From my 3 little love bugs to yours

Since the kiddos were with Grammy and Pappy tonight, hubby and I celebrated Valentines a day early… and hubby gets major brownie points!  After I got home from my shoot {hello T if you are reading this… had a blast with you guys!} he made me stay upstairs until he came to get me.  At first I thought he was trying to cook (my man would live on frozen pizza and cereal if he wasn’t married), so I was a bit worried!!  When finally I am allowed downstairs, the room is lit with candles and my favorite flowers of the moment- gerbera daisies- are on the counters.  On the dinner table sits a very nice looking meal to which I gave a raised eyebrow and he pointed to the take-out bags.  Now that’s the guy I know and love!  Watched Dan in Real Life after dinner, split a tiramisu, and laughed really hard at the suggestive Hallmarks we exchanged (it’s always a contest of who can find the funniest card…Matt won this year!)  Awesome night with my best friend!  Had to brag on him a bit.

Hope you enjoy today with all the ones you love!

Joyfully, Erin

“For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

~ Luke 2:11-12 ~

I think this is my very favorite ornament hanging from our Christmas tree… the reason we celebrate this wonderful season in the first place!

Merry Christmas from the McFarlands!!

I was way over due once again to get some new portraits of my babies done!  So we did a few photos over near Grammy & Pappy’s house… I am always pleasantly surprised when I actually end of with a good handful of keeper when I photograph my own kids!  All you photographers out there understand right!  It’s almost easier for me to photograph someone else’s children than my own… then again, it could just be their current ages.  My girl being 3 and my boys being 22 months means sitting still is not in the vocabulary!  Thanks to Grammy for helping me get some smiles out of my three little buggers!

I processed all these images with textures… what I like to call a little “Photo Art”.  This is probably more my style because of the dramatic quality it adds!  So why don’t I do this to ever image I process?  Well, for two reasons.  One, some images do look better without texture.  For instance, a back lit image where most of the background is blown out would not benefit much from any texture.  You really need something in the image for the texture overlay to “cling” to.  Two, it takes quite a bit of time to do this properly to an image.  It’s a lot of little tweaks and brushing to get it right.  So worth the finished product though in my opinion!  (textures from Flourish)

My sweet girl… she has turned into quite the chatter box!  I love her little Shay-isms though… those little things she says that make Shay who she is.  Sometimes I think she’s a 30 year old in a 3 year olds body.  Not that she doesn’t have her share of 3 year old moments, but she comes up with things that I didn’t even think a three year old would really grasp.  My little smarty pants

Does this look like mirror images to you?  We are pretty certain our boys are fraternal, but they sure do look a lot alike sometimes!  Their hair is finally growing back out from their summer “Daddy” hair cut (AKA shaved heads).  Now they are officially rocking the bed head look!

Now, I have way more photos of my girl from this little shoot because she will work with me a bit more than the boys.  With the boys, it’s a lot of chasing and hoping I get in front of them and nail my focus before they go storming past me!

Chase slowed down for just a second to let me snap this one…

Hopefully I’ll get one more little session in with my three kiddos before Christmas!