A Tender Tennessee Christmas...and A Few Snowball Fights:)

J.R. and I made the NINE hour drive to Tennessee once again to celebrate Christmas southern style. This year my sister and her husband were home so we had a full house.

We had a wonderful visit with great meals, awesome popcorn cooked with my dad's new "whirley-pop", and an early morning pajama snowball fight/photo session...

 ....and the money shot!!

We forgot to pack J.R.'s pjs:(

Uncle Tom and Aunt Susan

And since we didn't get our Christmas card out this year...

Lazy perfect evening...

Christmas in PA

J.R.'s Aunt Susan and Roger came to visit us last weekend for an early Christmas. We had fun eating out, watching movies and playing with remote control helicopters??

What can I say? I think Roger and J.R. paid more attention to these bad boys than anything else over the weekend! Poor Max figured out early on that these were not toys he wanted anything to do with, so as soon as he heard the slightest whistle of the wings, he was huddled up in a corner with a terrified look on his puppy face.

Though I have no pictures, I must mention the fun J.R. and I had at his office Christmas party! The party landed smack in the middle of Aunt Susan and Roger's visit, so they decided to drive to Ohio and visit some of their friends while we dressed up and went out for the evening. We have been to three company Christmas parties now, and this one, held at the Heinz History Center, was by far the most fun! Each year a silent auction is set up with proceeds going to a good cause. This year they added a little bit of Vegas to the mix with Casino tables:). We bought chips and won tickets that we could enter into giveaways. Vendors had donated iPads (which we didn't win:( ), a $500 giftcard to Lowes (which our friends did win:)!), etc. I haven't ever gambled before, but I imagine it's a lot more fun when you can laugh at how much you are losing, knowing that it is all for the better good, ha! About $30,000 was raised for Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh that night. Oh, and did I mention there was dancing this time too? Maybe next year I can actually drag J.R. out onto the floor with me! Great night!

Sunday night, we opened gifts and had a good laugh watching our "child" excitedly open his package of "poopie bags"!




Nothing is more entertaining than watching dogs with wrapping paper...

Excuse the bad photography and poor lighting in these next pictures, but I had to add some of these:)

Beautiful ornaments they gave us!

Thanks Susan and Roger for a great weekend!

Getting into the Christmas spirit

Max humored me a few days ago with a quick Christmas session. Really, he had no choice, and it is evident in his expressions. Something I learned: wait until he is asleep and then ambush him. He is so out of it while he is waking up that he barely notices the Santa hat placed oh so delicately on his head:).

A Tennessee Thanksgiving

Tennessee bound, we made our way through the twisty roads of West Virginia and spotty holiday traffic this past Wednesday with one thing in mind, a taste for "Hugh Nichols Smoked Thanksgiving Ham". Yes, that is its official name, and if anyone reading this blog has had the privilege of tasting his juicy masterpieces they can attest to the fact that all other ham forever loses its appeal. My dad was apparently in a traditional mood this year, so he promised a smoked Turkey that could rival the ham for Thanksgiving dinner (and a ham on Saturday for our troubles).

We were a rather small group this year with my sister visiting her husband's family, and my aunt and uncle in Florida, so we were excited to have my dad's friends Linda and Benny join us for dinner. Linda prepared a very "sex and the city-esque" white cranberry cosmopolitan for each of us girls before dinner.

I am still in shock at finding this in my Grandmother's hands even if it was only one small sip;)!

And whats this? Do real men really drink cosmos?

Anyhow, what would Thanksgiving be without the classic daddy carving picture?

What a beauty she was! She tasted "pretty good" too Daddy;)!

Accompanied by Jackie's tasty side dishes, the turkey filled our bellies to the "pants unbuttoned" kind of full, and we all relaxed and let the inevitable sleepiness overtake us. Luckily, Linda went home after dinner and came back accompanied by her new baby Corgis, Charlie and Bella. You can guess where our renewed attention went for the rest of the evening. The hard part was allocating ear scratches and tummy rubs evenly between the two.

As my dad finished carving the Turkey leftovers, a wishbone appeared with J.R.'s and my names on it. It being our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, I thought about going easy on him...

Clearly he had the same thing on his mind...

Fortunately, sometime later we reconciled, kissed and made up (but for the record, I got the wish!)

A few mornings later, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise worthy of some further attention, so my dad, J.R., Max and I decided to take a drive to a local farm/make-shift shooting range.

Max can be a tricky dog to keep in eye sight when he gets a rare opportunity to roam without his leash, and before I could utter one word of disapproval, he found what I can only assume is some semblance of doggie heaven in a huge puddle of mud.

I hope it was well worth a bath in 40 degree weather the next day, Maxwell!

As usual, our Tennessee Thanksgiving did not disappoint. I hope everyone had an eventful and happy weekend as well :). I am thankful for the many roofs over our heads, including our own, this year, for
friends and family to spend the important and the not so important days with:), and the continued health of all of our loved ones. I am mindful of those who are unable to spend the holidays with family and appreciate their sacrifices. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Pushing his luck:)

I am still working on deciphering the lines and lines of html code for my blog, so it will be a little while before I can link my devoted blog follower(s) a.k.a my Aunt Susan:) to it. In the meantime, I thought I would share an image of a reoccurring scene in our house. Almost nightly, Max is a fixture on the edge of the kitchen as we prepare food. He isn't allowed on the hardwood floor, so he inches closer and closer wherever he can. Notice his proper puppy stance with the legs neatly crossed over one another. Last night he must have felt extra tired or lazy, as his head rested neatly on top of his paws most of the evening. Such a tough life....

New photo blog in the works

I am excited to be getting enough opportunities in family portraiture to start a photography blog! I have looked into different templates and hope to put something together fairly soon. In the meantime, I had the most amazing photo shoot with some of our friends and their almost 4 month old son this past Saturday.  I say it was amazing because the leaves were perfect, the lighting was beautiful, and the family allowed as much time as I needed to get the perfect shot:) Here's a small preview:

More to come of this gorgeous family. I hope to have a URL for the photography blog by the next post!

So Busy!

I haven't posted lately (and my lovely Aunt and devoted blog follower made me aware of this yesterday:)), so I am catching up now.  I had started several different posts only to become frustrated at the fact that Blogger had changed its formatting once again.  After battling with Blogger's new picture posting for weeks, I am proud to say that I finally clicked the right button or went to the right layout because we are back in business with two new posts (and I now realize how hard I was making such an easy thing).

It has been a very busy few weeks in my world of unemployment!  I am happy to report that I was offered an interview at a local YMCA. I cannot tell you how nice it was to slip into some work attire.  It has been so long since I have utilized over half of my wardrobe, and the feeling of wearing heals and black pants again was surprisingly nice. The interview was possibly one of the hardest I have had, but well worth the experience. Although I am not sure the job is for me, I really appreciated the opportunity and now know a little bit more about a great organization.

I have also had an amazing amount of small photography opportunities over the past weeks. My friend Holly wanted some fall/halloween/pumpkin patch pictures with her son Lucas. We set out for a photo shoot with another friend/mom, Rachel, and her 17 month old Tyson at a local farm. There is such a huge difference between photographing a newborn and a toddler. Tyson was hard to catch on camera, but I managed to snap a few:)

Holly is part of a group of moms with small children who meet several times throughout each month. They had arranged a family bonfire/cookout/tractor ride at this same farm, and she asked if any of them would like family pictures done. Seven families signed up, and I really enjoyed the experience. I hope to post these pics soon (once I get the families' permission).

Yesterday, I did a small Halloween photo shoot with Mr. Lucas and his mommy again. Since I don't have a studio, it can be hard to get good lighting, but I think these turned out fairly well.

 And finally, their Halloween card:) We stole this idea from another photographer who had done something similar for Valentine's Day cards. Holly found the leg warmers for Lucas and socks for her at Target. Cute idea!