and kids. It’s kind of secluded and some strange people have come by before. So, we conned another neighbor into coming to be our bodyguard. We were only there for a few minutes before an old van (yeah, it’s always a van, right?) drove by slowly, checking us out. A few minutes later I look up and he had turned around and parked just a little ways down the street and was watching us. We decide to jet. Probably nothing, but we were a little uncomfortable. So then we headed to a local park to finish up. Then I realize that I left my camera bag at the first location…the abandoned house. It’s getting dark, we’re hoping no one found the camera bag, and we drive up. There’s a suv now parked there and we can see a man walking around the abandoned house and we would have to pass him to get to the barn. We park across the street and wait for him to leave. Finally he did and we go over there, my bodyguard makes a mad dash for the barn to get the camera bag, and we make it home. We’re a bunch of chickens… I know!

But chickens need their camera bags, too! Hope you enjoy Catherine!

Here’s another super photogenic family. There’s so many pictures of everyone looking and smiling…I had such a hard time narrowing it down. We met at the Japanese Gardens and although parking is a little bit of an issue the Gardens offer lots of photo ops. (Except for the group of people that decided to take up camp in one of the little huts that we had to boot out). I hope you enjoy your sneak peek:)

Now, doesn’t that wide open-mouth smile just make you grin when you look at it?!

for several reasons. One, we had so much fun on our three, yes three, photo shoots. The first time we lasted about 20 minutes and decided that the weather — mainly gusts of 30 mph wind — was not going to cooperate. The next time we had a blast but I was a little unhappy with how fast we lost the sunlight (and I love some setting sunlight) so we went back a third time to get it just right. We laughed so much that it didn’t feel like work…at all. I also adore Melissa because she was Mackenzie’s kindergarten teacher. She was straight out of college and I knew right away that we were going to love her as Kenz’s first teacher. By the end of the year I swear every single student in that class wanted to go to Texas A&M where their teacher had gone. Mackenzie would come home and tell us that when they did something good they would get an A&M sticker or drawing on their hand. We joked that we were going to send her to school with a University of Texas longhorn symbol on her cheek and tell her to tell her teacher that she had cleaned her room really good that weekend:) (Just for the record neither I nor my husband are Aggies or Longhorns, heehee!) Mackenzie indeed had an awesome kindergarten experience and I’m so appreciative! I think it’s so important that the kindergartners learn that school and learning can be fun. And now Melissa has moved to 2nd grade so I’m hoping that Cassidy gets her next year. *Crossing my fingers & toes*

Well, school starts back tomorrow and the kids were in bed by 8:30. I won’t mention the fact that they kept coming in to the study to tell me they couldn’t fall asleep. One would come complain and I’d send her back to her room and 2 minutes later the other would come in. It was like they were tag teaming for their whine fest. I had to finally pull out the punishment that really works around here…”The next person that gets out of bed and comes in here to tell me they can’t fall asleep is going to clean house after school tomorrow.” It worked! Haven’t seen them since. They may still be awake in there, but I get credit for being a bedtime stickler.) This past summer I got so tired of hearing, “I’m bored.” I tried several things to break that cycle and finally started using a 15 minutes of cleaning if I heard it and it’s amazing how non-bored they became.

I hope everyone is having a great start to their New Year! Enjoy your sneak peek guys:)

I lost the sun the first time in the field, so this time I was hoping to catch some sun flare.

Bring it on…