16 mos

I bet you thought my next post was going to be on Christmas, right?  Wrong!  That's how behind I am.  <sigh>  No, I DO have Christmas photos to post, but I wanted to just post a couple I took of little miss Cora Beth at Thanksgiving this year.

I'm noticing a pattern.

Unless I say what holiday it is, you'd never know because the majority of photos I take now are of Cora Beth.  Just her.  Doing whatever she's doing.  But I just can't help it.  She's so darn cute.  And especially NOW...

Do you not LOVE her little glasses??  She got those 3 days before Thanksgiving so they were REALLY new when we got there.  But she never bothers them.  Never.  It's like they're not even there.  She has them in an effor to try to correct a bit of a lazy eye.  Hopefully that will do the trick.  Either way, she's just as CUTE as she can be!

*little E*

Wow. It's been a.while. since I posted. Sorry about that. I may not have had much blog-worthy news to post about or maybe I've just not gotten around to posting. Whatever the case, I do NOW have something very blog-worthy to post...little miss Emily!

You remember me mentioning my friend, Elizabeth, in past posts, I'm sure. She and her husband, Matthew, had a sweet little baby girl about 4 or so months ago. I had met Emily briefly just a few days after she was born but Jeff had not had the privilege of meeting her until they got to come and visit for a little while recently. Of course, the camera flash was popping just as fast as I could get it to go. :) I got some cute ones, I think:

Emily is such a cutie and already has quite a little personality! She loves to talk and make noise, and she's always looking around to take everything in. She has very expressive eyes/eyebrows and we enjoyed just watching her. Of course, it was wonderful to see Matthew & Elizabeth, too. They are such dear friends to us and our time with them is always limited so we take what we can get when we can get it. :) Thanks for visiting, guys! We'll come to see you next! :)

cora beth's first time at the beach: day 2

Here are photos from our 2nd day at the beach during my brother & his family's visit here last week. This time we got out to the beach about 3:30pm so we had a little more sunlight. Again, Cora Beth did great and was such a cutie! Her little bathing suit was just *too much* with her little hat! Daniel & Brandi brought her little swimming pool out and we blew it up and filled it with water for her so she play in it. She loved just getting in and getting out, getting in and getting out, getting all kinds of sand in it. It was so funny to watch her...

I had a hard time narrowing down which photos to post of her here -- some of these just came out so good...

cora beth's first time at the beach: day 1

As promised, I have photos to share with you of Cora Beth's first *real* time on the beach. Back at the beginning of May, my brother and his family came for a visit and they took Cora Beth out to the beach but they couldn't stay long at all -- it was just too cold. And windy. Very windy.

So this time, we had a little bit warmer weather (after we got the sun to come out) and had better success on the beach. And Cora Beth loved it! She liked the water -- as long as it wasn't rushing at her full force. :) And she didn't seem to mind the sand at all, getting it in just about every *crevice* she had, ahem. :)

We were able to go down to the beach a couple of times during their visit so these photos are from the first day. We got to the beach just after 4:30pm on Tuesday and it was virtually deserted. I think I got some pretty cute shots of Cora Beth and the fam...

It's a little hard to see but these are her sweet little footprints, making a trail to the water...

Already a true beach beauty...

As you can see, I had a hard time just choosing *a few* to share with you. She's just so darn cute! :) Check back soon for more beaach photos of the little munchkin...her 2nd visit to the beach!

cora beth on the river*WALK*

We had my brother and his family here to visit for a few days this past week and had a great time with them. Cora Beth is 13 1/2 months now and she is walking, peeps! And she is so cute doing it. :) We went walking around in downtown Wilmington one day (while we waited for the sun to appear so we could go to the beach) and I got some pretty cute photos of Cora Beth on the riverwalk (for those who don't know, this is a really nice walkway that was recently built along the Cape Fear River).

Look at her! She looks like such a big girl walking...

She had the best time just sitting there on that slight curb, getting up and sitting down, getting back up and sitting back down, looking over the side at the grass and back over on the deck. She's so entertaining to watch. :)

I'm still editing photos of their visit, specifically Cora Beth's first real time on the beach so those are soon to be posted here. Check back soon!

a few more beach photos...

I just had to share a few more photos from my photoshoot on the beach a couple weeks ago. I've finished editing all of them and some of them came out really cool. Of course, I tried using some textures and color techniques....

I love how this came out! I probably shouldn't tell my secrets...this started out as a family photo of Catherine, Grace AND Rick, but I decided to see what I could do with just mom & daughter...

Sweet Gracers...

This is probably my favorite of the ones I edited. It happened quite by accident but I did take note of how I came to this result so that I can experiment with this technique in the future. It's pretty cool, huh?

life's a beach!

Well, I've got photos to share with you from my 2nd *professional* photoshoot -- this time we were on the beach! I took photos for the Fitzgeralds and their extended family this past Sunday at Topsail Beach. The shoot was at 2pm and I had 9 people to photograph, including an energetic little 2 year old! I don't have to tell you what a challenge that was, but for the most part everyone cooperated and I got some pretty good shots. Despite all the other challenges that go along with any photoshoot on the beach (sun, wind, CROWDS), some of them turned out nicely. Thought I would share a few of my faves with you:

class of 2010...

Alright, so most of you know how much I like taking photos, right? Well, this past Wednesday I had the awesome opportunity to make some money with it and take some photos of one lovely Jessica Warren. She's a senior in high school this year and her family asked me if I would take her senior pictures for them. Of course I said yes but I've been a little nervous about it. I mean, senior pictures is a BIG DEAL...

Well, we had lots of fun during the photoshoot and I seem to have gotten pretty lucky with some of my shots. :) Of course, Jess is a beautiful girl so I didn't have to work too hard to get some great shots of her. Take a look for yourself:

happy 1st birthday, cora beth!

Lord, help me, but my niece has turned a year old already! How has this happened? I don't understand where that whole year went...but sure enough, it did. And the sweet baby girl that turned our family's world upside down & inside out with love a year ago has reached her first birthday. And we partied in style to celebrate!

It was a ladybug theme -- perfect! -- and my sister-in-law had really cute decorations and an awesome ladybug cake to match! They held the party ON Cora Beth's birthday, July 25, this past Saturday, at their home in Thomasville. We had a great turnout of family & friends to help celebrate her special birthday. She did wonderfully, but then...I knew she would. She's such a good girl. :)

Enjoy some of the photos I took during the celebration:

CAKE FIRST!

THEN GIFTS!

[this kid loves her some books!]

[this cracked me up because this is OUR gift to her!]

[you know I had to throw some artistic reflection in here...]

[...and me and the sweet birthday girl!]

For more photos from her party, click here.