Baby Rushing's 1 year birthday

Yea, she's such a big girl now! This sweet little girl had a birthday party for her friends and family and they enjoyed playing outside and eating yummy cake. It's such a thrill to watch her grow up and get cuter and cuter.

I'm in the mood to reminisce, so here's a flashback of Baby Rushing as she's grown up: her 3 month session and her 7 month session.

To see the rest of the images, go to my website http://www.karellephotography.com/ and click on 'Portraits,' then 'Digital Studio', and find "Baby Rushing's 1st Birthday." You'll see the images that are on my blog and as well as the rest of the images. Also, check out the slideshow that's posted below!!!

Briella's 1st Birthday - Slideshow

Catching up, what I've been up to

Ok, I've been crazy bogged down lately with.......stuff. Lots of stuff. And then I went poking around in my hard drive and found stuff from months ago that I hadn't yet blogged - oops!

So let's start with the most recent and work backwards.

I've spent the week trying to get in Christmas orders and Christmas cards, and I think I'm done with Christmas cards for now. I think......*quickly checks to-do list*
I've also had two NILMDTS sessions in the past two weeks, so that's kept me busy, too.
Speaking of to-do lists, here it is:



Ok, now let's go back to last week, Thanksgiving week.

During the course of the week, my sister came into town with a group that she's been traveling with as part of biotour.org They stopped in for a few days and we had the chance to hang out with them and they spent Thanksgiving with my family.

I spent a good portion of the week doing family sessions, which you may have noticed on my blog already. But there are others that I've done that are yet to come. I ended up driving to the Woodlands, Spring, Beaumont, and Sugarland.

On Thanksgiving day, I found a package that had been delivered, but somehow I missed it. It's the album from the WPPI print competition! It finally arrived! This is the story about it from last March. Isn't it purdy?

The week before Thanksgiving, I finally went to the Coldplay concert!!! Been waiting for months, and our group had a blast!

Ok, now let's really go back in time. These are a few pictures I took when we were preparing my display for the Kids Fair up at the Woodlands Mall.

Ok, let's go back even farther than that!
My birthday was back in July and it was so neat to get so many gifts from friends. But I'm not just showing you birthday gifts, but also a gift from Shelley (an August bride), and a gift from Tiffany and Brian, who were Ashley's clients. They were so sweet to think of me. I thoroughly enjoyed my gift card, yum, yum.
So starting at the top and going across, the gift from Tiffany and Brian. Then you'll see two parts of Ashley's birthday gift, which inclues a Hoops and YoYo panic button and several packages of Icebreakers Sours. Do you know Hoops and YoYo?? They are sooo funny. Check 'em out.
Second row: also from Ashley, months supply of Orbit gum, love it!! The next two come from Shelley's gift; her wedding was in August, and she gave me this really pretty coffee mug and several packets of tea. That was thoughtful! Thanks!! The last picture is from one of the birthday cards I received with pretty stickers all over it.

Continuing on, I also got this card from Adriane and Eddie with turtles on it. The inside story to that is that I grew up with many, many turtles, so I've been labeled for a lifetime. The next card is fun! You can wind it up and it plays a song. And as part of Shelley's gift, she also gave me some beautiful stationary, the kind that feels so natural and fibrous. Love it! Then we finish off with the totally cool Hoops and YoYo card, also from Ashley. See a theme with her stuff? Hoops and YoYo rock. That can't be denied.


I feel so blessed to have received such beautiful and thoughtful things. I still hti my panic button every so often and I can't help but crack up.
I think that's all for now. I have several things coming up in the next few weeks including images from my trip, several families, and other miscellaneous stuff. Toodles!

It's that time of year again..........

What do Hilary Swank, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vivica Fox, Jamie Pressly, Tom Green, Lisa Kudrow, Laurence Fishburne, Delta Burke, Henry Ford, Emily Bronte, my high school band director, my friend's mom, two of my friends's dads, and I have in common?

It's our birthday today.

Yes, yes, it's true. And I hesitated to write that it's my birthday because it's almost like I'm fishing for comments, but I'm not. In fact, DON'T COMMENT! I mean it. (We'll see how this reverse psychology works ;) )

Thanks to all who have emailed me, texted me, facebooked me, and face-to-faced me (wow, anything can be made into a noun.)

I received a fun gift last night from Ashley at the David Jay/ Jasmine Star workshop that was of the Hoops and YoYo theme. If you don't know who they are, check them out because they are funny. And also a year's supply of Orbit gum. So if you're in need of gum, come ask me. I will probably most definitely have some. And maybe even various flavors to choose from.

I had breakfast with Susan, Dan, and Susan's parents (her father also has a birthday today), and she unveiled the Shootsac cover that she'd made for me that she was so proud of. She'd been waiting for so long to give it to me. It's a beautiful pattern with different shades and patterns of blue and other colors. It's really nice.

But it's a work day, nonetheless. There's still stuff to do. But I may go out to dinner with my family tonight at Buca di Beppo, which I love so much.

And for all of you un-Birthdayers, have a great day.

Murphy's 3rd Birthday

Murphy celebrated his third birthday a la Thomas the Train style. Several of us from college gathered for an afternoon of barbeque, cake, and water guns.




Cute little Aspen just woke up in time to eat with the rest of us. And Shane also woke up.


The Birthday Boy!



Are you catching on to the theme?



He's eyeing the pinata.........

Murphy with mom and dad.





You'll be happy to know that he successfully blew out the candles, perhaps with a little help.



Oh my, Mason, what is going on?

Cannon's 4th Birthday

I've watched this little guy grow up to be the four year old that he is today and I went over to take him his birthday present on Friday. Do you remember those things (I don't remember what we called them back then) but they were like little still-picture movies? You put in the reel and lower the lever to advance the picture? These days, they're called View Masters. Cannon now has his View Master, or his 'binoculars', and he has Curious George, Dora the Explorer, Finding Nemo, and Charlie Brown reels to look at.





Apparently, he has developed a strut. He can switch gears and start walking his strut. He's showing us how he walks.

Now he's showing mom his Curious George Reel

Ok, on to bigger and better things. His birthday was actually the day before, but his presents were waiting to be opened on Saturday at his party. But he asked if he could open a present, so he chose this one............what is it?

Oh, the suspense..............

A sword!!!!!

And what else?

Another sword! So two people can duel to the death!

Then he asked if he could open another one, and the ensemble was completed with two shields. Any proper pirate needs a sword and a shield, and a set of binoculars.

Ready to fight!

We took the game outside and this was my opportunity to grab a shot with Cannon. Can you see the expression on his face? "What do you want me to do???"

Meet Rebecca, the younger sister. She was apprehensive about me, but eventually warmed up to me.

For some reason, I really like her sweater and dress, she looks so cute.

Cannon's showing off the present his grandparents gave him, a soccer ball lounge chair, complete with an ottoman.

What four year old is complete without a bike?