Just (p)laying Around

 Spending some time with my Babyman today after hitting the Easter Egg Hunt this morning.  Took my camera out to the church and realized how much I missed snapping random pics of my lovie, so thought I'd snap a few during our afternoon play session.

 
How will I ever say no to this sweet little face?  Even when he's pretending to be upset, he breaks my heart.  Haha...and he knows it!

New favorite game?  Fake sleeping.  Tells everyone, "Sleepy!" and makes us lie down, close our eyes and snore.  And then he does the same.  Such a little ham.

 
This last one is from a series of shots of him telling us a story...each face he made was even funnier/cuter/more animated than the last, but this one is pretty much perfect.  Mid sentence...looking all serious.

My lovie almost 28 months old and smarter, funnier, and way chattier than I ever expected he would be at this age.  Who knew...

Finding Time...

...to empty my camera roll, that is!

Handsome man at his 2-year well check.

He's gonna knock the socks off of some ladies one day...

This next one is just awesome...Joe freezing his, er, snots off at ICE! at Gaylord Palms.

We had the most beautiful sunset a while back...no edits to these next two.  Just gorgeous...

Mindy and Ben are Getting Married!

Can you say smokin hot?!?
 
When I got the text that my best friend from college was just proposed to, I was super excited!  She is the last of a group of us girls to take the plunge and he's an all-around awesome dude, so there was lots to celebrate.

THEN she asked ME to take their engagement photos.  Uh, FOR SURE!  She found this incredible location in Jacksonville, and even with a few hiccups, we managed to pull out a few keepers.

I love this next one because it shows the silly side of Ben...who was more than eager to poke fun at the gooey mush factor that often dominates these kinds of shoots.  Quick, look like you're in love! Ready....go!

Ben has this super beautiful little girl who LOVED having her picture taken...but sit around and wait?  No thank you...
 

That's one cute family, if you ask me!  They've picked a date (July 6th, 2013) and you wanna know what's even better?  I'm a bridesmaid!  Woot woot!

Congrats, Mindy and Ben...and little Morgan too!

Hunter's 2nd Birthday Shoot

My in-laws neighbor has the cutest little boy ever.  Hunter has been super strong fighting off some pretty serious illnesses since he was born and is still a positive, sweet boy who toddles around with the most handsome smile on his face (see above pic and proceed to melt).

The other day his Mama asked me if I would take some photos of him all dressed up in his halloween costume.  She's planning a farm-themed 2nd birthday party down the road and thought some of them might make good invites.  I was like, hay bales and moo cows - HECK YES!

Isn't he the sweetest?!?!  And his Mama is super fun and V.E.R.Y. photogenic.  Of course we had our moments where he was like, you want me to do WHAT?  Sit WHERE?  Uh, no.   But overall, it was an awesome sesh.

The one below is a keeper, if you ask me!

This last one just kills me! I love how his little personality is showing. Ah, toddlers. So much fun!



For more photos from Hunter's 2nd Birthday shoot, head on over to our Facebook page and leave some love!

Welcome Baby Dominic!

Ok, ok...maybe I should have welcomed him a month ago when he was ACTUALLY born. What can I say...things have been crazy around here. Better late than never, yes?

Isn't he seriously the sweetest baby you've ever seen (aside from, ahem, mine of course)?! He's such a good baby...I mean, the kid barely made a peep the whole 24 hours I was there.   He was a little bit jaundiced though, so he spent a lot of time on his special little blanket.

He was VERY awake during our shoot.  Like, he didn't want to sleep.  We had to keep having Mama snuggle him so he'd fall back asleep.  And that meant we were losing light.  And their house is legit one stalactite short of a full-blown cave, so I had to do some serious post-edits.

That pretty red pin belongs to his Daddy, Dean.  Apparently Dean's grandmother pinned it on him when he was born, and so they wanted to continue the tradition.  I think it had something to do with the pin representing an angel who will protect him.  If I'd written this post a month ago, I'd probably have remembered the details.

I love this one!  That hat was a last second prop purchase, and I think it makes him look so cozy!

I couldn't get enough of this little man.  And I can't believe he's already more than a month old!  Stay little, baby man!!

Jacksonville Adventures - Part 1

Ok, we've been here about a month now, so I feel like it's time to do a little update on the Fleming Island/Jacksonville experience.  We've been here just long enough to feel comfortable and to have established a few favorite hangouts, but not long enough to really know our way around.  We still rely on google a lot to find the best (insert keyword here) around.  We've had some great outings and seen some cool sights.

Ok, ok, you got me.  Basically I just need to do a photo dump.  'Nuff said.

4th of July

Due to some very untimely bad weather, we weren't able to go see fireworks.  I'm so mad at myself because they had fireworks RIGHT by our apartment the Sunday before and we didn't go.  Ugh.  So much for checking "capture a great fireworks photo" off of my 30-Before-30 list.

Touring St. Augustine

Yayyyy for free passes to ALL national parks for military personnel!

It was super hot that day (notice Bubs' uber flushed cheeks), so we hit up a local gourmet popsicle joint that came highly recommended.

Trip to O2B Kids in Fleming Island

After a particularly rough day couped up in the house, we decided to check out this kids play around the corner from our apartment.  Little did we know, less than an hour later our kid would be strapped up ready to climb the rock wall.

Workday Adventures

During work one day, the guys said, "hey, let's go check out the machine gun range."  Thinking one of our units was qualifying and we'd get to see some bullets go downrange, we hopped into the GSA and took off.  After discovering they were already done and gone, we decided to just drive around and check out the area.  We found a bunch of cool, desolate lakes and old training areas.  Who knew all this stuff was here?!

Storms told us is was time to head back though.  This dark cloud would lead to some serious lightning that would eventually cause them to cancel Bubs' first swim lesson (boo).

Thanks for sticking with me through our early adventures in Jacksonville.  There are plenty more adventures (and corresponding pictures) to come, so stay tuned.  Next up though, Bub is 19 Months and oh, yeah, we're going on VACAY!