brit + emma: love birds.

my sister rocks. she's gorgeous, HILARIOUS, thoughtful, brilliant, & just awesome in most every way. this is emma. 

see that locket around her neck? that is from her really sweet girlfriend, brittany. they have been dating for awhile and they already have this old timey comfy love. i love them together. they always do all these cute self portraits of themselves together so they were excited when i offered to take some pictures of them. allow me to introduce... BREMMA! aren't they SWEET?!

she's short like me. so now emma has to sort of stop making fun of my height because i can always bring it back around to brittany. brilliant!

emma... stunning!

s w e e t.

i love you guys!

tina, josh, & noah: family session.

my cousin josh and i spent a good bit of our childhood together. a lot of my memories as a child include him and he's like a brother to me. it's crazy to see that we both have kids and now THEY can play together. life moves so quickly. tina is pregnant with their second baby, a little girl :) and let me tell you they make some realllllly cute babies. i went to their house valentine's day morning and took some photos of their family (and a lot of noah because well, i couldn't resist) before the new addition arrives. i can not WAIT to meet her.

like father, like son.

what a cute belly!

i love the faces boys make when they play with their trucks.

so sweet.

they have such a comfortable love. this describes them perfectly to me. i love it.

always her first baby :)

whew, too many pictures...

i love you guys so much & can't wait to meet your new little girl SO soon :) thanks for having me over. and check out my valentine's day mug of hot chocolate you gave me...

tell me that's not meant to be! :)

snow day; dedicated to gramp.

we got snowed in today with a couple feet of snow. snow and cold weather are two of my least favorite friends but we put up with one another if we have to. the recipe to us getting along consists of lots and lots of hot chocolate and some really yummy meal that takes all day to make. 

so, this happened. 

very shortly after, came this. lots of it.

of course zoe had to have her own little cup!

but naturally she only wanted ours:

okay. so. my gramp (who was my favorite person in the world) used to make homemade chicken and noodles. it's really simple, but is hands down the most delicious meal i've ever eaten. it also cures all that may ail you and is the epitome of comfort food. he has been on my mind heavy lately because it just bums me out that he never got to know zoe. i know he would have been so in love. so i dedicated the day to him and made chicken and noodles. it has three ingredients:

1. chicken (and uncooked chicken makes my stomach turn so no picture). 

2.

 

3.

and some good old fashioned work.

if you've never had homemade noodles, you must! they are one of life's greatest little pleasures. for me anyway.

got zoe in on the tradition. gramp would be so proud.

the finished product:

mmm, mmm, GOOD. now scrabble time. and our cars and roads are already plowed, so we're officially snowed out. the hysteria can end!

bye bye winter blues.

we may be expecting 20+ inches of snow this weekend.... but it's still summer in our house. 

zoe woke up from her nap today and insisted on putting on this summer dress. i obliged, seeing as it's the cutest little thing i've ever seen. props to my cousin jean who MADE it for her girls and then handed it down to us :) i love you. she was dancing around and saying "ooooo!!" summer entered for just a few minutes & it was everything i hoped it'd be.

so this weekend when we're in the middle of a blizzard, we'll probably just crank up the heat and put on our bathing suits. happy pretend summer!

first time in falling snow.

on january 31st, i started a 365 project & i must say i'm loving it so far. if you've never heard of it - it's where you upload a picture a day for a year. for me the motivator is to make myself pick up my camera EVERY day and notice things i'd otherwise overlook, to learn (a huge reason i love photography - there is always more to learn), and to commit to something for 365 days - that's a lot of days! you can follow my 365 project here if you want to. :)

anyway, my point... today i realized that the light was going away quickly (side note: CAN NOT WAIT FOR SUMMER) and i hadn't taken any pictures today, so i took some random pictures inside before we rushed out the door for target before the snow hit (again). i put zoe in her little jacket & hat and went outside. we're standing there putting the car seat in when i realized she'd never been in falling snow. sure, she's seen the finished product of snow. she knows what snow is. she's seen snow fall through the windows. but she's never experienced falling snow. touched it. realized it was coming from the sky. seen it melt when it hit her fingertips. gotten snow caught i her eyelashes. i digress. so, i was like, "wait a second, let me get my camera!" and i'm so glad i did. the 24 inches of snow we got a few weeks ago was not cool to her at all but this was perfect. there was just a dusting on the ground and tiny fluffy little flakes falling. her expressions were pretty priceless. 

isn't she sweet?!