My how time flies!  Just a few months ago I visited Caleb at his home for a quick newborn shoot!  Already it’s time for this guy’s 3 month photos.  He is such a superstar, and you’ll see why I say that shortly!

In case you’ve been following the blog, I have a special affection for this sweetie and his family!  Adam did the video for Liz & Joe’s wedding, then I shot their maternity photos and of course, Caleb’s newborn photos.

You also may remember seeing Caleb’s cousins a few weeks ago!

We started off upstairs at the house since it was a gorgeous day and the natural daylight was beaming in my living room window! 

I could not get over the funny faces this guy had to share with us!

Caleb decided he was ready for a snack, so he said, “No more pictures, PLEASE!”

After a brief snack we headed down to the studio space and this boy started his posing magic!  He didn’t want to smile for us at

first, but we still got lots of this handsome guy.

Mom and Dad were troopers and let me try out some backdrops I hadn’t used much before.  This crazy canvas looks awful in person, but I just love the way it photographs!!

Then we snuck in a few family shots, but I just wasn’t entertaining enough!

We finally figured out how to get this little man to smile, though – just get him naked!!  Come on, now… doesn’t that make us all happier?

What a sweet girl Madison is!  I had the pleasure of photographing her back in July, and I would have seen her before now if life hadn’t been so crazy around this holidays this year!

This was my personal favorite!

She brought along her awesome brother, Eli, again, too!

Happy holidays! For my family that means Merry Christmas, but whatever that means for you – I hope it was great!  Don’t fret – we’ve still got New Year’s just around the corner.

This year was the first year that Ben really understood there were presents, though Santa is still a bit over his head.  Here are some pictures to share our Christmas celebration with you!  Hopefully you’ve already read about us putting out reindeer food, and about our birthday cake for baby Jesus!

This year was a little different as it was the first year that we did not travel to the Chicagoland area to spend Thanksgiving OR Christmas with Adam’s parents.  We were lucky that Adam’s mom was able to come down for Thanksgiving and both of his parents spent Christmas with us! 

They arrived on Christmas eve, and we ran out for an early dinner.  Once we arrived home, Santa had come!

Now you’ll notice that Santa wraps the gifts in white tissue paper.  This was a tradition for Adam’s family, and we excitedly combined traditions from both of our families, as well as integrated a few new ones!

Santa was sure to fill everyone’s stockings, and Adam’s parents surprised me with 2 new strobe lights!  I am so grateful for this generous gift, and I can not wait to try them out!  You can see the glare from one on the TV!

When Benjamin saw the Cozy Coupe (the car), he couldn’t care less about the other gifts.  He literally pulled it out from behind everything else!

Adam and his dad posed for a photo with Ben and his new car.

Then it was time to take the Cozy Coupe for a spin!

We ended up having to hide the car before Ben would even look at his other gifts!

He also greatly enjoyed his lawn mower, and the gas can he was able to use on both the lawn mower and on the car!

Overall we had an amazing Christmas celebration!  Christmas morning we also got to go to church.  Wasn’t Ben so cute in his suit?

And of course, as soon as we got home Ben was hard at work in his Cozy Coupe.  Didn’t you know that driving his hard work???

Another neat tradition that we’ve started doing now that Ben has begun understanding Christmas (a little!) is putting out reindeer food to help Santa’s reindeer find their way!

This cute tag is courtesy of The TomKat Studio.  While putting it together was fun, the most fun was Adam and Ben putting it out!

With 2012 quickly approaching, I’ve decided to start my New Year’s resolution a week early! For those of you that don’t follow our CMP Facebook page (and if you don’t – you should!) then you may not know about the exciting news we have in store for 2012. Baby Ben (who isn’t such a baby anymore!) is going to be a big brother! And with this exciting news comes the sad news that we must slow down a bit on the business side and make time to enjoy our growing family.

So – this blogger’s New Year’s Resolution is to capture more of the moments in our everyday lives and share that with our clients, friends, and family so that you know we are constantly working to improve our skills to better serve you!

My first attempt at this is to share with you a very special tradition in our family which is the Jesus Birthday Cake!

While it may not look too fancy (and ignore my dirty stove!), the meaning behind the cake really helps us to keep the true meaning of Christmas in our celebrations.  Below is a card that I printed for everyone to follow along as we explain the story:

This year was especially meaningful because Adam’s parents were able to join us in Kentucky for the Christmas holiday.  In another post I’ll share all of the exciting things we did!  For now, I want to tell you about our cake for Jesus.

Our cake is a fudge swirl cake, topped with white icing and 12 red candles.  The symbolism behind the cake is that is is tainted by the dark spots (although it is a bit of a stretch since the chocolate is the best tasting part ) in the same way that we are tainted by sin.

The white icing shows that now matter how much we push away God, when we trust him he can cleanse us with his love.

The 12 red candles have a dual significance.  The red candles remind us of the color of blood.  It brings to mind the sacrifice that Jesus made for our sins.  The numbers twelve reminds us that Jesus does not only love us at Christmas, but he is present in our lives all 12 months of the year.

Finally we lit the candles and asked Jesus to be our light.  We then sang the traditional Happy Birthday song to Jesus, and enjoyed some great cake!

I hope that you enjoy learning about our Christmas tradition.  Let us know what you think!

You may remember reading about VIB back in the fall.  We had a fabulous time selebrating with Leona and her staff, as well as all of the other great vendors!

If you haven’t been to a bridal show of any sort before, VIB is a great first experience!  We traditionally participate in 3 or 4 a year,  but this was our first time at VIB.  To check out how it went, see our video!

I was so excited when I was asked to take some pictures at Chaney’s Dairy Barn!  This famous farm & ice cream shop is one of the icons of our community!  Here’s a few of my favorites from yesterday.

What a fun couple Adam and I had the pleasure of spending the day with yesterday!  It’s one of those occasions when I am so glad that the couple wanted both photo and video, because I feel Adam and I work best together to truly capture the wedding day!

We first met Summer and Javon less than a week ago! This well-traveled couple just got to town right before the wedding.  They originally met in Africa, so you’ll see some neat tributes to their meeting place throughout the preview.

Here’s just a bit of fun from yesterday! Can’t wait to see more after we get caught up on the weddings from the last few weeks!

This photo was by special request of the bride! See just below the rings the city of Conakry which is where these two met!

This girl is going to be sporting some major bling!

I haven’t started editing the actual ceremony yet, but I just had to share this special photo.  As the mother of the bride entered, she brought with her two memorial roses.  I snapped a quick shot before the bridal party starting making their way down the aisle!

After a beautiful ceremony (have to keep you waiting for something!), we had a bit of fun while the guests gathered for a cocktail hour!

I snuck over for a few photos of the cocktail hour.

And into the reception tent…

Funny story… the officiant was all the way in the next town before remembering he hadn’t signed the marriage license or gotten witnesses – so he had to come back!  Oops!

Today I had the pleasure to photograph a beautiful couple getting ready to welcome their first baby! Rebecca & David were referred to me by Liz, whose maternity portraits you may have seen me do a few months ago!

We had to reschedule today’s shoot from a few weeks back when my household came down with some sort of bug! Thanks to an awesome and patient couple. Here’s a quick sneak peek at the fun we had today, and there is much more to come!!

Today I spent the day with one of the sweetest couples ever! Despite all the stress of ER visits, messed up flower arrangements, and anything else that could go wrong that did – this couple was the poster couple for grace under pressure!

Check out a quick video slideshow below, or keep scrolling for just some of the photos!

A lovely cake thanks to Sugarbakers!

The moment when D.J. first saw Linde coming down the aisle!

I think we all came to tears when the father of the bride was brought to tears during his Father-Daughter dance.