The craziest family I know...

I couldn't remember the last time my family had taken professional pictures together. The last picture that had everyone in it was taken at Christmas-time, on my grandparents couch, and I believe I was in my early teens. Oh, and my cousin was sticking out her tongue. But that was back when you had to develop pictures before you could see them - so when she stuck out her tongue, we took a second picture. She looked beautful. And half the family had their eyes closed, or weren't looking at the camera. So tongue picture has hung ever since.

I think fate randomly brought my sister AND my uncle to Columbus Ohio. Sure you could point out that Jessie was in a wedding that weekend, and John came down because him and my Aunt were in Cleveland helping her family... I say fate. So we decided (without really telling those two... ooops) that we were going to take family pictures.

The five siblings


There were four dogs at the house this day. Three of them are in this picture!


My sisters and I


We got the images by me setting up my camera, on a tripod, and arranging everyone except me. I'd jump in, and my sisters good friend was kind enough to pull the trigger for us. One of my favorites? Friend John says "Ummm, I think somethings not right... its set up for something different" We start laughing because we know what happened... I took a series of pictures of the three sisters, and then just added my parents in without thinking. Resulting in this:


Nice.

We also did something I had seen done at a Sandy Puc seminar. She took individual images of family members against a solid backdrop, and then spliced them together later in the computer. I thought it looked neat, and was a way that I could individually direct each family member to look their best (Plus it's a neat size, so I know it'll get hung) The result?



And the individual of my sister (who I hate for looking so gorgeous- curse you Jessie!!)


And one final one to share... John yelled out, lets do a silly one! Which I will now do with everyone. Because the silly one is my favorite!

348 - 364

It's the home stretch! Almost there!

348 of 365: Pretty Lady
I took portraits of both girls this day, and this is the best portrait Olivia I have gotten to date. She's so pretty.


349 of 365: nudity
Yep, the girls no longer where clothes. You're more likely to see them naked than to see them clothed. Please don't judge us.


350 of 365: self portrait
Taken at work, in one of the Christmas balls I hung all over the place


351 of 365: Santa baby
Look! Both girls sitting happily on Santa! I never thought I'd see the day!


352 of 365: beat
taken after a long long afternoon of last minute Christmas shopping


353 of 365: magic
These are Olivia's ornaments (I buy her one from this set every year) and I was playing around with bokeh (the circles in the background)


354 of 365: let me sleep
Vash laid down in this baby bed I use as a prop for newborns. Olivia's the one that covered him with a blanket - so he wouldn't get cold during his nap.


355 of 365: pensive
perhaps worred about Santa?


356 of 365: sugar
the day I baked sugar cookies until I was buried in sugar


357 of 365: chocolate
the day I baked chocolate chip cookies until the package of chips ran out


358 of 365: Not a creature was stirring...
Christmas Eve, right after Santa had dropped by. I must have been on the computer and just missed him ;)


Lets break in the 365 to talk about Christmas. Firstly, I hope everyone enjoyed theirs. We certainly enjoyed ours. This year Olivia truly understood Christmas... she understood that she was going to get to unwrap a whole lot of presents. We'll work on a better message for her later ;) So for Olivia, every time she was done with a gift, she would point to a new wrapped present and say "Owivia open nother pwesent mommy??" She was always very polite about it. Claire wouldn't open her presents, but she would sit next to you while you opened it, screaming "WHAT IS IT!??????? WHAT! IS! IT!!!!!!!!!!!!" I just died laughing.

Christmas day we started at our own home, then we drove to Upper Sandusky. In upper, Tim and I quickly realized that we had forgotten sippy cups. Olivia can use a real cup, but Claire can't (though she can use a straw) To substitute, we gave Olivia her juice in a disposable coffee cup. Hilarious!


This image of Karen pretty much sums up all of the adults feelings of Christmas by the end...


From there, we came back to Columbus, and went to Tims parents house. We attempted a picture of all the grandkids together, but it didn't go so well...

359 of 365: presents


360 of 365: Generations
Three generations of men in Tims family. Oh and Claire. Because she manages to weasel herself into many pictures


361 of 365: snow now??
We had no snow over Christmas. It actually felt very Halloween/Thanksgiving-like in the weather department. Of course it snowed 2 days after Christmas. Thanks a lot Mother Nature!


Since it snowed, the next day we went over to my parents house to visit Haley and Aunt Sue, and play in the show. Got to love a bundled kid.






I asked Haley to throw snow, since it was such fluffy snow, and looked so cool when it was thrown.

362 of 365: SNOW!!!




And Haley tried so hard to teach the girls how to make snow angels. Claire was really the only cooperative one in that attempt, and even that probably had more to do with the fact that she could barely move in her snowsuit.




363 of 365: dropped
Claire has now stopped napping. In her crib. She has, however, taken up Olivia's method of just dropping to sleep where-ever she is. Only Olivia won't leave Claire alone. So here's Olivia sitting as close to Claire as possible, while watching tv and picking a wedge. Love that kid.


364 of 365: snuggie
I love all my presents that I got for Christmas, but it's the snuggie that gets the most attention. I love that thing. Probably because it's zebra print.

Gotta love my next door neighbors!

My neighbor mentioned once a while ago how she wanted to re-create images of her kids that she had done about 3 years ago. I was all for it! We figured while we were at it, we'd go ahead and take some family pictures to use in Christmas cards. So here's a break in my NYC adventure to give you the K Family!

Went back to my roots for this one ;)




My kids love their kids... and their youngest is just a ham. I love that girl!

Going to bombard you with images...

...because I need to get caught. I don't just want to get caught up... I need to... because I'm leaving for vacation in five days, and I don't need images hanging over my head. So sure, my next few blogs will be long with images that don't always go with one another - but it means that next week when I'm in NYC during Thanksgiving Week (Oh yeah, Macys Day Parade folks!!) I can blog while I'm there, and not have to come home to show other images out of order. So without further adeu, I give you eleven days in a row.

303 of 365: Candy


304 of 365: Aren't you going to feed me?
Poor fat Jo


305 of 365: Stallions
Found this neat statue while taking Ellens senior pictures. Its the mascot to the school who's track we used for some of her images. Not her mascot - actually a rival school. I should feel bad for using this as my day - but I think the statue is cool.


306 of 365: Witch!
I love after Halloween sales, because you get cheap stuff to use as dress-up. This year the girls got witch hats. I was kinda dozing on the couch, and Olivia walked up to me with a dress-up dress she hadn't worn before... I put it on her, she scampered off, and Claire appeared in my face with a dress of her own. The actual outfits are old dance costumes of one of Tims cousins. Curious, I went to see what the girls were doing, and found them brewing some witches brew with their hats on. Too cute!


307 of 365: Fall
I'm going to be sad when Fall is officially over. It's my favorite season


308 of 365: never ending M&Ms
Tims dad works for Mars, which means we can have all the M&Ms we want. And we sure got a ton for Halloween. And they were good!


309 of 365: burnt
I think I burnt the chicken because I was too busy taking photos of the smoke coming up from it. The smoke was pretty cool!


310 of 365: sick
I wonder how many images there are of my couch? I slept for 20 hours straight this day. I woke up feeling fine, so whatever it was that made me feel terrible just needed sleep to go away.


311 of 365: outtake
Wendy got me this great lip gloss, so I was going to photograph just my lips to show it off... I think Olivia had just run outside and was asking me what I was doing or something, and I looked off at her... so even though this isn't the great photo I was looking for, I like it better then the rest.


312 of 365: What was that??
If you have cats - don't you hate it when they startle, and then stare into the distance. Creeps me out!


313 of 365: My Family
It was really nice out, and I wanted to try to get some family portraits of my own family. Most turned out ehh. I love this one. Since I've started doing this with other families, I've been wanting one like this for my family... I'm glad I was able to do it.