Happy New Year

I can't believe 2008 is actually over. I know everyone says so every year, but 2008 started out pretty crappy for me and I am looking forward to a positive beginning to 2009!!

So my year in review of 2008:

- My IIH went into remission again. Thank you God!
- I really started to master my camera and have improved quite a bit over this last year. I shoot pretty much exclusively in Manual now. I can't believe that to be honest!
- I have knitted 3 sweaters! Woohoo!
- I have now worked out for 3 months. I have done a lot of starting and stopping, but I have consistently gone for 3 months! Tae Bo rocks!
- I saw Twilight 3 times. HAHAHA!

I have had a pretty good year considering I started out facing brain surgery. :)

I have some goals for 2009, but I don't really want to share them with the world. LOL Less embarrassing if I fail, yes? But I do have a list of my own.

And now to start off 2009, my favorite picture from 2008. This shows my kids relationship like you wouldn't believe.

Elena

Elena was my first newborn shoot. I learned a LOT about newborns I have to say. I definitely know what i will do differently next time, but in the meantime I did get some really cute shots of this gorgeous baby!

Joy

On Sunday we celebrated Christmas with my father in law and some family members. My 2 year old actually "gets it" this year and knows what is going on and the whole opening presents thing is SO exciting. I was sitting next to him while he was opening up his gifts and he made this expression every time he opened a present, no matter what it was. This picture is far from technically correct but I just love the look on his face!!

Dude...

If you want a taste of awesomeness, you need to make these cinnamon rolls. Oh my gosh, they are AMAZING. (If you are in my family, look away!) Since I didn't want to bake a ton of different cookies this year I decided to make Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls. Holy cow, they are amazing! And they make 7 pans per batch, so you can take care of a whole slew of gifts in one!

I had a bit of trouble with the yeast, but luckily my hubby told me what I did wrong (killed it by the liquid being to hot) and so the second and third batches turned out perfect!

SF Zoo

We recently went to the San Francisco Zoo, and they had Santa's Reindeer, as well as a skating rink, and lots of fun things for the kids to do. I was editing a few pictures and came across this one. My kids were THRILLED with these figures!

Lights on the tree

I was trying to get the star effect on these lights and I am loving how it turned out! This was taken at f32 for 10 seconds:

I think they prefer the IDEA of Santa...

In early December we went to the Moms club Holiday party. Santa visited us, and I was able to take pictures of all the kids sitting on Santa's lap. All the kids except mine of course...

Here is as close as we could get them!

The Teddy Bear Tea Party!

This year we had too many kids to do a Teddy Bear Tea Party, so we decided to host one at my moms house. The kids had a BLAST, and Tina and Casey and Anna planned everything, games, food, book reading! It was so fun, and hopefully will become a yearly event!

Tim Jen and Maya!

I had a lot of fun photographing my really good friends Tim and Jen, and their daughter Maya. Tim and Jen are getting married in May! I am so excited for them, and even more excited that they recently moved to my town! Thanks for letting me take your photo's guys, I had a blast! And Maya is a DREAM to photograph!

The Chun Family

This weekend I had the pleasure of working with the Chun family. They were amazing and FAST! We got the session done in 30 minutes! Julia just kept smiling and laughing and LOOKING at the camera, and Olivia was such an easygoing baby. Thank you guys so much for posing for me!!

The Galeotti Family

I had SO MUCH FUN with this family! Megan was a total crack up, Josh was adorable, and you know how much I LOVE doing maternity shots! Thanks for having me take your pictures guys, I had a blast!





Little Miss Sassy!





I love this photo. He wasn't so into kissing her belly. :)









And what do you do when the kids are getting antsy and are proclaiming "No more pictures!!"? You have them put stickers all over Mommy's belly!!

The Erickson Family

On Sunday morning we went to Sonoma Square with the Erickson family and had a BLAST taking some updated pictures. A fun family up for ANYTHING and some of our best friends. Thanks for letting me take your photos guys! Here is a sneak peek of some of my favorites. I had a hard time choosing!









(see what I mean about fun?)

Some fun snaps of the kids

I took the kids out the other day because the light was just too beautiful to not take advantage of. Plus I needed a recent shot of my son actually LOOKING at the camera for our Christmas card. I am happy to say I got it, but I also got these cute pictures of me and my kiddos!

Merry Christmas!

Being a knitter, I have to start making Christmas gifts quite early in order to get them done in time. While I can't show any of the things I have made on here for fear of the recipients seeing the, I CAN show the ornaments I have made!

My plan is to bake cookies, and tie the package with one of these attached. Hopefully people will enjoy them! I am taking a cookie baking class in early December so I am planning on having some really fancy cookies too!!

I should have taken the picture with a quarter for reference, but if you look at the tiles, they are 4x4 inches.




(the picture is out of focus, but I am pretty proud of this one)




(the grey is my favorite. I may have to keep that one for myself)