Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. –Luke 2:14
I hope Santa is good to you and yours! Come see my three tonight at the family Christmas Eve service at 5PM at Smyrna First United Methodist Church on Concord Road. It will be full of children and no one will notice yours being loud! 🙂 It is a great place to get hearts and minds in the right place to celebrate the true meaning of the season. Fingers crossed that the Angel, Wiseman and Joseph don’t get stage fright!
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!
Lastly, thanks to all of you that have supported me in my business. 2014 is already starting off very busy for me and I am so excited and thankful for that!
A session share from one of my recent sessions in Marietta. What a sweet family. They have many fantastic pictures to choose for Christmas Cards this year.
I am holding Christmas Card Mini-sessions THIS Saturday afternoon in Smyrna if you need a last minute picture of your family or children. This will be a short session focused on the family as a whole or children all together for the purpose of Christmas cards and gift prints. I have 2 spots left if you are interested in the details. Contact me asap for the details if you think you are at all interested! Update 11/8: All full!
Christmas is often the time when extended families are together. I get a few requests every year to photograph families that have finally all come together for the Holidays. It may be the only time it happens all year. Whether your family portrait this Christmas is by a professional or on your own, it will really make a difference in the overall look if you take the time to coordinate the color scheme of your group. Use this picture as a visual to have a clothing basis of creams, dark grays or black and tan. Add a few pops of red or any bright color to tie it all together.
Click the above icon or here to see my Pinterest board of What to Wear. Get lots of other clothing ideas for families that belong to other people as well as my own stuff.
On a more personal note, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I don’t cook much during the year and I make up for it the days leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you need me, I am in my kitchen. It is exhausting! Pinterest has opened up a new world of things to try but I have one go-to cookbook that I always use. It is my Nana’s Calling All Cooks cookbook that I inherited years ago after she passed away. I can’t believe I actually found it on Amazon! I highly recommend this book. It has good ole Southern recipes straight from Alabama. It has the kind of stuff you will find at any church potluck. Mine is a little more special than what you will find at Amazon because it is falling apart and full of flour and sugar. The page with my favorite dessert, Four Layer Chocolate Pie, has chocolate on the pages from when she used to make it for me. I know she made it for me more times than I can count.
Thanks, Nana!
You can find more of my favorite recipes (or what I love the idea of making) on this Pinterest Board. We have cookie exchanges coming up so yesterday was dedicated mostly to cookie making from scratch. I think store-bought Oreos are just as good (to me).
Happy Holiday Baking AND Happy Birthday to My Mom today!
Mental note: now that I found Calling All Cooks online, I will have to buy it for everyone next Christmas.
I made it! The 12th day of Christmas and I was able to post something every day. I was glad to share so many sessions but have saved a personal post for last. I am pretty sure my Christmas Cards will be late this year so I’ll just share some pictures of my own kids right now. Getting combed hair doesn’t seem to be the battle I chose to fight this day. I’m fine with it. My standards are pretty low for pictures of my own kids. I only want three things: Them, no crazy Superhero T-shirts and to look “pleasant” (aka it is okay not to smile).
They were acting very silly and out of control on this afternoon. I would like to say that is out of the ordinary but it isn’t. They were doing big huge cheesy grins with their eyes shut tight. Below is what I got when I asked them not to smile so much. It reminds me of those old pictures from the 1800s when everyone looked so miserable stoic.
Are you still with me or asleep? In case my Christmas cards really never make it out, I have included a couple of my annual Santa pictures. My middle child has the gift thing figured out and explained to my little girl how it works as we waited our turn. According to him, if you only put ONE thing on your list, you are certain to get it. If you put 5 or 6 things you don’t know what you will get. So sure enough, all three went up to Santa with exactly one thing on their lists. Barbie Scooter, iPod and Wii-U. That is all the Phillipson kids need to make their Christmas complete. I’m afraid 2 of the 3 will be very disappointed on Christmas morning (although Andy and I have been known to cave at the last minute). I like this Santa. We think he must be the real thing and not just a helper. I like him because he always tells my children to brush their teeth.
Photographer’s Note: I want to get a canvas for each year of my Santa pictures and pull them all out every December. I haven’t quite figured out how to display them or where I would put them so stay tuned.
I would like to share the best and absolute worst all time Christmas picture of all 3 of my children. It again has the theme of uncombed hair. An added bonus is that it features Alex’s haircut he created himself called my bangs were bothering me and now they are not. If you read my earlier post about how I have lived with scissors on the top shelf for the last 10 years, now you know why. Unfortunately, my kids are bigger now and can move chairs and climb high when I am not looking. Ariel the Mermaid had a recent hair loss as well. Anyway, Enjoy! Merry Christmas.
No, you may not submit this to Awkward Family Photos. I plan on holding on to all my awkward photos. I’m pretty sure I will have enough material for my own book one day. If you have a funny picture, I would love to see it. And you actually can submit to a funny Holiday contest here.
More silliness below (probably my Mom is the only one that has made it this far?). I will call this session “get in the backyard so I can get a Christmas Card picture” OR ” the sun is going, the sun is going, stop it!” I can’t decide.
Christmas Gift Ideas: Only one today – remember the real gift already given to us all! I’ll leave you with my favorite Christmas song:
Merry Christmas!
“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you: He is Christ the Lord.” –Luke 2:11
“Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW! It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.” — Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat)
This sweet girl is just what you expect from a 2 1/2 year old. She was a bundle of on the go, non-stop fun. We explored, ran, jumped, threw leaves and laughed. I think her candid moments are the best because they really capture a little piece of her fun personality. Her family is so kind and patient with her and really enjoys all she has to offer. It is really reflected in her pleasant, easy going nature. All little girls should be this loved!
I have spared you a few days of super-cute puppy love so I leave you with one today. Meet Sherman. He isn’t too much of a puppy any more and he is just as cool as he thinks he is. He was so nice to sit for my picture. I think he almost smiled?
Christmas Gift Idea for Little Girls:
Okay, this isn’t really an “idea” for you but more of a confession of what my little girl will be getting for Christmas against mine and the CVS cashier’s better judgement:
Not just any Stompeez but the unicorn ones. I hate unicorns! I paid $21 at CVS oh and there is one more pair left for you! These tacky things are going to be in my house now but I just had to do it. You would understand if you had seen and heard the joy coming out of her as she told me all about them one day. She had seen them with her Grammy “at the place where you drive up for subscriptions.” She told me “they are a little big but I will grow into them!” So, it is done and it will be worth it to see her when she opens them on Christmas. When else in life will you ever be SO excited about light-up unicorn slippers? I’m glad we can indulge her one day of the year.
Merry Christmas!
Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts. –Lenora Mattingly Weber
Today’s session-share is my kind of school portraits. 🙂 I’ve been invited several times throughout the years to go to schools and do the “school pictures” but I don’t really specialize in that and just have never had time to fit it in either. This Fall I was so happy to work with an awesome school that was looking to hang huge canvases (30×40) around the top of their high walls. They have been delivered now and I can’t wait to get back out there and check them out hanging on the walls. The best part was that I was able to just “shoot” all the kids in their natural settings and in my style as well. I love capturing children just playing and not having to fuss too much about bows being out of place and grass all over their pants. It is just a lot more fun and natural to me. I had lots of favorites from this session. I think some of those kids could be GAP models!
Christmas Gift Ideas for Children:
I’ve heard the best toys are the classic ones that have stood the test of time and also help build fine motor skills. Blocks will never go out of style. A block set my boys were handed down from a friend and have always loved are Kapla Blocks. They are appropriate for around 3 years old and up; We still have them out many years later. My boys have built some really creative things with these blocks. The blocks are simple and wood colored but I think you can add colored blocks now too.
The above was just one of their many Kapla creations. It would go on to have Thomas trains running through it or around it and a few Lincoln Logcabins nearby. It was the season of constant buildings and tracks lining my foyer hallway. I often thought we had a pretty good security system from burglars coming in the front door. Good thing Santa comes down the chimney!
