On another note, the week of Thanksgiving felt like an entire month!  I had a wonderful time visiting with all my family, cooking, shopping, and just hanging out.  

I really meant to sit and "work" for an hour or two, but it's just been impossible to break away from our week-long Thanksgiving festivities.  It went like this:

All of my kids, plus spouses, plus Henry (9 in total), came to visit and stay throughout the week - a few stayed all week and a few came and went and came back.  We cooked and baked in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner, played Mad Gab, a few kids played Wii games all night, prepared several meals, watched Christmas movies while knitting (not just me), enjoyed our left-overs, and some of the kids took turns getting sick.  ACK!  (fever & sore throat)

I LOVED every minute!  I'm so grateful (and thankful) that all of my kids still live nearby and we're all able to be together during holidays - I never take these times for granted.  <3

So, now that the first round of sick kids are on the mend, and most have gone home, I plan to get to those emails, asap.  (well, I might need to take a nap, first)  ;-)

We hope all of you have had a great Thanksgiving Holiday!

Cheryle

Does anyone want to tell me?  Why do you spend lots of $$$ to have wonderful photos taken if you don't DO anything with them?  Or are you doing something with the digital negs that I sell (I sell those about half the time)?  But what stops you from purchasing a lovely book with a TON of lovely images?  Or just a few Gift Prints?  Is it the cost?  Is it that I've not offered the products to you?  Or is that you're life gets the better of you and you forget to do it?  

Just wondering... 

Yah, not what I expected either.  Just so ya know, that toy that he's pounding on? It was in a basket on the other side of the room.  That means that he picked it up, walked it to the rug, sat down UNASSISTED,  and started playing, BY HIMSELF!  Unbelievable.

I'm sure Tonette will want me to share all of her good news, so I'll be back :-)  In the meantime, here a few of my favorite things... (yes, I heard that song today)

The idea of this following pose really tickled the kids.  Can you tell?

So, that being said, I did get a few accidental looks from Gabriel.  Here is one:

Oh, there is a story attached to this session.  Our appointment was scheduled for 10 at Hard Labor Creek State Park.  Ashley and Family were traveling from Newnan, so at about 9:15 they called to tell me that they'd run into traffic and would be a few minutes late.  No biggie. We (Mom, Quinn, Henry & I) left the house in time to meet them at the park at 10:30.  We're about 20 minutes away from the park and we run into signs telling us there is a detour, and lots and lots of cars and people.  We figure out that they are directing traffic for something big, a festival or something.  After talking to a couple of people, we find out that there is a Cotton Gin Festival taking place that day, in Bostwick.  We try to go around everything, but somehow we end up in the heart of Bostwick and in the middle of all the chaos.  A very sweet police woman tells us that there is a parade about to start (in 45 minutes) and that there is NO WAY for us to get through to the road that we need to access the park.  Crap.  Now what?!!  Well, we ask Ashley if they will meet us in Madison, the next closest town to find a new location...  Our new location was downtown Madison, which is just adorable, BUT full of traffic that Gabriel thought was essential that he see and try to run into.  I could only take so much of the scary traffic dives and we went to a park.  Where there is swings and slides and all things fun, but they were in THE SUN!  Will we ever get a break?  We did.  After a snack and a run with the dogs (the most well behaved dogs ever) we set up a few family shots :-)

Aren't these two cute?  I'd have liked to do more with them, but Gabriel was out of patience :-(

Ashly, Patrick, thanks so much for all of your patience with all of our traffic woes!

Just in case one of you readers don't know, Caroline is my sister.  She is 17. A Photoshop guru, a writer, an artist, a photographer.  She is way too witty to be related to me.  She works for me; you've seen both her photography and her mad photoshop skills on this very blog.  I'm not sure she knows what she wants to do with all her talent (she has heaps of it), but whatever it is that she chooses, I'm sure she'll exceed :-)  

I find it a bit hard to believe that Caroline is 17 and that I'm taking her senior photos.  Of all my siblings, she is the one that I remember the most when she was very young.  She was my very cute live baby doll.  She let me carry her around (even though she was half my size) and she thought I was the bomb (even though I didn't).  She had the prettiest hair every and wouldn't EVER let me touch it.  Never.  And you know, I'm the queen of cool braids, cool curls, cool hair.  But, no, not Caroline.  She didn't let me touch it until I cut it off three years ago.  Where does all the time go?  I'm sure glad Henry is around to keep us all together and in touch with each other.  Did I mention that Henry thinks Caroline hung the moon?  She can do no wrong.  Everytime Henry spotted me working on her pictures he'd grin and say, 'MA, MA' and try to touch the computer screen.  He knows a pretty picture when he sees one :-)

I lot of shopping went into this photo-shoot.  We took trips to Atlanta and Athens; spent many hours in dressing rooms trying to decide what went together and if it was 'caroline' enough.  We searched high and low for a pair of boots (had to be comfortable) and for anything that would fit (perfectly) her tiny body.  In the end, she wore a few pairs of my too-big shoes and mixed and matched everything we bought with clothes she already had.  We couldn't find a pair of boots that quite had what we were looking for.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before; that it's VERY hard to photograph someone you know and love.  Especially family.  My family never stops moving and I don't think we spend anytime just staring at each other, because I found that, though, Caroline looks gorgeous in most of these images, the ones that are 'caroline' to me, are the ones that she's laughing really hard or doing 'witty' things that I'd never think of doing.

Location One.  Downtown Athens at near The Grit.

Location Two. Bottleworks. This is a very Sarah Rhoads-esque photo.  We are big fans of Sarah Rhoads

Location Three. In front of 8e's on Washington St., downtown.

Location Four. Very cool wall in Bank of America parking lot.

Location Five. In front of Trapeze.  This one is Caroline's favorite.  Notice she's shoeless?  That happens a lot in Caroline's world :-)  A dress and no shoes; that's Caroline.

Location Six. The side wall of Sunshine Cycles.  This is one of those times that Caroline is witty and I am not.  Only she would think of this and say, "hey, take one of me doing this."  

While we were still at Sunshine Cycles, we had a wardrobe change and we took a very long series of the 'many faces of Caroline', but my busy life and holiday schedule prevented me from editing all of the many faces of Caroline and showing them to you.  Maybe one day.  When she's getting married and Henry is in college.  Or maybe she'll want to edit and post the many faces of Caroline and you'll get to see them before 10 years pass...

I couldn't pass this one up, though....

My favorite:

As a side note: We have just a few weeks left before the holidays are upon us.  If you want to order any holiday cards, prints or images, ALL orders must be placed by November 20 to guarantee delivers by December 22, 2009.

Isn't this one cool?  It's taken through the windshield of their jeep :-)

Thanks, Kristen and Drew, for an AWESOME session!  I hope you like your final images as much as I do!