happy 2nd birthday, cora beth!

My niece turned two last weekend -- another year FLOWN by -- and we had a blast celebrating this special milestone with her.

The party was an ice cream theme (gotta love those summer birthdays! :) and again, my sister-in-law had the cutest ice cream decorations.  The tablecloths had ice cream cones & sundaes on them and we ate yummy ice cream out of cute little bowls.  Even Cora Beth's shirt had an triple-decker ice cream cone on it!

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE ice cream?

The party was at the home of my brother & sister-in-law's in Thomasville and family & friends gathered to celebrate Cora Beth.  She did so well, entertaining us all with new tricks and such.  And she racked up on gifts, of course.  :)

Here are some of the sweet moments from that day in photos:

[candles in the ice cream -- love it!]

[look at this big girl -- she got the hang of it real fast!]

[Cora Beth and her -- ahem -- boyfriend, Dylan]

[fun times with Uncle Jeff]

[Priceless.  She didn't actually pose for this but how cute is she??]

For more photos from her party, click here.

weekend activities...

Look what's happening this weekend!

Not sure how 2 years has gone by already...we just celebrated her 1st birthday, it seems...

The Hammells & Family...

Over the Memorial Day holiday, I had the pleasure of photographing Todd & Susan Hammell & family, along with Susan's parents and her brother & sister-in-law and their family.  They are vacationing on North Topsail Island this week -- in from the Greenville, NC area -- and wanted some family photos made to celebrate their parents' 40th wedding anniversary.

This entire family was a lot of fun to photograph -- the kids were adorable and all the adults were fun-loving and open to whatever kind of poses I wanted to put them in.  By the end of the shoot, I felt like we'd been friends with them forever.  :)

Here are a few of my faves from the evening on North Topsail Island:

class of 2010: revisited

I recently had the privilege to photograph the lovely Miss Caitlin Mason for her senior photos and had a really great time.  The Mason family attends Scotts Hill Baptist Church where I do, and Caitlin happens to be best friends with Jessica Warren, whose senior photos I had the privilege of taking last year, if you'll recall this post.

Caitlin and her mom did a lot of research before her photoshoot last week so they were prepared!  Caitlin is a fan of 'the gates' in downtown Wilmington so a lot of our shoot was spent walking/riding around downtown and stopping for photos here and there.  It was a beautiful day; perfect for strolling.

Of course, we hit the beach, too, because it IS just so close!  :)

I'm not quite finished editing the photos but here is a sneak peek at some of my faves from the day:

tis the season...

I'm posting this for my brother.  God love him, he keeps me on my toes about keeping up-to-date on my blogs.  At least I know he's checking them.  :)  Thanks, bro!

I know it's been a long while since I posted anything here and to be honest I really haven't had anything TO post that would be appropriate for this particular blog.

But I did go to a wedding last weekend and got a couple of cool (read: artistic) shots, and then we threw a bridal shower at our house last night where I got another couple of neat shots.

From the Greco wedding:

And from the shower last night:

To show some of my mad decorating skills...

And a closer look at the flower arrangement (that I made).  I'm pretty proud of that one.  It was my first time working with the little "curlycue" deals and I have to say, I like'em.  Helen really liked it, too -- I let her take it home with her as part of her gift.

I made these thank you cards for the couple as part of their gift.  Thought they turned out cute, too.  :)

Jefferys wedding

This past weekend we attended a wedding for one of the couples within our Connect Group.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day for a wedding -- sunny skies and temps in the mid-70s.  Just beautiful.

This was the first wedding we've gone to since I've had my new camera so I was looking forward to seeing what it could do in this kind of setting.  Of course, I didn't take any photos during the ceremony, which was just lovely, by the way.  But I shot to my heart's content during the reception which was held in downtown Wilmington at St. Thomas Preservation Hall -- what a great place to have a reception!

The following photos are without edit, meaning I haven't done a thing to the photos.  This is just how they came out with my Nikon.  I'm so pleased with them!

[photo credit: Jeff Wenzel]

[photo credit: Emily Ondish]

continuous: 3 frames per second

It's been a while since I posted, I know.  Sorry about that.  I have had this post in mind to do for a few weeks now and just haven't had a chance until now to sit down and type it up.

A few weeks ago we had an opportunity to reconnect with good friends that we haven't seen in 6+ years.  They were our best friends when we lived in Fayetteville and the last time we saw them was at Jeff's UNCW graduation in December 2003.  Their boys were 2 & 4.  They left soon after that for Germany due to military orders.  We did our best to stay in touch over the years with email and, more recently, Facebook.

Fast forward 6 years.  They have recently moved back to NC and it worked out for us to make a flying overnight trip to Sanford to see them.  It was a blast!  The boys are now 8 & 10 but you'd never know we missed those 6 years of their lives -- they warmed right up to us!  And as far as the adult conversation went, it was like we just picked up where we left off.  Good times.

So of course I had my camera with me and was just snapping away the whole time we were together.  The big boys decided to throw around the pigskin before dinner Saturday night so I decided I'd try out the "continuous" feature on my camera.

Here's what I got:

Nice follow-thru, babe!