Mylie's 2 year pictures

Those of you who read my blog often know that I get to take Mylie's pictures a lot! :) She is one well-photographed little girl! And I'm so glad her mommy lets me help capture her special moments! Mylie is now 2 years old, and so busy! She and Ava ran around me and Jamie in circles when we were trying to take these pictures, and it was a wild time...but I love what we ended up with!





There are the beautiful eyes!!

The lollipop was very key in getting some smiles! I thought it was very cute!



Thanks for the fun time and for letting me take Mylie's 2 year pictures! Happy Birthday, Mylie!

One for the Gulley family

One for the McGowans

Another fundraiser opportunity!

I am going to be doing another fundraiser! This time it is for DuQuoin High School's Youth & Government program. Here's how it works: The Youth & Government students will be selling tickets for $20 for a quick photo session with me. They get to keep the money they make from the sale of the tickets, and will receive a bonus from me if they book a certain amount of sessions...
Here's the flyer:



If you have questions, you are welcome to email me at info@jessicahollisphotography.com or call me at 618-625-6787. If you want to make an appointment to have photos done at this fundraiser, please contact Sarah, her number is on the flyer.
Please help support DuQuoin's Youth & Government, and get some cute pics of your family or children while you are at it!

One for Mylie!

Emma's 6 month session

I met Emma, her siblings, and her mom back in November at the PTO fundraiser. Emma was about 3 months old then, and so adorable! She's just as cute as ever now for her 6 month pictures!
Here's Emma:
This was a special blanket that her Grandma made.





I love those chubby arms! So cute!



Thanks for letting me take Emma's 6 month pictures! She is so sweet!

What was she thinking?

Oh my Ava! My sweet crazy insano Ava.
Last night we were getting ready for church, and I had just dressed Ava and Cohen. I had left them together in his room and went to my room to change. Not a minute later, Maddie Kate runs in and says, "Mom! Dad says for you to come right now!" She kinda freaked me out because of the urgency in her voice. So I ran into Cohen's room, and this is what I saw:


Just when I'm starting to think she's growing up a little, she goes and squirts half a bottle of baby lotion on her brother's head! Not to mention I just dressed him for church, it's all over his shirt, and so he had to have a bath and new clothes! Johnny said the look on my face was priceless.

I've been playing with my new backdrops and lights a lot lately...still working on it, but thought I'd show off a few of my faves of the girls from the past day or two!

Jennifer was nice enough to bring back these lollipops for the girls from her DisneyWorld trip! So we tried to take some pics with them, but Ava had busted hers before it got opened, so she couldn't really do the cute lolli pics....sounds about right, huh?! :)




In the words of my friend Wendy, "She may look innocent, and she may look sweet, but that girl is a LITTLE RASCAL!"

One for Emma

An Ava story and The Sulser Family

I think it was probably last November when Johnny asked the gymnastics place where we take Maddie Kate if we could get Ava in a younger children's class at the same time that Maddie Kate goes. They had to put her on a waiting list, and then we made the huge mistake of telling Ava that she was on a "waiting list" to take a gymnastics class. The next time MK was going,and Ava was NOT going, Ava started crying and trying to get dressed in a gymnastics outfit, saying, "But I have to go! They are WAITING for me!!" We felt so bad, and have been trying to explain to her ever since what a "waiting list" means! Well, Christmas break was over, and it was time for Maddie Kate to go to gymnastics (or "ranastics", as Ava calls it) last night. Once again, Ava tried to get dressed and was so sad when we tried to explain that she could go watch, but she couldn't be in a class yet. She was in tears, I mean, really falling apart, so I kept her home with me and Johnny took MK alone. I got her gymnastics outfit on her and let her wear one of the new pettiskirts, and that cheered her up quite a bit. The skirts are so twirly! So we took some pictures, and here's a storyboard I made for her:


Then last night while we were eating supper, we got a phone call from the gymnastics place telling us that Ava was in! I told her and we all cheered! She was SO happy! She has been planning on doing the big girl things that Maddie Kate does (school, gymnastics, baseball..) for a long time, and the first one is here! I am so happy for her! ♥

The Sulser family had booked me for this session back in June. At the time, I thought that was crazy, I just wasn't that busy, and couldn't imagine ever being so busy that anyone would have to book me 6 months in advance for a session. Well, it turned out that my fall was so busy that I took December off from sessions, so I guess it's a good thing Tiffany booked me for this one so long ago! I guess she knew better than I did! :)
We took the large family portrait in the seats at the Historic Downtown Opera House in Sesser. It really worked out quite well! There were about 40 people, and it would have been hard to arrange that many people just about anywhere for a group shot! But having the seats made it work well, everyone was spaced out, and the only problem was getting the little kids to look! But I loved the idea, very original!

Then we got all the great-grandchildren together...a few mommies had to stay, the little ones weren't loving it...

And some of the kids with their great-grandma, I LOVE this one!

And some smaller family group shots:










Thanks for giving me the opportunity to meet all of you and figure out one more branch of Sesser's family tree! :)

New backdrops!

I had been eyeing these backgrounds for awhile now, but just kept thinking I couldn't have them because of my carpet. Then all of a sudden last week it clicked...all I needed was a piece of plywood to lay over the carpet so the paper wouldn't get rumpled and holes poked in it! My sweet husband agreed... after just a little pleading on my part... to get me a piece of plywood, even though he knows this will mean he has to drag it in and out of our front room every time I need to set up the paper backdrops! :) So while he was at it I had him pick me up a piece of plexiglass to lay over the paper for reflection. I got the paper in gray, crimson, brown, pink, and blue. Yeah, it's SO time for a studio, I know, I know...!
Well, the paper got here this afternoon, as did some really fun pettiskirts that I bought for the girls, so it was like Christmas for me today!!
Not to mention yesterday Cohen turned 11 months old, so it was time for some pictures of him anyway!



I know what she's wearing looks a bit crazy with the skirt, but we were just playing around, so I didn't worry about it too much! :)









Technically, he isn't walking yet, so naked pics are still okay! ha ha
And I couldn't decide which I liked better, so here it is in B&W:




We had fun playing around today with this! I think I ♥ it! :)

Tomorrow, some more of the Sulser family pictures!

30,000 hits!

Wow! It seems like not so long ago that I posted how excited I was to have had 20,000 hits! Thank you all for checking and reading my blog, it means more to me than you know! :)

This morning I went to check on Cohen, and somehow he had found a piece of chocolate candy (probably compliments of Ava...) and this is what he looked like:


This was the first time he has ever had chocolate...looks like he enjoyed it! He is trying to walk now, and went 7-8 steps on Sunday at church. It's exciting, but at the same time, I don't want him to walk yet! I want him to stay a baby! Plus, he will be into everything worse than he already is!
After I took this of Cohen's crazy chocolate face, I decided to do a few more natural light photos of the girls too. This photo is probably the most real true Ava picture that I have ever taken:

She is holding her two best friends in the world! Their names are "Girl" and "Boy". One of my brothers actually gave "Girl" to Maddie Kate when she was born, and she never paid the bear any attention. Ava on the other hand, became very attached to Girl a long time ago. We have been dragging that thing everywhere for probably 2 years now! Girl has a rattle in her, so we can always hear Ava coming to wake us up in the morning! Then sometimes Girl has to have a bath in the washing machine, and Ava always wants to hug her and tells her it will be okay, and wants to put Girl in the wash herself. Then when Girl comes out of the dryer, Ava is always so happy that Girl is all clean and warm! It's very cute! Girl is getting a bit worn out, so I decided to see if I could find another one, and I did an internet search for "Oshkosh Bear" and found a new Girl on eBay! She was not cheap either, and I can't for the life of me figure out if they are actually collectors items or if I just found a seller who was trying to convince me that they were! Well, the seller also had the boy bear that matched Girl, so Johnny and I decided that Boy would make a great Christmas present, and the new Girl could remain safely in the closet in case of emergency! The only problem now is we have to keep track of TWO friends instead of one! :)
And lastly, here's my big girl:

She had a buddy over to spend the night and was looking pretty bleary-eyed, but she has always put a smile on for me when I show up with the camera! Maddie Kate has been obsessed lately with a website called theNorthPole.com. It's all about Santa. Even though Christmas is over, she has been playing on there for the past week! She got the idea to write a letter to Santa, because she found his "address" on there, you know, Santa's Secret Village, 1 Snowy Lane, The North Pole. So she writes the letter and puts it in an envelope all ready to go and asks me for a stamp. I am not sure what to do, so I say, "Oh, Maddie Kate, we can't send this to Santa because we don't have his zip code." So I'm all proud of myself thinking I have gotten this under control. Not 5 minutes later, she comes back with the envelope and a zipcode written in big bold numbers. SHE GOOGLED SANTA'S ZIPCODE! I was amazed! The internet didn't even exist when I was her age, and here she is using it like a pro. We gotta watch that...!
I started running again this morning! You know, New Year and all! I quit running back in Sept when I had bronchitis (right around the time I got my treadmill!) and my business was sooooo busy all fall that I didn't really have time for it. But I am getting back to it! I have to if I tell you all about it...it's good accountability. I also am starting my "meal plan" again. Hopefully this combo with the fact that I will not be drinking 3 Dr. Pepper's a day like I have been the past few months will help drop off some weight. After all, my sister's getting married in June, so that gives me a goal! :) I've done it before, so hopefully I can do it again! Running on a treadmill is different though. I felt pretty wobbly when I got off of it...but the nice part is I can watch tv while I run!
Well, I'm headed to bed. School starts tomorrow, so we all have to get going earlier!

Something NEW and some WINNERS!

I know, this might not be a big deal to most people, but it's a big deal to me! I just learned how to make the pictures BIGGER on my blog! Yeah! This is enormous compared to the same photo in the last post!
Thanks to Bianca for helping me with this!! :)
I have been leisurely enjoying some time off the past few weeks, and have been pretty lazily messing around with some plans for the new year. I'll get back into gear next week when school starts back, that makes us get in the "routine" again!

Okay, now on to the winners!!
First of all, I have been running a blog contest all fall semester for the seniors. The one who had the most comments (that counted according to the rules) wins a free 11x14 or 40 free wallets. Well, rules or no rules, there was a clear winner, and that is
Congrats Emmalee! Just contact me and let me know what you want for your free pictures!

The next little giveaway is for those of you who were gracious enough to email or comment me with feedback for 2008. I received quite a few of these, and cannot thank you all enough for the kind words and suggestions. As I said, I put all your names in a drawing, and the winner of the $75 to spend on prints or a session fee isThanks Lori! Please contact me and let me know how you want to spend your gift!


COMING SOON! NEW FOR 2009! :

Freshly COMPLETELY updated website...yup, this is LONG overdue! :)
Several new products/specialty items
New pricing...possibly some collections...
Someone new working for me...my mom! :)

Happy New Year! Looking forward to a great 09 with you all!