getting into the holiday season!

we started decorating the house the day after thanksgiving, because lucy and elliot just could NOT wait any longer to put up the tree! usually we AT LEAST wait until december 1st, but this year, we caved!

so, with the decorations up, and the first snowfall on the ground, it's beginning to look a lot like christmas!! :)

so, i snagged some pics this morning before the sun came up.


as you can see, we decorate our tree in a mixture of ornaments given to us when we were kids (notice the "Marcia 1988" apple ornament, given to me when i started kindergarten), ornaments we've made ourselves (such as the red ball with the stars on it and the heart with a picture of lucy on it), and ornaments that are annually given to the kids (i.e. the strawberry shortcake and the easter bunny-looking carousel ornament right above her). it may not look very martha stewart, but each ornament holds a special memory to me, so i LOVE my tree!! :)


one year we'll actually hide the pickle ornament and give a special present for the one who finds it...but not this year.


our "fireplace" is great for holidays, because it's the perfect place for decorations! and this year, we really loaded it up!


i love the way the banister looks decorated with lights and garland!!




happy decorating this year!!

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i'm 27!!

(that was me!)

with 2 handmade cards (by lucy and elliot), breakfast-in-bed, [meatless] sushi and a shopping spree with adam and the kids planned for tonight, not to mention last weekends' birthday-buffet bash for me at adam's parent's house and an evening hanging out with close friends whom i haven't seen in ages, it's been a pretty PERFECT celebration of my 27th year of life!!!

the feeling of being loved by those around me has filled me up so much that it's spilling out everywhere!! you can't tell, but i'm grinning from ear to ear right now!!! :)

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birds on the wires

adam found this video a while ago, and elliot just LOVES it!


simply amazing random happenstance!!

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my big brother is the big 3-0!

i am the youngest of 3 kids, and the only girl!

which means i grew up as the bratty little sister to 2 big brothers. :) brian, "the middle child", on the left, and scott, "the oldest" on the right.

well, today is my brother, brian's 30TH birthday!

wow!

30?!?

this was him before i was born (and possibly one of my favorite photos of him)

there are times when elliot looks a LOT like my brother!

i just can't believe he's 30! i mean, i still have vivid memories of how he used to make me laugh so hard that i would have to bolt down the hallway to the bathroom! a feat that we don't get to duplicate very often, since he lives in florida.

here's another favorite photo of him and me!

(i'm the little one in the blue)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN!!

we love, and miss, you terribly up here in illinois! i hope you did decide to take today off, and enjoy your birthday right! :)

oh, and when i was little i would get so excited for my brother's birthday, because it meant that my birthday was less than 1 week away!! :)

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james + tiffany: navy pier engagement session!

i had such an amazing time with james and tiffany, and soooo many favorites from our session!!

it must be showcased that chicago is SPLENDID in autumn!!




definitely a favorite!!  (i told james it was his JOB to keep making tiffany smile and laugh...and he did GOOD!)


see....




another FAVORITE!!!!




so, as you can see they are both wearing a TIFFANY'S shade of blue...and the name on that blue ship in the background....JAMES!!!  perfect?  DEFINITELY!!


at some point, the topic of ANTM and smizing got brought up.  (yep...i'm a fan!!)  james and i kept saying that tiffany was a natural in front of the camera...well, i think it needs to be pointed out that JAMES was pretty amazing, too!  he totally doing some GQ smizing!!!





tiffany is such a natural beauty!


love this one, too!!


when we found this little place we were ACTUALLY looking for the beach!  well, since i've only  been to navy pier once before, and james hasn't been there since he was a kid...we never quite made it to the beach.  i'm pretty sure we took a wrong turn somewhere, but no worries.  we TOTALLY "made it work"!!  and i'm so glad, too, because i LOVE how these seaside shots turned out!!






tiffany was quite good at smizing, too!!  ;)








i'm super proud of this shot!!




james and tiffany BOTH have gorgeous, out-of-this-world cheekbones!!!









james: hard at WORK making tiffany laugh!














watching these two interact was so inspiring, but i'm pretty sure all i could saw was "awwwwwwwww!"



click here to view more from their session!

also, i just downloaded the free beta version of lightroom 3! (totally legal...for the record). this version of lightroom FINALLY offers the option of exporting a slideshow in VIDEO format. (in the past, you could make slideshows, but only export them in pdf format...not very blog-friendly).

well, i was playing around with it, and i created a video slideshow of these blog photos! since i've never really played around with the lightroom slideshow feature (since it wasn't very useful in previous version), this is like a first test-run.

enjoy!

Click To Play

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