Brandon and Sam

We recently traveled to Missouri to attend my nephew Brandon's wedding. It was beautiful! Fancy trimmings had nothing to do with the beauty of the ceremony. A friend stated the wedding was...spiritual. I believe her description nailed it. From vows the couple wrote themselves, to the groom's display of love for Jesus and for his fiancee by washing her feet, the ceremony left few dry eyes in the congregation.





Even the bride's eyes were teary

Santa!!!

I scheduled a photo shoot recently for families to bring their children to meet Santa and have photos made. Above is my granddaughter Charli. She was infatuated with Santa's beard and kept turning around to see Santa.









Has someone been naughty???



I caught Santa snoozing between sessions!



A big THANK YOU to Sister Suzie's Chocolates and Gifts for offering their store location for Santa Portraits! What a beautiful setting!

Downtown at Night

My daughter works evenings so I told her last week on her next night off we should go downtown and take some night time photos. A group of friends/photo enthusiasts are planning a trip to a nearby town to take photos of Christmas lights at night and we wanted to practice some night photography before then.
It's been cold this week so we didn't stay long but I thought I'd share some of the photos I got.







The gazebo and fountain in Central Park:




The fountain in Central Park:





Gift and Gourment looks beautiful in its new store!





Sister Suzie's new storefront is amazing as well!

Election Day 2012

Election Day brought something new to our family this week: a new voter, at least in the Presidential Election. Our daughter Heather voted her in very first Presidential election Tuesday. Although she thought it was silly that I wanted a photo she did allow me to photograph her sticker with my phone.







We stayed up late watching the results together. No matter whether we agree with how things turned out or not, it was a special day in the history of our family and for Heather.

Orange

This week over at I ♥ Faces the theme/challenge is "orange." My entry for the challenge is a photo I took of my granddaughter Charli at the local Pumpkin Patch:








Head over to I Heart Faces to check out and enter the challenge:

A Glimpse of Fall

Friday evening my husband and I took off for an overnight camping trip. I was hoping when we planned our venture that the timing would be perfect to view some fall colors. South Texas doesn't have a great deal of color in the fall typically, but I was anxious to see if there would be some at Garner State Park.
Lost Maples State Park is notorious for being the best Texas location for fall colors, but from past experience we knew the line to even drive into the park would take hours.
We opted for Garner State Park. We spent a week camping there for vacation in September and fell in love with it. We planned then to return later to hike another trail and see if there would be fall colors.
It was dark by the time we got to our campsite and set up camp. We had breakfast of coffee, scrambled eggs, bacon and biscuits while we looked at the various hiking trails on the map. We chose a trail we had not hiked and filled water bottles and headed out.
Before getting to the trail I requested a walk along the river bank for photos first.






I think this one is my favorite of the day: My hunny looking at the water:



Although the colors are not yet plentiful and vibrant they were still beautiful:



We hiked to the White Cave then on to the Foshee Trail and over to the Painted Rock Trail.



Our view from the top of one of the hiking trails:

Lily's Newborn Portraits

My friend Dana recently had a baby girl. As a gift to her at her shower I promised her a newborn photo shoot. When Lily was 12 days old my daughter and I took a road trip to go meet Lily and take her photos. She's absolutely beautiful and we loved capturing her! Here are a few of my favorites!

Lily and her big brother Cole:
 
























The Whole Family:



Cole reading his favorite book to his baby sister:

Charli's 3 Month Portraits

Sunrise in Fulton

Shannon's Wedding

Recently I shot my beautiful friend Shannon's wedding. I faced some tricky lighting challenges but I'm happy with most of the shots and I believe Shannon is too.

The venue was a quaint little place outside of Belton, TX: The Ferrell Center.





Getting ready:



Shannon and her son Dawson:



Shannon and her niece:



Shannon and her daughter Abby:






Shannon and her new daughter Taylor and her daughter Abby



The cake



Here comes the bride:





















Celebrate!