a day full of surprises

What began as an ordinary Friday turned out to be anything but...

My husband had taken the day off of work with the intention of kidnapping me for lunch. (A change from his usual itinerary ways.) We spent most of the afternoon tooling around after first stopping for lunch at a cute little place called Fischerville Coffee House. I ordered a Gingerbread Latte and an Italian Panini (I know, an odd combination... blame it on hormones). The food was excellent (I'd love to try breakfast sometime) but I'd recommend avoiding the lunch hour because the place was PACKED. (Tip: You'll find a little parking lot behind the joint so don't be dismayed if you have trouble finding a spot in front.)

After lunch, we stumbled upon a sweet photo prop for the wee ones:

A teeny-tiny little thing I can hardly wait to get outside. I had a session this morning with Mellissa's son and will hopefully have an image or two to share tomorrow!

The biggest surprise of the day had to be the one sprung onto a friend:

Celebrating a very special birthday - of course, I would never mention which one...

...because I'm thoughtful and considerate like that ;) All and all, it was a fun evening filled with good food, old/new friends, and lots of laughter.

BTW, in case you hadn't noticed this Tweet... Focus on the Family had a guest on yesterday's radio program with an INCREDIBLE God Moment story. We'd heard a little about it from Beth Moore during the course of one of our Bible studies but to hear the story in his own words (along with miracle itself as it happened during a recorded moment of teaching) - well, it's something that will blow your socks off. Just click HERE to check it out.

first birthday photo props

For those of you contemplating a birthday session, here are several fun photo prop ideas. I love the idea of incorporating a small cake and found this sweet bakery in the Twin Cities area. There's nothing like a fun, colorful cake to add to an already sweet image of your little one:

Especially when it is theirs alone to dive into! The above image (and cake!) is from Queen of Cakes located in Edina, Minnesota. (A couple of other bakeries I adore are Woullet Bakery and McHatties.)

Personalized t-shirts or onesies make simple, yet equally adorable photo props. Here are a few of my finds:

You'll find the design above by clicking HERE. And a boy version:

Which you can find by clicking HERE. Bibs and party hats also work well, take this for example:

You'll find the sock monkey bib HERE. If you'd like images that ooze with cuteness, you might want to consider something like this:

You'll find the adorable tutu above (and more!) by clicking HERE. It just doesn't end:

You'll find these fun bodysuits by clicking HERE. And if you're wondering how to best capture all of those precious images from your child's first year, click HERE to learn how to create a user-friendly digital photo book.

Any first birthday ideas of your own to share? I'd love to hear them...

hi. i'm still procrastinating.

It was a whirlwind of a weekend with a 12-hour crop on Saturday and the last of our Christmas celebrations on Sunday. I've spent the last two days in recovery, filling myself up with hour upon hour of Chuck.

HELP.ME.I.CAN'T.STOP.

I was up way too late last night and am suffering the consequences this morning. (So much for my recommitment to an early bedtime.) Anyway, thought I'd share a few pics from our family shindig:

And my favorite shot of the day:

Today is my last day of eye meds (yay!) and I have a first birthday session with the not-so-little G-man on Saturday. I'm praying the eye stays healthy this time!

I'll try to get the January faithbooking lesson up this week. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe December still needs to be posted as well. And possibly August. Sorry... working on those time-management skills.

Speaking of time-management, I'm not doing a great job of it today. Still have a December gallery to complete before jumping into taxes and here I sit, still in my pajamas! Better get a move on...

chuck defuses IS da bomb

My new favorite show. Why did it take me so long????? Hilariously funny. The series pilot is featured above :)

got alot going on this weekend...

But promise I'll be back to post more later!

hi. i'm procrastinating.

My 9-year old son and I hang out one night a week. We pretend to be secret agents but really, we just go to Target and look at toys. Our night usually ends with an ICEE and sometimes even, a small popcorn.

Imagine our shock and surprise as we encountered this near-empty LEGO aisle. A neighboring store didn't even have a LEGO aisle... it had simply been reduced to an endcap. Thankfully, my Facebook friends assured us the LEGO toys would be back. (Good thing, otherwise it would have thrown off our whole secret agent thing.)

With nothing else to do (Nerf-browsing lasts only so long) we decided to make a stop for hot cocoa. Ren requested an adult hot cocoa because "they seem a whole lot fancier" - I was happy to oblige :)

baby gavin passed away this morning...

Please continue to keep his family in your prayers. You'll find Natalie's most recent post HERE (which is where I found the photo).