Long time no see- Jacksonville Family Photographer

In 2012 I had 135 sessions!!! My head is still spinning a little from the holiday season but boy, I am feeling so blessed! I have been slacking on the blog...which hopefully will not be the case in 2013, I added it to my long list of new year's resolutions :) Another one of my NYR was to take more photographs of my own kids. That might sound odd to some but I feel like I didn't pick up my camera enough outside of sessions. They are growing up so fast. Every month I notice more changes. My goal is once a month I am going to take their pictures. My daughter is easier to convince so she was up for a few snaps today since we had perfectly overcast weather.

Personal Space -Jacksonville Family Photographer

Hi all! I just wanted to let you all know that I have started a new blog for my personal pictures, parties and trips so I am not clogging up this blog with those images. This blog will remain in place for my clients sneak peeks :)

Please check it out if you are interested and follow along. I'd love to get to know you guys on a more personal level and I figured that would be the best way to do that. Hope to hear from you over there!

(Click on the image below to take you there)

It is called The Hunger Games-Jacksonville Family Photographer

This past Thursday night my book club friends and I had a little party to celebrate the midnight release of The Hunger Games movie. It was one of our favorite books and we just couldn't help but use it as an excuse to throw a party! You might notice one person who looks out of place in this party...my son was invited too! He loved the book as well (and I don't think he minded too much being around all those ladies).
Each of the ladies brought one (or two) food items that somehow related to the book...cause as much as we love to read, we love to eat even more! And it is called The Hunger Games, what do you expect?? lol.
My husband, who also enjoyed the book, played MC for the night, hosting the HIGHLY competitive trivia game :) Enjoy a look into our evening, we had so much fun and are looking forward to the next movie release!!!


Our fabulous group for the night!


The food spread



Amazing cake by Maria of Love & Sugar Kisses...I'm lucky to have such talented friends!!!



If you have read the book, you know we had to have a parachute and a tracker jacker nest!!!






I was blown away by the creativity of everyone's dish! And everything was delicious!!!








After we stuffed ourselves, it was game time! My husband made over 100 trivia questions for us and put them in the "tribute bowl." The prize for the winner was inside Katniss' orange backpack (a gift card to the movies and Panera Bread). Everyone also got a Hunger Games necklace and a cookie to enjoy at the movies!







And the winner was....Maria!!!




Amazingly, we all stayed awake through the movie but boy were we tired the next day!




Cookies by: Sugar Sanctuary
Necklaces by: Touchsoul
Cake by: Love & Sugar Kisses
everything else made by our book club!

Camp Bella - Jacksonville Family Photographer

Tomorrow my sweet Bella turns 8! You might remember her UP party here that we had last year...because that party was a little over the top, this year we decided to have a really small birthday celebration...but since it in just not in my nature to do anything "low-key" I decided to make it small in numbers only, lol! Bella got to pick two of her closest friends and her cousin Zoe to come over for a slumber party.

We came up with the theme of Camp Bella when we were looking at my Favorite Designer/Artist Lori Marie's website. We have a few of her pieces and love her style and colors, she is uber talented!!! We saw her feather headpiece and decided to have the whole party center around it! It turned out perfect and Bella and her friends had a great time!

It was raining most of the night so I was really glad we decided to have it all inside this year, a lot less stressful!! We managed to sneak outside for a few minutes here and there, to blow bubbles and to make s'mores (you can see the rain drops in the s'mores pictures!). The Scavenger hunt was so much fun I was too busy participating instead of snapping pics, sorry :(

The crafts the girls made turned out really cute. The Rain-sticks came from a tutorial Lori Marie had on her blog and the hand silhouettes came from a tutorial I found on Pinterest.

Pinterest was a great party planning tool that came in so handy this year!!! Lots of the ideas I used came from there. If you haven't signed up yet, definitely do...it will feed your creative side!!! I will list all of the insanely talented vendors I used at the bottom of the post ;)





































Vendors Used:
Feather Headpiece & flower pin on yarn B: Lori Marie
Cake: Love & Sugar Kisses
Straws, s'mores crates & Trail Mix bags: Shop Sweet Lulu
Custom Cookies: BeesKnees Creative
Frame: The Organic Bloom
Handmade Pillows: YelliKelli
Bubble Wands: Blooming Elephant
Matching PJ's: made by my Mom ;)
everything else: made by me ;)