an infamous hat makes a smokin' good time

For Christmas, my parents surprised me with an antique photo light--bought off Ebay of course. So, a few weeks ago, as our husbands/friends were playing some silly boy game, Julia, Jen, Claire and I decided to play dress-up and test it out. My "new" toy has a 600 watt lightbulb in its itty-bitty, Model-T-headlight-shaped enclosure. After blasting ourselves with it the first time, we decided it needed to be shaded a little. We tried wax paper...and melted it. We tried the scrap material from my curtains...and set it on fire. Then we decided to just go out into the pitch black darkness and see how lit-up we could get Jen. Thats when we noticed the light itself was smoking from the inside. So we took a picture.


One of my trusted associates claims that you can only have this light on for 30seconds or less at a time. As someone who is used to working with hotlights, I find this hard to believe. The box it came in and instruction manual claim the light is for video--it even lists weddings as an event at which to use this product. If anyone else has some input as to how to use my toy without setting a grass fire, I'd love to hear it.

Not inclined to give up so soon, we substituted the fancy-smancy-flaming-photo equipment for a floor lamp my friend Jarrod found at a garage sale. Here are the results:

Jen a-la-1940's

Julia a-la-United Colors of Benetton Ad

Add to the mix: one innocent looking puppy and a feather boa

...and then let her speak her mind.

A perfect evening!

Waiting for Daddy...

Just thought I'd post a picture of my babies waiting for Eric to get home.

Baumgartner Family Portraits

The Baumgartner family:

Pierce Family Portraits

A long, long time ago--well maybe not so long ago--the Pierce family helped me immensely in pulling off my wedding. Though it doesn't come close to repaying the debt, I offered to take a family portrait in return. Here are the results:

Lady Claire Bailey

Todays post is coming not from Emerald, but rather her husband Eric. Yesterday, New Year's Eve, Emerald and myself were heading out the door to get the appropriate material components for some festive New Year's Eve beverages, when out from beneath the truck appears a surprise. It was the four-legged and furry kind of surprise. And it was cute...very cute.

Now, I am not a dog person (or at least I wasn't a dog person until I married Emerald and she came home one day holding a fuzzy black thing named Indiana saying, "Please don't kill me."), but this cute little thing somehow weaseled it's white and black spotted self into my heart a little too quickly.

When she was found she had a little leather collar and four paws of painted finger-nails. So for now we are assuming she was some child's Christmas present and that child will want her back. We walked around the neighborhood, but nobody had ever even seen her before. I went and put signs up this morning with my phone number. We will give it a week and if we hear nothing, well, Indy has needed a playmate, right?

In the meantime, we needed to call her something. So I present to you, Lady Claire Bailey; disturber of Indys, snatcher of chewies, and Queen of cuteness:

Busy Weekend!

This weekend my husband graduated from ACU and I've had three portrait sessions--my brother and sister-in-law yesterday, Abigail (again, yay!) and her family this morning, and another sister-in-law with her boyfriend later this afternoon. Add the rest of Eric's family into the mix and it's been a very busy weekend...although Indy has been !thrilled! to have so many people to play with--especially his Auntie Kayla.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Abigail and her family

Chris, Melissa and Emma Rose

Chris and Melissa


Emma Rose

Indy, my darling Indy

Baby Emerald

I am among those lucky enough to have someone named after me--Meet Baby Emerald, my friend Jarrod's niece. Jarrod's sister Andra says, "if you don't want someone to name their kid after you, don't leave your business card laying around with your name in pretty script."

The Lovely Miss Abigail

Today I had the pleasure of photographing the lovely Miss Abigail for Christmas Card photos. Here is one of my favorites!


Miss Abigail

Indy's First Halloween

As someone, ::cough, Kalyn:: very near and dear to my heart recently pointed out, I have left my readers with over 90 days of "blog-less" disappointment. To remedy this situation, Indy has written a post he likes to call...

"How to Schnooker a Pretty Lady out of Halloween Candy."

#1-- Position yourself next to the pretty lady passing out Halloween candy.

#2--Look really cute.

#3--Lean in close to the candy to get your ears rubbed.

#4--Lean in closer and give the pretty lady a kiss.

#5--While she's reeling from your kiss, put a paw in the
candy to rake it from the pretty lady's lap.

#6--Get caught.

#7--Foiled again. But at least I look cute in my pirate costume!


Here are some other pictures from Indy's first Halloween...where he escaped from the house--leashless--and ran up and down the street barking at innocent trick-or-treaters.

Emerald-the-pirate and Belle-the-Arabian-Princess

Jarrod, looking dashing in Medieval dress

Eric, looking, well, like Eric

Jarrod unwrapping Jen
(Julia is supervising from outside the frame)

Aaron and Brandy

From left to right: Sarah as a child on Christmas morning; Jen as a Christmas present; Ben, Sarah's boyfriend, as a Christmas tree; Paul, Marnie's boyfriend, as Zorro; and Marnie as Sarah's twin on Christmas morning

Rick as a "horny (get it???) little devil"

::sings::
Our House, in the middle of our street
our house, in the middle of our

our house it has a crowd
there's always something happening
and it's usually quite loud...
(--Our House, by Madness, just in case you were wondering)

Happy Halloween!!!!!!