HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

To be honest with you, we've always thought of this occasion as a 'hallmark' holiday (a holiday Hallmark invented in order to sell more cards), and so we celebrated it low key without too much extravagance, like a nice homemade dinner made with bit more effort than microwaveable meals, hehe... a few years ago to make us feel better about the whole hallmark thing, we started making our own cards to each other too, it is fun and a bit more challenging too. This year, my sister beat me to it by sending us some of her hand made creations to give to each other. I just wanted to pop in a share these wonderful cards. She's not only smart. beautiful. but also creative. LOVE THEM! Thanks sis.

Hope you all are sharing the love today. OXOXOX

[Photogs on Vacation]

One of my best friends Amanda Elkins came to visit us for New Years from Southern Ca. Its always so much fun when we she comes up, we share stories of shoots during the year, and new things we've learned, I get to show her some of my favorite new locations I've found since the last time she came up, and we laugh a lot. Its also nice that our kids get along really well, its like a big slumber party. This time our husbands also got to hang out, and we all celebrated 10 years of friendship, and its was so great to look back at all good old days and all the ups and downs. The many visits. Here's one back in 2003...

It's also been a pleasure to see our kids grow up together, Alannah and Ethan are the best buddies, and even though they only see eachother once in a while, they just pick up where they left off. They have very similar personalities, and are just two peas in a pod!

The picture below was taken in Tahoe, summer of 2003 back when we both had only one child and no businesses and life was just simple! It is still one of my all time favorite pictures, it was one of those perfect happy summer days.

Ahh.. fun times! I really appreciate her friendship, and look forward to many more years of fun and memories and photographs.

So what do photographers do when we're on a break from working? LOL! Well Amanda and I love taking pictures. And like I always say, like the cobblers children have no shoes, sometimes we don't get a chance to get pictures of our own kids. I don't know why I have been blessed so, but my kids LOVE to get their pictures taken, they ask me "when do we get to have another photoshoot?" is that crazy or what??

So we called on our other awesome photogs buddies Fara Smith, Dawn Roberts & Crystal Petersen to hang out with us, drink, play games and come shoot. We took our kids out... and I should probably put these on my website but I'm so LAZY! So here they are... I love THESE! Here's some of Alannah, she is so sweet, and growing so fast. She just got her braces last fall... ugh.. pretty soon she will outgrow her mummy!

This dress Alannah is wearing is was one of the first things I sewed for her, she really liked it, but we never really knew what to wear with it, but Amanda was able to pull together this super cute outfit worthy of a couture photoshoot!

:Lots more of hers in a bit.. but here are some rare footage of Mr. Mason, he is a hard one to capture but I love these... doesn't he look handsome?

And already a supermodel little Miss Isabeli... remember when she was a wee thing? Well look at her now... she's also a tough cookie to photograph but she sure shines when she turns it on... it sure will be fun to watch her modeling career blossom.

And my own little Miss Avy... such a sweetie-pie. Love her to pieces, even at times when she makes me want to pull out my hair!

Back to miss Alannah. Wow. Who is this beautiful girl? She rocked this shoot and since then keeps asking me "when can I be a model?"... how do you answer that? I say, "you ARE a model", like a magazine cover, clothing advertisement, and featured on many photog websites doesn't count! Hahaha...

But I must admit, she is a natural poser, and she is so easy to work with, no drama, no bribing, pleading and for me no pay! HAHAHAHA!

Oh what a blast we had, if it hadn't gotten so cold, we could've stayed there forever. Isabeli showed off her new outfit, don't you just love her signiature pose? Omigoodness the boots, the hat, I could photograph her all day! Its too bad she only gives you split seconds. but how cute are these pics??

Love you gals. Can't wait till our next get-together. XOXOXOXOX.