Profesh photos- Adliv Collective.

my little momma heart is gushing over our profesh pics from the incredibly talented Tabitha James over at Adliv Collective.  We signed up for one of her Labor Day mini-sessions and spent the morning running around the house like a maniac to get everyone ready for our first legit family photos since our Rusty has arrived.  (One of my 'secrets' is to not put on anyone's shirts until we are walking out the door!).  And then we finally arrived with one kid with a bellyache (Gem), one overly tired and cranky kid (Rust), a hungry kid (Grey), and a pretending-to-be-shy Violet.

Tab was awesome though and had everyone cooperating in no time.  And honestly, the proof is in the pudding when she magically managed to pull off these beautiful pictures of my favorite humans when getting all six of us to even look in the same direction at any given time is a miracle in and of itself.  

I got the email from Adliv giving me access to the photos while Brandon and I were lying in bed (was it late at night or early in the morning?  I seriously cannot remember but,) we snuggled up and scrolled through the pictures of these kids' faces that we love so much, whispering as they all slept, "look how beautiful," and "omigosh, that face!"  Totally relishing in the fact that we had made those people with the little darling faces we love and the personalities that both fill us with pride and frustration at any given moment (sometimes simultaneously). 

We looked at our photo together and smiled because how long has it been since just the two of us were in a photo together?  How many years of history and life and fights and making up and laughing and early mornings and late nights and cleaning up throw ups of the kid and the dog variety, and how many memories float in the background of a picture of just the two of us.  All seventeen years of us are layered within that image; invisible to everyone but us.  And who are those people even in that photo - they are so much older than "high school Brandon and Tab?"  Not like old-old, but distinctly oldER..  It's funny how we can still feel like "high school Brandon and Tab" inside of our guts, but then we look like real life adults; we look like someone's parents....four someone's parents. Time is such a odd thing.  

I'm so excited to get these beauties printed and hanging on the wall.  This is our team, in just this time, our little crew in this one beautiful, messy, chaotic season of our life.  Thank you so much Tab!

Family Bedroom Lifestyle Photo Shoot

We had a wonderful experience getting family photos professionally taken with K. Rager Photography & Co a few weeks ago.  I was so overwhelmed and touched when Kerri reached out to me to let me know that we had been selected as her Pay It Forward Photo Shoot winner- She had asked for nominations for families that give back to the community and we were nominated and selected for a free session and copy of photos with her!  (To the person that nominated us:  thank you so much, you anonymous amazing person.  I am so grateful!)

As Kerri and I were discussing our photo shoot thoughts, I pressed send on a text to her that said, "what about a family friendly bedroom photo shoot?" and then looked at my sisters who were with me at the time blankly and panicked, "Oh crap, I think I just made it really weird."  Luckily for me, Kerri totally got me and we swapped photo inspiration back and forth and I counted down the days until our shoot!

I booked a hotel room for the photo shoot because let's be honest, our bed frame has been busted for over a year and the dogs, and the dog hair, and just no.  too much mess to clean up and just no.  So we booked a room and made a whole little family fun night out of it (ordering pizzas and watching tv until we fell asleep).

The photo shoot was so fun and casual - we basically just hung out and acted goofy and played while our awesome photographers do what they do best and captured so many great moments that feel like us.

What I love so much about our photos is that there was such a great mix among the photos.  We got beautiful snapshots of the kids that will look gorgeous on our walls.  And a generous helping of photos of all of us in our completely normal silliness.  This is our family, in all of our goofiness.

I am incredibly grateful that we had the chance to work with K. Rager Photography & Co (our first but definitely not last time!).  She did such an amazing job shooting, editing, and delivering our photos.  Team Studer would highly recommend.  Thank you, Kerri! 

 

Punta Cana, DR vacation 2012

It is currently freezing rain outside - but I'm going to bask in the sweet Dominican sun for a few minutes while I take you back to our family vacation in October.

To state the nitty gritty details - we book our DR (Dominican Republic) vacations -we've been a few times now, most recently when Greyson was 6months old- through Apple Vacations and they always do an excellent job.  We book all-inclusive trips through Apple (airfare, hotel, in-country transportation, all you can drink and eat) and they take care of everything.  This year we stayed at Iberostar Dominicana and we had a great experience with booking, transportation, hotel accommodations, and service - as usual.

We always enjoy ourselves when we visit Punta Cana and we were anticipating how much more fun it would be this year now that Grey was old enough to play and run around and that Gem was able to crawl and dance.  Brandon and I were both ready for a solid week of no cellphones and breathing in salt air.  I will tell ya now, our vacation didn't disappoint.

We got did as much prep as possible for our vacation leading up to our fly date.  And then we spent the next 7 days...

Enjoying the hotel pools:

And blissfully running and playing in the sand and ocean:

And enjoying the resort and all it has to offer -

like Kids' Club activities and a show every night

he is his mother's son

and beach/pool aerobics

super fun beach dance parties

great options for dining (and drinking)

and the music.  we love the constant music

We were also lucky to celebrate two very big, important holidays while on vacation:  Brandon's birthday (28) and our wedding anniversary (4)

We also took advantage of the on-site professional photographers (our anniversary present to each other) and snagged some awesome family photos.

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

We kept it loose and relaxed this vacation.  We didn't care if all we did all day was nothing.  Not a thing.  We kept our kids non-sunburned by hanging out in the shade and making them wear sun protection (their sun bandannas are:  Sun Smarties Boy's Swim Hat)

photo credit:  Amy from WBA

and when the kids needed to sleep - we let them sleep (because if we have learned anything in 2.5 years...its a happy baby is a well-rested baby)

We even went so far as keeping Greyson contained in our hotel room for almost a whole day after he had ran himself silly-tired for the first three days of vacation.  He was visibly exhausted and was so tired that he was having trouble sleeping (hah, go figure).  So I hung out in the room all day with him napping and watching movies on the iPad while Brandon delivered us lunch and snacks.

But the real secret to why we enjoy our vacations so much (as do our kids) is that we travel with built-in support; vacationing babysitters...and the best kind - the ones that don't mind whisking your kids to build sandcastles and happy to fetch 64 buckets of ocean water.  We are lucky to travel with family.

Which means, many times - we are hands free, relaxed, and watching our babies smile and laugh.  And that kind of vacation brings renewed breath into our tired, run down souls.  So we are able to take our two children under the age of three to a foreign country and come home rejuvenated.

we are able and free to be a happy family - even on vacation! - because of the people that love and support us. (thank you!!)

photo credit:  Amy from WBA