the.keller.fam!

A few weeks, I got a call from my elementary school principal! If I had gotten this call 20 years ago, I would have thought I was in BIG TROUBLE!!! This time though, it was great to hear from Mr. Keller!!:) He wanted to plan for family pictures at Christmas time. The only wrinkle was that they had received a message from their son that he would be home some time around Christmas, but they didn't know the exact date since he would be traveling from out of the country. He is in the military, and at best they would know about 2-3 days before he would be home. I told him, no problem--I would just be on-call! I wanted to make sure that they had pictures to remember their time together! I hope that you got to spend quality time together! Check out our fun shots...

Meet the entire Keller Family:

If you haven't noticed, I love to take shots when people don't know I'm taking shots. These end up being my favorites, like the top one shown below:)


Scott, Karl (it's weird to NOT say "Mr. Keller") & Steven...


I think this pic is so cute!


Boys will be boys! Graham & Seth were acting silly and making everyone laugh!



Thanks so much for calling me! I had fun:) I hope you enjoy your slideshow!

peyton's.3rd.bday!

Yesterday was Peyton's 3rd birthday in human years (she turned 21 in doggie years). She is the most perfect puppy (well, at least in our eyes:) She got to spend time with family at Grandma Carey's house. When we got home last night, she was pretty pooped, but got excited to find an email from cousin Guploo. I thought I'd share that note with you...

Dear Cousin Peyton,

It just dawned on me when I woke up from an afternoon siesta that its
the 29th of December, the day you were born. How happy I am for you as
you turn 3 years old, because now we'll be the same age for the next
few months.

Are you having a birthday bash today, or are you just going to relax
at the doggie spa? They both sound good to me, so if you get a choice
just pick both. That's what I usually do:-)

In any case, whatever you do or wherever you go I just hope you have a
ton of fun. May long life and good health be yours in this year to come.

Sniffs & licks,
Cousin Guploo

Here is a photo of Guploo, who lives in North Aurora, Illinois:



and here are shots from her birthday shoot this morning looking so grown up:)

christmas.w/the.fams!

Simon and I are so lucky to have such great families. We had A LOT of family get-togethers over the past week! All of them were filled with food, family and fun! I had so many pictures to go through, so I only had time to put the two slideshows together. Thank you family for being so awesome!

This first slideshow is a compilation of three separate get-togethers with my side of the family. The first part is from our Christmas with my mom/brother/sister's family on Christmas day. The second part is from our Christmas with my mom's side of the family. And the last part of the slideshow is from tonight at my mom's house with more of my mom's side of the family.


This slideshow is from two get-togethers with Simon's side of the family. The first part is with his dad's side of the family, and the second part is with his mom's side of the family.


I can't wait 'til Christmas 2008!!!

macy | 6 months

While in Chicago last week, I got to meet the Koetter's! They are awesome people, and they have the cutest little girl named Macy. If there are any talent agents out there for Gerber, I've got a good one here for you who would make a perfect Gerber Baby!!:) Macy was so good the entire time. I went crazy shooting, and we probably spent an hour and a half at their home downtown, and then made the trek over to Millenium Park (if you read my blog post a few days ago, you know that I LOVE Frank Gehry's work--the architect that designed Millenium Park). Given my excessive shooting, Macy cooperated the ENTIRE time.

Someday, Shellie and Sam plan to move to Indianapolis, but for now, they are happy in Chicago. When Shellie contacted me back in August to book this shoot, she told me that she wanted shots that had that "city look" so Macy can look back and reminisce on the city that she was born in and spent the first part of her life in. So good thing Mother Nature cooperated! The temperature was tolerable, and we beat the mist that we experienced on our drive home!! Yea!

I'll quit talking now and let you look at the photos...

Meet Macy! Shellie told me that Sam really LOVES Christmas, so I am sure these first few will be on his desk!

Are you KIDDING ME?!?! She is so stinkin' cute!!



If she was my kid and gave me this look, I could never tell her "no":)

She handled these like a model with slight head tilts and eyebrow lifts

Meet the whole fam; Sam, Macy & Shellie:)


I love this one:)


Megan Engelberg (who you might remember from their September shoot) got this outfit for Macy. You cannot tell here, but Macy is biting on a little pink heart that came with the outfit. Hi Megan!




I love this. I think this totally reads "big city"!!


Here are some fun pictures in front of Millenium Park!

This sculpture is called "Cloud Gate," but it is referred to as "The Bean." I read up on this thing, and believe it or not, it is a 110-ton steel sculpture costing $23 million. It truly is fascinating when you see it in person. You can see incredible reflections of the city because of the curved shape of the bean. If you want to read more about it, click here.

Look! Macy sees herself in the reflection! Isn't she so cute?!?!


Just hammin' it up:)


Thanks so much for allowing me to work with you guys. It was a lot of fun. I hope you had a very Merry Christmas. Enjoy your slideshow! (Sorry the slideshow moves so fast. There are so many photos that I had to go fast to get through all of them before the song ended!!)

christmas.cheer!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and got to spend time with your families. I got to spend some QT ("quality time") with my two nieces today. We all spoiled them, of course:) I promise that I will post more family Christmas photos sometime this week, but for now I will leave you with these...

By now, you all probably know Miss Claire:

...and here is her baby sis, Lyza. Lyza will be exactly one month old tomorrow.

Here's what Simon and I got Claire. It's a little Radio Flyer horse that either rocks backs and forth or bounces. Claire really got into the bouncing part! It was hilarious. Someday when I learn how to post video clips on my blog I will show some footage of her riding this thing.

These are my FAVORITES! Claire had a little too much Christmas cheer in the bottom photo:)

...and Lyza stretching it out...


Good night, and Merry Christmas! Next blog posts to look out for are Miss Macy's photos and the Keller Family photos!

merry.christmas!

Clients received a christmas card from me with pictures of YOU on the front, but friends and family got cards with a photo of US on the front. If you saw the family photo of us, you might have thought to yourself, "oh, what a sweet, well-behaved little dog!" That is true most (or shall I say SOME) of the time. I sat the camera up on the tripod and set the timer by myself. So you'll see that catching Peyton on my way to the couch was a little challenging! I thought you might enjoy a little behind the scenes action:) I hope you all have a wonderful christmas!

i.love.chi-town!

Chicago is own of my favorite cities to visit. I love the size of the city, I love the shopping, I love the food, I love the hotels, I love the entertainment, I love everything about it. Simon and I just made a short getaway trip up to the windy city on Thursday and Friday for a little rest and relaxation...and SHOPPING before celebrating Christmas with Simon's brother, Stan and his wife Taniya! A while ago, I had searched for different cool hotels in Chicago, and I came across a place called The James Hotel. This place is hip, contemporary, in a great location, and just flat out COOL. If you happen to be traveling to Chicago, you must check this place out. We left Peyton with Grandma and Grandpa Sangar, but we could've brought her along because they allow pets. That blows my mind because sometimes the average motels don't even allow pets, and this super-nice hotel DOES allow dogs. Below, you'll see that they even treat dogs like kings and queens. We had a great time in Chicago. Here are a few pics from the trip...

Yes, we made a trip to Tiffany's which happened to be conveniently located around the corner from our hotel. Tiffany's has done an amazing job in their overall branding efforts. I mean, come on...girls goes gah-gah over the little blue box. I wish so bad that I had had my camera in the store (even though I am sure they don't allow that), because of the scene I saw. In order to be helped, you actually had to wait in a line. The line was FULL of men. Once it was our turn, I wanted to try on a necklace right up front. The lady plopped a mirror in front of me, and just as I was putting it on and I was looking in the mirror, I noticed three mens' heads quickly move into view. I was no longer looking at myself, I was looking at the crazy desperate men in the reflection. I could totally tell that they were checking out what I was trying on because they probably had no idea what to get their significant other. It was hilarious.

I chose this little necklace designed by Simon's favorite architect, Frank Gehry. Mr. Gehry has several different lines that he's designed for Tiffany's, and they are all so cool. Among his many famous pieces of work, Frank Gehry also designed Millenium Park in Chicago which is AMAZING. Simon's dream is that Frank himself could design a house for us (HA)! So Mr. Gehry, if you are out there, let me know what you think about designing a house here in Indy!!!!:)

I admit that I am a huge dork, but I was trying to take a picture of myself with my new necklace on:)

Simon got a new pair of sunglasses!


Here's the sign to look for:

A shot of the ultra-cool lobby...

I loved this little display that The James had in their lobby.


Another shot of the lobby looking into the bar area...

This shot is not in great focus, but I was trying to take this myself which is really hard because I was holding it with one arm and my camera is really heavy!!

And of COURSE, we never travel anywhere without our life support...

So here is what I was talking about above. Dogs are treated like royalty here. They have a water dish and a treat jar outside on the sidewalk. How cute is that?!?!