Company Picnic

Last weekend was my first company picnic at my boss's "farm." In Alabama people own land in the country and refer to them as "farms" although there is no livestock or cornfields anywhere around. And boyee! is Dr.'s "farm" amazingly beautiful!

Lots of food, fun, some hiking, some beer, some paddle boating, fishing, and laughs. Can I just say that I love the people I work with?

I need your help, everyone!

As you all know, I prefer to be behind the camera, which is annoying to some of my photographer friends. Chap snapped this photo of me while showing me how to use some of his high-tech equipment. And um, how amazing do I look here? I'm blown away by how he can capture my beauty, especially at 8:30 on a Thursday night, hair a-shambles, after a super long week at work. There is no one else I'd rather take my wedding portraits, and although Chap has agreed to drive around and take fun pictures of me in my dress, he flat out refuses to be responsible for our wedding pictures. And I get it, I do. It's a HUGE responsibility that I've recently become familiar with. But I just have so much confidence in his ability, and after this photo, how can I take "no" for an answer?! So this picture is titled: Let's All Bug Chap Until He Agrees To Take Photos at Our Wedding

Motion

Flip picked last week's theme: motion. Good thing I had a great opportunity to get some fun dancing shots during Aimee's bachelorette party last Friday night. Aimee's cousin had a deer in the headlights look when we all started cutting up. Aimee pulled her aside and said, "Our wedding will be 16 times crazier than this."

Theme from the Bottom

Sometimes it's hard to find energy to be creative when working a Monday-Friday 8-5 job. Seriously, when I get home, all I want to do is drink a beer. And weekends are so busy with one thing or the other, running errands, catching up on housework, oh, and having fun, that I'll realize I haven't taken one photo I'm proud of in an entire week! I know I'm not the only one who sometimes suffers from artist's block, it's just upsetting for me because I spent an entire year being creative. Taking photographs, making jewelry, decorating my home, so I've been actively seeking ways to keep the artistic juices flowing.

So my photographer friend Phillip and I have decided to take turns each week picking a different theme for our photographs, to give us some focus, and hopefully some inspiration. We've created a group on flickr called "Themes from the Bottom," after a song by both of our all-time favorite bands. Can you guess? Ha! So anyway, if you haven't listened to Phish's "Billy Breathes" album go out and do so immediately.

Ironically enough, I chose the first week's theme to be "From the Bottom" to encourage myself to explore different angles.

In this photo I am literally laying on the ground, looking up "from the bottom."
Ground level:
And I even took the theme with me to the wedding this past weekend:
If any of you bloggers want to participate, let me know :)

Sigh....

I know I shouldn't post any pictures of the wedding and let Maureen do it when I've gotten everything edited and shipped to her. But I couldn't help myself. This is just one photo of the beautiful bride. She was amazing. And so much fun! What a wonderful day! So here's just one, and I promise to let Maureen post the rest when she has them :)
Look at all these bloggers! Emily Doxtad is in the photo because she PROMSIED to start a blog, and Emily Schweitzberger is in the photo because she promised to UPDATE her blog TODAY (and we're going to hold her to that!) Kelsey was also at the wedding but was taking care of the cutest little baby Nora during the photo. So here we are, and many thanks to Chad for snapping this photo with my super heavy camera. I actually like that his drink made it into the picture. Ha!
I just had to get a photo of Julie's baby bump because no one on the blogosphere has had a sufficient Johnson baby boy bump fix. Please don't shoot me for posting this, Juli! I can email you the original file for Baby Brudder's baby album.

Carlson Kiddos

I am so honored that Elizabeth asked me to take photos of her family while I'm in town this weekend. I couldn't wait to get my lens in front of her cute children, and Elizabeth was so great about bringing some fun props to keep the kids engaged. Miss Ava Belle stole the spotlight (as I was suspecting she would), she's just SO photogenic! I told Liz I would post one or two of my favorites to my blog because I know she's anxious to see them, but I seriously couldn't narrow it down to just a few, so here are several of my favorites from this morning's shoot. You can find more on my flickr site, but I'm in no way done editing yet, just fell in love with so many of these shots!

More pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/libbadibbado/sets/72157622598794916/ (copy and paste, please!)

HOLY GUACAMOLE!

So last week we have Piper vs. Furniture and this week we have Taylor vs. Avocadoes.

So at first, everyone at the table attempted to share in the appetizer, but Taylor wanted none of that. It wasn't long before she just grabbed the bowl and clutched it to her chest for dear life. And who needs chips anyway? I mean, it's nothing but added carbs! Our little munchkin prefers to just scoop the deliciousness out of the bowl with her hands (oh, and this was not just guacamole, but pico de gallo, as well...raw onion and tomatoes.)


Who wants a high five?

No joke, we did not instruct her to do this. She needed to get to the bottom of that bowl, so she tilted it up and licked it clean.

If only I had a photo of making my daily homemade trail mix snack in the kitchen. I look down and not only are my dogs sitting at attention and pleading with their eyes, but in-between them stands Taylor with the exact same look on her face. So you know what I did? I gave the girl a goldfish. Obviously the scrambled eggs and fruit weren't substantial enough for her first meal of the day: