It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! (Georgia January Sessions Announced)

I don't know about all of you but I am SO excited about Christmas. I love everything about it... the ridiculous decorations, the tree, the sappy Christmas music, all of it. Most of all though I love being with friends and family. I'm so stinking excited, I've got the house all decked out and I even took the crawl space under the stairs and turned it into a "secret room" for the kids decked out with Christmas lights, ornaments hanging from the ceiling, candy, and toys, the girls are going to flip. I'll try to take a pic before the demolish it and share it on here.

Now this blog post does have a purpose other than rambling about my Christmas obsession, I will be in Georgia January 5-9 and will be available for a very limited number of sessions, so if you're interested book now!

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

And since no blog post is complete without photo's, here are a couple of my brother and his beautiful, sweet, wonderful bride, they haven't even seen these yet so shhhhhh! :)

"He just stopped smiling"

That is what this little cutie's mom said to me when we first met up at for his session. She said "he was all smiles and a couple of weeks ago he just started making this funny face and just stopped smiling." Well after shooting him I have a theory; he knew he and I had a play date and so he was saving all those smiles for me! Seriously, I can't remember the last time I had a little honey that smiled this much! I'm smitten with him for sure. :)

we've got to pray just to make it today

So I have a song theme going on with my blog titles, anyone know what song this blog title is from?? Anyone?? Well it's none other than MC Hammer, please Hammer don't hurt em :) This little SWEETHEART prayed for the police bike we saw, prayed for an ambulance, and prayed for me! My heart melted. See, usually when shooting kiddo's I'll do embarrassing things like pretend I'm tripping and falling... or say "oh no a bug bit me!" or squeal like there's something on my camera and the kids will usually laugh at my obvious misfortune, and I can't say I blame em, I would laugh at me too. :) But not this doll, he was so concerned for me when I would try my lame tricks (which was a lot because I have created some pretty bad habits while shooting that are hard to break). So he would come over and put his hand on me and pray for me! I could have just scooped him up and covered his adorable little face with kisses! His mom and dad are obviously doing a few things right. :)

And I need to give a big THANK YOU to Lorna and the crew out at Wheels Auto Salvage in Ashdown. They were SO kind and allowed us to come out and take some photo's at the salvage yard which was beyond cool, and Lorna had few fantastic old cars at her house that she let us shoot! I can't wait to dig into all the photo's and edit them. :)

You better work....

...do your thang, on the runway... :) This family makes me think of that song, they are stylin for sure. This is my uncle, aunt and cousins, and they have helped me answer the question that I always get which is "what should I wear for my portraits?" Here is what they did oh so right:
1. Layers
I LOVE layers, if you think your outfit or your kiddo's outfit needs a little "something" extra, add a layer...... a jacket, a vest, a scarf, a hat, especially in winter time, they just give the outfit a little more pizazz.
2. Match, but don't match.
I am not a fan of the "lets all wear white button down shirts that look exactly alike" you don't dress like that in normal life, why would you on picture day? Now don't get me wrong, I definitely want you to coordinate, but that means different clothing that seems to mesh well together. So, here's the rule of thumb, don't wear totally different styles, so if you want to wear a nice cocktail dress and pumps for your photo, don't let your hubby wear shorts and flip flops. Another good rule of thumb is that the colors be in the same color family, so the family below chose to do outfits in blacks/grays/etc... then they switched to bright colors, reds, blues, greens, etc... and it works so well!
3. Be YOU
This is the most important rule of all, if you are not a dress, heels and hose type of girl, then PLEASE don't try that on picture day, because it will show in your photo's that you are not comfortable. And if your kiddo hates wearing patent leather shoes and tights, then as adorable as they are stick them in some jeans or sneakers or whatever they feel their "best" in. I want to capture you as yourself, just a shined up version of yourself, but still you. :)
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