Family Photos - March 2012

Thanks so much to our good friend Becky who took these amazing photos of us!

Baby Love Wordless Wednesday

A sneak peak at our family photos taken last week...

Enter to WIN Baby Stuff at Her Baby Stuff Baby Love Wordless Wednesday blog hop!

Do you have talent?

Do you talent? There are so many television shows, contests, websites etc. that want to see if you do...so I have been trying to figure what my talent is? I have several FB friends and family that have so much talent, from making amazing Scrapbooks, taking phenomenal photos, baking/cooking, creating jewelry, designing clothing - tutus, hats, shirts, shoes, etc., singers, dancers, models, acting, and more! I just wonder what my talent is? Is it that I can find great freebies? I just started...but I have found quite a few :) I am not a very good singer; art is nothing I have ever been great at; I have started photography - but thats just a hobby I love to do with the girls. I don't think any of my found talents will land me a job or help me make money for our family. I wish I could do something online (such as teaching) to make money, but alas I have not found that dream job yet.

What is your talent?? What could you do, can you do that could possibly make you a fortune one day? I wish I could start my own business - baking/photography/freebies/? to share with the world...maybe someday :)

Our Christmas Cards

If you know me fairly well, you would know that I love taking pictures of my family...and there is really only one site that I trust in making my photo gifts. I am absolutely in love with the photography site, Shutterfly. Over the past two years, I have had the pleasure of creating a photo share site: http://destinpaisleyroach.shutterfly.com/, more than a dozen photo books, photo mugs, calendars, prints & cards. They make beautiful gifts to share, and treasures to hold on to for years to come.

Here is my most recent creation - a Thanksgiving card (it was actually supposed to be an invitation, but our plans our still up in the air of what we are doing, so I made these instead). If you click on the pic, it will take you to Shutterfly's site in order to create your own Thanksgiving cards.

I don't want to call them holiday, or winter...but rather I will call them our Christmas cards that I am making from Shutterfly. Last year I had so much fun making cards from Destin's photo shoot that I took with her in a Santa hat. Here are some examples from last year that I made (click on the pic to get a closer look):

This is a 5x7 flat stationary card & can be found at:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/flat-stationery-cards


I called this "Giggle all the way" and shows the front, inside top/bottom.


This is the Holiday Script card - it was limited to only two pics.


This card was the Love, Hope, Joy card.These three cards listed above can be found at: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/folded-greeting-cards

This year I got 12 free cards through a different promo code and made some cards with some of my favorite pics of Destin & Arwen that I took recently.


This is a 5x7 flat stationary card & can be found at:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/flat-stationery-cards

And now with this blog post I hope to get 50 more free cards to share with my family & friends this holiday season. There are so many to choose from, whether you include your family letter, or if you have a pic for each month of the year. My favorite would have to be the holiday story cards, which are supposed to tell the story of your year (the following cards are just examples from the Shutterfly site, and not pics of my family).

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-story-cards

So if you are looking for the perfect Thanksgiving/Christmas/Holiday card, please take the time to check out Shutterfly and the hundreds of styles that they offer.

Photography

As many of you know I love taking pictures. Before the girls, I took pictures of Patrick and I.

This was when we first started dating in 2003, taken at my cousin's wedding at Powell Gardens.

Our trip to Mexico in 2003

One of our trips to FL (in 2006 in I think)


Daisy & Duke (2007)
Then we got our first "babies", Daisy & Duke - and I took tons of pictures of the two of them. Then with the girls, I must take hundreds of new photos each week. My Dad & Stepmom were so generous when they gave me a Nikon D3000 camera for my birthday in July (right after Arwen was born). Thank you! Thank you for this amazing gift!

Since then, I have been taking pictures every other day. Sometimes I take pics of Destin playing, or of Arwen smiling. Sometimes I stage photoshoots outside or more recently in our bedroom. Sometimes the lighting is perfect, and sometimes its not. Sometimes I use the flash, indoor flash or no flash at all. I am no expert at all when it comes to photography - but I do like to try new things, and test out all of my options when it comes to getting the perfect picture.

Arwen with/without flash

Since starting my Facebook page a couple of years ago, I have found that many people have started their own photography studio. I wonder if that is something I could do in the future someday? I love photography, and playing with photos. The next step would be to get photoshop, and a backup file for all of the pics I would take. Of course, I was talking about starting my own bakery business too - and maybe even making stuff like hair clips, and tshirts as some family members & FB friends do. I'm not sure what will happen in the next year or so, but I hope to make some money somehow..and maybe photography could be it!