My First Maternity Photo Session

Recently I had the opportunity to take some maternity photos of my beautiful friend Meri who is having her fourth baby, but her first girl. She was VERY excited and I was so grateful that she would let me share this part of the experience with her. Here are some of my favorite shots from the session. The spot we chose turned out perfect! I'm very pleased with the turn out.

^This was my own idea, not from Pinterest or a website or anything. SO cute, right?

 These two belly shots are two of my favorite from the whole session!

Father's Day Gift Basket

I've really been into gift baskets lately. 

Gift baskets for my daughter's teachers at the end of the year, a gift basket for the last baby shower I went to, if I hadn't of spent so much money on the trip itself I would have made my sister in law a big gift basket for her wedding... so obviously when a fun holiday like Father's Day comes up, I'm totally going to make a gift basket. 

And I did. Total cost for the entire basket? $29.05. You know you've done well when you can get your husband all his favorite things for under $30. 

I made a theme, which was things he's been complaining about or talking a lot about, and kept his favorite color in mind while shopping. Blue of course. I started with some generic dollar tree tissue paper that I already had left over from the baby shower gift basket. Nothing too fancy for a guy. I put the tissue paper or whatever in the bottom so that it will look more professional and I find that if everything doesn't have to fit right into the bottom of the basket, it sits and is organized more nicely.

What went in the basket?
1.) New Earbuds for his Ipod. He's been complaining lately that the ones he has hurt his ears, and has been talking about getting new ones for weeks so I took care of that at FYE today. (on sale for $7.99)

2.) A Non-Dairy Chocolate Bar. He's allergic to dairy but loves chocolate, so I went to our local health food store and picked out a sweet chocolate bar for him (the company's version of milk chocolate). ($3.49)

3.) Cards from me and our daughters. Aren't the hand things cute? Found that idea here. I read about a dozen cards at Dollar Tree and luckily found one that fits our relationship so perfectly it was a little weird, so of course, I got it. Dollar stores are hit and miss with cards, sometimes they're good, other times, not so much. (used paper I already had on hand and my computer and tape I already had)

4.) A High Protein Bar. My husband is a work out junkie and loves this stuff. Not to mention he's massive and needs a huge protein intake to sustain him through his work days and workouts. ($1.85)

5.) Men's Lotion and Scrubby. My husband mentioned to me a few weeks ago that he wants so smelly lotions and sprays like me. I have 2 baskets full of Victoria Secret® and Bath & Body Works® lotions and sprays in my bathroom closet. Yes, I'm an addict :) So Twilight Woods for Men from B&BW was perfect. And it smells SSOOO good. ($12.00, lotion $11 and scrubby from Dollar Tree for $1)

6.) Thieves Hand Sanitizer. My husband works in the restoration business and often, around lunch time, sometimes doesn't have anywhere to wash his hands. This hand sanitizer is small enough to fit in his pocket and is made with our favorite essential oils so it smells great as well. Read about it here. (Already had it, but it cost $6 otherwise)

7.) A pack of blue gum. Everyone loves gum and having fresh breath! (already had it, but it cost $1.39 otherwise)

And here's the finished product! For the bag I just bought a box of oven bags from dollar tree (size lg is perfect) and taped the edges under the bottom with clear tape and tied a ribbon with a to/from/happy FD tag around the top. Piece of cake.

3 years old!

Ah, at last the terrible two's are over! Or at least the worst of them are, who knows with my little drama queen. She's my youngest and she turned 3 this year. I cannot believe how fast the time is flying!

Happy Birthday to my little Piglet!

Same spot as the last photos and I had a harder time getting the younger sister to cooperate, but we still got some super cute shots that I am really pleased with. Enjoy :)

6 years old!

This is my oldest daughter and she turned 6 this year! I cannot believe how big she is getting!

Happy Birthday my little Honey Bee!

We found the most beautiful spot for our birthday pictures this year, a park filled with tulips and open space covered by green grass. Needless to say, we got some awesome shots! I do my children's birthday photos every year and I must say that this is the best so far in my 6 years of taking them. If they are this good this year, I'm excited to see what the next few years will bring as my photography skills and knowledge grow. Until then, enjoy the photos!

B-Day Photos Sneak Peek

This year's birthday photos were definitely a success compared to last year's disaster when my youngest (almost 2 years at the time) decided to cry the entire time making sure that I didn't get a single decent shot of her face.

This year, although they did both have their tantrums during their shoots, I got a plethora of great face and full body shots that I am very pleased with.

Here is a couple of each girl as a sneak peek for what is to come. You're going to love them!

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As I was going through them I kept squealing about how cute the shots were and couldn't stop thinking about how lucky I am to have such attractive children :)

Make sure you check back in the next few days to see all the beautiful pictures!

Wedding Hair

Wow, time is running out quickly! We only have about 2 weeks till we are leaving for Arizona for my beautiful sister-in-law's wedding! I am in charge of the bride's hair, the maid of honor's hair, my own hair (of course) and both of my daughter's hair. I have quite a lot of hair to do! I've purchased some fun new styling products, made some new hair clips, and tried out some new styles that I would love to share with you today.

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^The bride's hair flower! It turned out very pretty and she loves it!

^ For the Maid of Honor :)

^The new curling iron I bought to use on the bride's hair! I love it!

^ The new triple barrel iron I bought for myself to do my style. I'm so excited to do my hair like this!

^Practicing my curling for the bride's hair. Still working on it, but I've learned a new method that is very very pretty.

^Using the triple barrel deep wave iron. This is how I'm doing MY hair for the wedding. Haven't figured out how to pin the front back or even if I want to yet tho, just the style. I love it!

^A pretty up-do incase anyone needs it. Simple too :)

^Practicing the braiding technique called a "waterfall braid" for the maid of honor. The bottom of her hair will be lightly curled and she will have a small orange lily somewhere in there as an accent.

^This is the back of the bride's hairstyle. A Simple yet elegant pullover, the bottom will be curled very nicely. I've been practicing!! The small gold and white flower form the top will be placed over the bobby pinned area.

Flower girl shoes!

Man oh man were these fun to do! My original idea was to get a pair of these for each girl and make them into mock ballet slippers by sewing brightly colored ribbon to the bottom in the back and tying it up the girl's legs. Turned out to be expensive and hard because I couldn't find all the sizes I needed.

While trying to figure out what our cute little flower girls were going to be wearing on their feet, I came across these cute plain white shoes at Walmart for only $5 a pair.

I had a thought... How easy would it be to make shiney shoe laces? SUPER EASY! Clear scotch tape and shiney ribbon! Vwa-la!

Of course they couldn't just be done, they needed a little something extra. Glitter! Who doesn't love a little glitter on their shoes? My girls sure do. So here's the finished product, and I think they turned out pretty dang cute :)

P.S. Using a cheap plastic shower cap or, as I used, the slip on food covers (I got a box of 20 at Dollar Tree for $1) is a great way to store shoes for travel. It protects your shoes AND the clothes and other things they are near!