Barefoot. 2012

I'm excited to participate in One Day Without Shoes again this year! April 10th! Mark your calendars!
Even if you stay home that day, it's a great reminder to pray for those who are less fortunate and don't even have one pair of shoes!!

Valentines Tea

5 or 6 years ago the girls in our family started having a Valentines Tea every year on February 14th. Most years it's just been us, but this year we decided to invite a few friends. {Scroll through to read about my special guest!} We always make as many heart shaped treats as possible {some varying from year to year... others are must haves}, make Passion tea {hot & iced} & enjoy celebrating a day set aside for showing love. Love poured on us by Jesus and overflowed onto others. 

Have a peek at our 2012 Valentine Tea<3 

{I know this is a lot of pictures but it's not even half of them!!}

 Elisabeth thought up a bunch of fun games for all the girls to play!

 I met Libby* through one of the moms we serve at Heart Change {a beautiful ministry I get to help with}. She is a very quite & shy 14 yr old who loves pink, purple & anything pretty! And though she is one of the 5 children in her family who have Autism/partial blindness/other disabilities, you really wouldn't know it to talk with her! Her intelligence makes itself known, albeit quietly! Libby is the only girl in her home room at school and the only girl in her family other than her mom {she has 5 brothers!} so when a fellow volunteer asked me to start taking her out for girl time every once in a while, I said yes right away! You've gotta have girl time! It's been such a pleasure getting to know Libby and spending time with her...and bring her to my house where we definitely don't lack in the girl department!!

*name changed

hi people!!

umm... no biggy but... I'm leaving for Uganda in 11 {ELEVEN} days!!! ahhhhh!!!


p.s. need a laugh? this is genius. via Pinterest
{click on the link to view it larger}

p.p.s. that little pencil drawn guy sitting at the bottom of that list of photos looks *nothin'* like me! I am supah happy- NOT sitting glumly at my laptop -if you couldn't tell!! ahaha!!

mirror.mirror.

I'm sure when you checked my blog or followed a link here you were expecting something much more spectacular than pictures of my face! But all photographers need a date with the mirror & their camera every now & then right?! It's been really long since I've done mirror pictures but I stumbled upon an amazing combination {dirty mirror + various light sources = fabulous "fake" bokeh & grain} and just couldn't resist snapping a few {okay. snapping a lot!}:) Using one subject and tweaking lighting and/or composition to come up with a whole bunch of different images is so much fun! And who knew dirty mirrors could come in handy?!

I stuck in a few cliche "photographer/mirror" images -- just had to, you know! Laugh all you want at the images of me making faces at myself in the mirror:D They make me laugh a whole bunch too!!

 rockin' the dirty mirror bokeh!  oh yeah!!

 "the portrait."     "shoot from the hip."    "the side shoulder."

 "bored meets creepy"

 "let's hit that sideways, why don't we?"

 quirky jerky;)

the "photographer's totally get a work out! you try holding 5lbs in your outstretched arm for what seems like 10 yrs. oh and don't you dare let your arm shake- that's a 3 second exposure!" pose

 the "oh you thought you heard a click? I'm sure you were wrong- it was probably the doorjamb" pose for  "sneaky" shots

and the one I'm most guilty of when out in public? shooting from the hip. or just shooting while "cradling" my camera when "not using" it. I've gotten some fabulous {and not so fabulous} pictures on the street that way.