Christoph

Everyone needs a Christoph* in their lives. Reasons why you wish he was your brother:

• If there were national rankings for Rock Band, he would be famous. (I suppose there ARE rankings somewhere, but he's far too cool for that.) That would make you famous by association.


• He could teach you to burp the alphabet.


• You would never find yourself saying, "I wish I knew SOMEONE who had the [fill-in-the-blank-with-any-title] Smashing Pumpkins album."


• You wouldn't need to buy salad dressing if he was coming over, because he's not big on condiments.


• He would wrap all your Christmas presents in Batman wrapping paper and they would all be shaped like your favorite TV series on DVD.


• He knows how to bake cakes, and has a KitchenAid mixer covered in Guitar Hero stickers to prove it.


• He has the jumping skills of a kangaroo. 'Nuff said.

Happy Birthday, Christoph!





* (Is his real name Christoph? Of course not. But we find it much more satisfying to give it a twist, complete with an eastern European accent. We can of course thank Dylan for that.)

An autumn resolution

Ouch. Nine days since my last post? Might be my new worst record.

Well guess what- I'm making a resolution, and it's not even January (yeah, you can do that.) I resolve to blog at least three times a week. Because certain people (coughcough**theBFF**coughcough) have threatened to "un-follow" my blog if I do not live up to their entertainment needs. Now, this threat would be much more intimidating if the aforementioned best friend actually WAS an official follower of my blog, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, my understanding is that a "resolution" isn't quite the same as a promise. And I don't promise to blog three times a week. But I resolve to try. How's THAT for a lame, watered-down commitment to keeping you happy? You're welcome. : )

So let's jump right in with some catch-up, shall we?

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In all seriousness, things are about to pick up here for the holidays. I am super-pumped about my trip to South Carolina next week to photograph several beautiful kiddos and their families.

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I've spent several days drooling over the new iMac. If you're feeling gifty this weekend, feel free to order me one or send me a sizeable Apple giftcard!

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Do any of you watch Community on NBC? HILARIOUS. I don't watch a ton of TV and I never would have started on this new show, but in a move of brilliance they tagged it on after The Office just long enough to get a few of us hooked, and then moved it to it's own timeslot. Which was an even SNEAKIER trick because now I have to watch Parks & Recreation, too, since it comes on between Community and The Office. Suddenly my Thursday nights are toast.

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I looked at my bookshelf the other day and realized how few of the books I had read or how long it had been since I'd read them. I used to be the nerdiest bookworm you could ever imagine (ok, maybe my sister wins that contest) and I realize I totally miss it. So I'm jumping back in head first and tackling the bookshelf, though my new TV schedule throws a kink in my plans. Any suggested books when I'm through?

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And I just realized that in my recent slackness, I never shared from my brother-sister-weekend-o-fun. It was awesome. Dylan and I tried to find a way to make them stay, but they had to go back to work and school. The dog cried for three days after they left and has been a pathetic, mopey mess since. And I had a BLAST running the Baltimore Half-Marathon. A recap is in order. Meet my number-one fan:





Julie, Jon & Dylan were troopers- it rained for the the entire race, but they didn't seem to care. Luckily the rain dried up after we finished so we could walk around the harbor a little.

Because of the parking logistics caused by 20,000 runners, we decided to leave the car at home and just walk to and from the race. A three-mile walk turns out to be pretty exhausting post-race, so we made a pit-stop at Chipotle on the way.

That's all for today! If you need me I'll be holed up in my office working away while I listen to rain hit the skylight. I heart Fridays in my cozy home office!

Don't forget about Christmas photos!

It's October. Leaves are starting to crunch, pumpkins are appearing, and I'm busting out my hooded sweatshirts and fuzzy socks. Fall is awesome.

Things have been kind of slow on the blog (clearly) since arriving in Maryland as I work to get my photography business up and running here. But fear not- I have several Christmas card shoots coming up in the next few weeks and I am super pumped about them, so I'll have lots to share.

If you're thinking of getting new shots of the kids or family for Christmas, contact me now! Slots fill up pretty quickly the closer we get, and I am only one girl with one camera and two computers. I'm available for travel all around the Baltimore/DC area and you can find more details here.

I've also got a few South Carolina slots open (send me an e-mail to find available times):

Greenville - (only one spot left!) Saturday, October 31
Columbia - Monday, November 2 or Tuesday, November 3

I'm sorting through some images from this past weekend with the fam, but in the meantime I leave you with this lovely red boat. Are you getting sick of boat pictures yet? Well I certainly hope not, because I live on the water now and have a never-ending supply of perfectly posed boats just ASKING my camera for a portrait.

Ooops.

So I had a post all ready to go yesterday and totally forgot to publish it. Awesome. Maybe it's because I was SO distracted with excitement about the following things:

• My brother and sister flew in last night. We are going to have a weekend of awesomeness.
• I am running a half-marathon tomorrow- The Baltimore Running Festival is here!! Wish me luck!
  
• Jim and Pam got married last night. Duh.

I'm hoping for beautiful weather both for the run and the weekend-o-fun. So far today looks gorgeous, though a little warmer than I'd like. No pictures to share at this moment, but I am sure some will be forthcoming. Time to go enjoy the day!

Cousin love

So a few weeks ago we moved to Maryland. And a few weeks before that we drove to Maryland to find somewhere to move to. And while we were in Maryland I saw some of my cousins and all their precious children. And I took some pictures, and then we left Maryland to go home to pack up to move to Maryland and somehow in there I filed the pictures away on my hard drive and forgot about them.

They have been found. Three sisters with seven children between them age five and under. What a fun and adorable group of cousins!






















I can never remember what my first cousins' children are called. Are they my second cousins? Are they removed once? Twice? No one knows. So I will just call them insanely cute, and hopefully I'll get to play again soon!

Delish.

If you are going to have dessert, this is the way to do it.



And I've gotta give Dylan credit- he stole my camera and caught these of my cousin's daughter. LOVE them.

More tomorrow... happy Friday!