Nikon Christmas

A quick Christmas wrap-up:

After all the unwrapping of gifts it seems that I had an awesome Christmas. Mostly because I got to spend time with all of the sides of our family but also because Santa knows how much I love my Nikon!





My sweet new speedlight from the sweetest guy I know.


Richie liked his xbox 360. Now we have to go buy games. Tetris here I come!


Grandma Garrott moved into the 21st century with her new cell phone. Now she needs her own ring tone and to learn how to text.


Jeff made a Christmas feast for everyone and then fell asleep on the couch before we could open presents. I found out that I don't like beef wellington, even if it is Chef Ramsay's favorite thing to cook.


This is probably the cutest thing I found under the tree!

Feliz Navidad

Love, The Garrott's

Merry Christmas from Avon Lake

Since we have so much family to visit with Christmas is spread out over almost a week. We had the first family dinner with my mom's family last night up in Avon Lake. It was nice to get together and visit since everyone is living in different parts of the state. I think everyone had a good time playing with Cammy and Cooper. They were the stars of the evening!


Mark and Ashley's family picture.





We all tried on Cooper's puppy reindeer coat after he took it off.


Yay for a Kohl's card and a St. Jude bear!


Grams loved her present from Me, Cyan and Richie. The fur ball looked festive in the snow globe.


The Christmas picture is growing! I had been just the three of us for so long but now we all come in pairs.

Clean Fridge & Brownie Points

A box of frozen spinach + 2 days in the veggie drawer = messy fridge.

Thinking he was being pro-active Richie put the spinach in the fridge to thaw on Saturday since we were going to make Tortellini Soup on Monday. He was running late so I told him I would start with supper. I went to get the spinach out of the drawer to find it leaking lovely green water. Ewwwww. It started with the veggie drawer and ended with taking every thing out of whole refrigerator and lots of scrubbing.

I'm so proud I thought I would show off some photos of our super clean fridge.






It sure does look like a lot of food when you look at it like this, and I still say there is nothing to eat!


p.s: Don't these look yummy?!? The real meaning of "brownie points"

Christmas Cuties

I'm so excited! I was asked to do my first paid photo shoot last weekend (ok, so I was for some family members and I really didn't ask them to pay me but they wouldn't let me leave without taking something). But it made me happy to know that they liked my work enough to take some Christmas pictures for them. It was fun taking pictures of such a sweet family!












Sweet baby Lauren got that lovely scratch from the cat the day before our session.



It's so hard to get good pictures of boys! They never want to smile... must be some tough guy thing.

Something silly...

I thought this was silly, so I wasted my time filling it out:

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Spending my days at high school (wait... I still do that.)
2. Saxophone - ing it up in the band
3. Watching Friends every Thursday
4. Sporting my Omar Vizquel jersey
5. Hanging out with Meredith, Julie, Robin, Erin and Lindsey

5 Things on my "to do" list for today:
1. Go to Walmart
2. Take a shower
3. Make something to take to the Christmas lunch at work.
4. Grade papers
5. Watch The Office

5 things I would do if I had a million dollars:
1. Buy a house
2. Pay off my college loans
3. Take a vacation to Europe or Australia...
4. Buy a new fancier camera
5. Buy a truck for Richie

5 things I will never wear again:
1. Hot pink and hot green together
2. Sandals with socks
3. Jumpers
4. Acid wash jeans with splatter paint
5. Stirrup pants

5 favorite toys:
1. Camera
2. Computer
3. PS2
4. iPod
5. my car

Christmas Tree & Snowball Fights

The first one was my responsibility the second one I had nothing to do with (mainly because I had the camera)


We were supposed to ride to the field behind the tractor but it was too slippery and we had to get out and walk.



I'm kinda happy that I wasn't in the middle of this.




Since this was the result.






It kinda stinks when all of the boys gang up on you.



I finally found a tree. It took longer than it should have since I spent so much time taking pictures and not looking. It was my turn to pick the tree this year. I wanted to get a thin one that wasn't too skinny.



And of course sweet Richie was there to cut the tree down and carry it back to the car.

Happy Birthday Bryce!!

It's not really until the 22nd but we always celebrate early. Poor kid probably doesn't even realize when his birthday really is. Family + Crossroads pizza + birthday cake = an awesome way to spend a Friday night.


(I meant to wipe the pizza off his face but of course I forgot! I swear every picture I have of this kid he has food on his face.)








Anthony wouldn't stop playing with the geo-tracks long enough to let me take his picture. He probably thought he was in geo-track heaven when he walked into the family room!

Decorations

I braved the cold last night to take some pics of our Christmas lights. It was hard to hold still when I was shivering but I got one clear one.



Then I started playing with my manual focus to make the lights look blurry. Fun stuff!

It's beginning

to smell a a lot like Christmas....



I love it when we get out the holiday Yankee Candles. We used up the two we had last year so this year we went out and bought two new ones. I was upset that they discontinued the one that we had called "Festival of Lights" but this cinnamon one smells pretty close.




This one cracks me up. Susie decided that since our neighbor thinks it's alright to leave his lawnmower out in the middle of the yard for weeks (it's been there for almost a month) that she would decorate it for Christmas. The little red bow makes it look so much more festive!

Introducing...

Mr. and Mrs. Micah Buttler...















Our wedding is the next. I can't wait!

P.S: On a side note (that made me really happy) the photographer that was hired saw Richie taking pictures with my camera and started asking him about it. He said that we were getting some really great shots. That just made my day. A real photographer, with professional equipment, telling us that he liked our pictures. Hooray!

Happy Thanksgiving

Love, The (soon to be) Garrott's

Let's go Buckeyes!

Quite possibly the best part of the Ohio State - Michigan party.

I need to take more pictures...

I think this is the longest I have gone without taking pictures! I'm seriously going through withdraw. It's snowing today and I hope some of it sticks. Things seem so much more pretty when covered with snow.

I dug up so older pics. These are from a house warming party we went to in October.

I thought this was funny. I need to not stick my arm out like a chicken wing when I take vertical pictures. It feels strange when I tip the camera the other way though.

Sweet baby Anna.

A few from Friday

Big thanks to Hope for taking my "constructive criticism" while shooting in the park.

This was Richie's idea. I think it is sweet.

I love this one. I just wish the shadows weren't so strong.

This one turned out so cute. I think he was the most comfortable in his John Deere hoody.