Finally posting Cohen's first birthday pictures!

Cohen's birthday was on February 7th, and since it was a Saturday, we were actually able to have his party on his birthday, so that was a bit extra special. We are so blessed and thankful to have this adorable little boy in our lives.

Everyone may or may not know this, but in 2004 we lost a baby, and I have always thought our angel baby was a boy. That happened on Leap Day, Feb 29th, 2004. Then 4 years later, in February of 2008, another leap year, God blessed our family with the most wonderful sweet happy baby I could ever ask for, and that is my Cohen! So a bit of personal irony there, and much thankfulness for this first year with my baby boy!

So here we go, pictures from Cohen's party! I handed off the camera to my sister for most of the time (I had too much to do!) so these are mostly shot by her, with the exception of the last few.

Our little family!


He was happy to open presents! He did a little ripping...Ava did a lot...imagine that....


"Look what I got!"


Showing off my cake skills...lol!


Trying to understand what that light is...he tried to grab it, and I barely stopped him from getting burnt!


Everyone enjoyed watching him dig into his own cake. I think he liked it better this time than when we did his cake smash photo shoot!






Worn out from all those presents and cake!!


I love this boy!

One for Sophia!

I know all my single photo posts lately have been on pink backgrounds, but they are all actually different colors! Kelsie's is tulip, Courtney's is coral, and Sophia's is ruby! Anyway, the creative side of me has to let you know that these aren't all the same! LOL!

One for Courtney!

Dodds Grade School PTO fundraiser Opportunity!

Here is another opportunity to have family photos taken by Jessica Hollis Photography at a fraction of the usual price! I have partnered with another PTO, this time it is for Dodds Grade School, which is near Bonnie/Mt. Vernon IL. It will be held the first weekend of March.
Here's the basic info:



If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, or Annette (her number is on the flyer)
Thanks!

One for Kelsie...my first senior of 2009!

In honor of my son's 1st Birthday, I present....Cohen's cake smash!

We took these a few weeks ago, but I have been saving them to post today! :) I took a so many cute pics of this, it was hard to narrow them down to my favorites...so I have chosen a few to show off! Thanks to my sweet husband who wrestled Cohen the entire time...Cohen kept wanting to punch the background paper because it made a cool noise, and he tried to walk away more than once! Not to mention the silly hat didn't want to stay on!
This one was before we started in with the cake:



I LOVE this one, he has this look on his face like, "Am I supposed to be doing this?"





This one he was trying to walk away but he was sliding in all the cake goo...love the freaked out face!


It was so funny, because most babies I have done the cake smash with LOVE eating their cake. Cohen kept destroying it, but when he took a bite with too much icing, he would spit it out! And then he was tired of it!


And finally, a storyboard I made with my favorites:



Maybe if I have time later tonight, I'll dig up some of his first photos for a little comparison...
Well, I've got lots to do before his party today, so have a great day!

Boutique Items

I have been meaning to post this for awhile now, just finally getting around to it! I am going to be offering some new specialty/boutique items, so I wanted to post some photos so everyone can see what I am talking about. These photos will be on my updated website too, which is ALMOST done...believe me I will announce that when it is ready! I'm so excited to be so close to finished with it! Anyway, here are some pictures of some of my new products:

This keychain has a tiny light on it, in case you need it!


I had these made with one of my favorite pictures of Cohen from Christmas! These are so cute, and would make such a great gift!


This dry erase calendar has magnets on the back so you can stick it to your fridge. It also comes with it's own special marker that has a magnet in it too, so you won't lose it!


These magnets will ensure that your favorite picture will always be right where you want it!


I have advertised these purses before, but I have a newer panel for mine now...so I thought I'd show it off before I get another one (this pic was when Cohen was 3 days old)


I also am offering Photo Puzzles, but I don't have a photo of them. There are 2 sizes, Small: 8x10 with 108 pieces, and Large: 18x24 with 550 pieces.

Anything else you guys would like to see me offer? There are so many things I could do, it's just hard to know what you clients might like! If you have a suggestion, please let me know!

Oh no, an NEW Ava...

So guess who did this? No, it was not Ava, the queen of big messes...yes, it was Cohen. He has been on a roll this morning. He discovered that he can open the doors on the bottom of the hutch next to the table, and he has been getting my china out and clinking it together! Not cool! Then the last time I was putting the china away, the little stinker toddled over to the table and reached up and dumped my cereal and milk all over the table, the floor, and himself! Super fun! I was mad, but you know me...not mad enough to forget to take a picture of it!

This weekend was wild....I took pictures for a fundraiser for DuQuoin's Youth & Government, and with all the snow days the kids had last week, the coordinator, Sarah, had a hard time getting things organized, and we had to cancel Thursday night completely and squish those sessions into Fri and Sat. It all worked out okay though, and now I have almost 40 sessions to edit! I will post some of those as I get to them, hopefully in the next few weeks!
Then yesterday we had a Taco Dinner fundraiser for our youth group and a Super Bowl party, so yesterday was very busy too! I am glad to relax a bit today...except for the new mess maker boy! He will be 1 on Saturday, so we have some work to do to get ready for his party! I will post some of his cake smash pictures later! :)

I'll leave you with a few more snow day pics from last week.
This is all 3 kids sticking out of the igloo that Johnny, Maddie Kate, and our neighbor Peyton worked very hard to build:


Our neighbor, Peyton took this one for us! :)

And here's me with the girls and Johnny with Cohen on the 4 wheeler.

The Gulley Family

I took senior pictures for the youngest daughter in this family, Shonda, a few years ago, before I was officially in business, and this time she brought her family for a session! Here are a few of my favorite images from their session.

Here they all are together:


Dad and Mom:


Shonda & her husband, Wes:




Sisters:


The original four:


Thanks for letting me take your family pictures!

Snow Day!!

Well we have finally been blessed with some SNOW around here! Everyone might not agree with me, but I don't care, I LOVE snow! And we haven't hardly had any this year, so it was high time we got some weather this year! I am glad we haven't lost power though, that would be miserable! Maddie Kate and Johnny have gotten the past 2 days off from school, and they are out tomorrow, too! There has been a lot of playing out in the snow around here, and I bundled Cohen up (like the boy's mom does in "A Christmas Story") so that he could hardly move! I took a few pictures, but I didn't really get shots of everything we did. It was so cold I hated to have my camera out too long, so I missed the kids getting pulled around behind the 4-wheeler, and the finished product of Maddie Kate's snowman's circle. I'll have to get some shots of those tomorrow.
Here's Ava all bundled up ready to go out!



Here's Cohen on his first snow playing day...I know I'm his mommy...but those baby blues are to die for! :)



Maddie with her snowman! The snow was pretty soft, so we had to pack it in buckets to get it to stick together good enough to build with, but it turned out cute!



Yup, he made this super serious face the whole time we were outside! This is the same face he made at Halloween when he had to wear his very constricting caterpillar costume! I think he just resigns himself to not being able to move when he is wearing a ton of clothes, ( "Could I BE wearin' any more clothes?!") and this is the face we get...



MOM! Take me inside! What is this stuff anyway!?



Well, the fundraiser I'm doing for DuQuoin's Youth and Government is canceled for tomorrow, because school is canceled. The coordinator is still planning for us doing pictures Friday and Saturday, so if you want to get in on this sweet deal for photos, please call Sarah (number on the flyer I posted a few post ago!)
Thanks!

the McGowan kids Sporty session!

This was a fun session! My mom is an old friend of these 3 kids' mom, and they do Stampin' Up! together, so I remember Jan from...well, my whole life! I used to babysit her 2 older daughters, and I will be shooting her oldest daughter Danielle's wedding in Missouri later this year! And my sister teaches at the same school these three kids go to, I think she has taught them math...so I guess we have a lot of connections!...anyway, here are some of my favorites from the younger kids session. Here are Taylor, Kirsten, and Dalton:







These girls are in basketball, volleyball, and soccer! I would go nuts trying to get to all those games! Kudos to mom! :)





And a few tricks...


Great job kids! Hope you enjoy your photos!
Thanks for being loyal blog readers, too! ;)

A really cool site you chould check out!

Whether or not you are an Obama supporter, you will enjoy looking at this site and the photo of the 2 million people at the Inauguration last week. It truly is amazing, and many politicals and even celebrities can be found in the audience. It also seems that no one came without their camera!! If you read down other peoples comments, they will assist you in finding some people...including a guy who looks like Obi Wan Kenobi! That was my favorite! :) (yes, I come from a family of Star Wars geeks...hee hee!)

To check out the awesome photo that David Bergman made and to read about how he did it click here:

How I made a 1,474 Megapixel Photo during President Obama's Inaugural Address

Have fun checking it out!!

ADDITION TO THIS POST: If the link doesn't work for some reason, (I checked it and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't) maybe too many people have linked to the site? Just type it into google, I'm sure it will come up! :)