Friday, August 31, 2007

Reminisce Heirlooms

My sweet and incredibly talented friend Tabetha created this beautiful piece for Wesley's mom's birthday gift. She also wrote a very sweet little blog post--I have been wanting to blog it on here since she posted it, but we had not yet given the gift to Martha. Now the gift has been given, so I am free to post. Click here to see what Tabetha said on her blog.


We are in Cleveland for the long weekend and I am SO excited about taking pictures of my beautiful, perfect, precious, adorable little niece. Until tonight I had only seen her for a total of 15 minutes. That's pretty heartbreaking for me, so you can imagine how excited I was to see her tonight (I RAN to my car after school today!). Martha has made a beautiful heirloom dress for Maggie, and we have big plans for pictures tomorrow so stay tuned!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Lollipop Shop

This post is LONG overdue, but things have been incredibly crazy with school starting and many other things. The second week we were in Johnson City my dear friend Anna came to visit. Anna is my best teaching buddy and she was my next door neighbor at Northfield. We joked about asking our principal to cut a "drive thru" window in the wall for us. An interesting fact about Miss Anna is that she went to ETSU and worked in Johnson City for a bit. So, when Wesley started this "I want to be a pharmacist" idea, she showed us around Johnson City and took me to different schools on our fall break (last October). Another interesting fact is that Anna is good friends with Candice (her real name is Candy.......ha! :) )--who owns The Lollipop Shop in Jonesborough with her husband Jeff. That whole explanation was to tell you that the second week we were here Anna was too---and one day we went to hang out with Candice and these sweet Thompson boys at The Lollipop Shop. What a blast!!! They have a WHOLE wall display of M&MS!!!!!!!! I am addicted to plain M&Ms so this was quite a treat for me! We took a picture of me with the M&M wall but I was so excited that I looked a little scary, so I will spare you.....
If you are ever in the Jonesborough area, please check out The Lollipop Shop. It's on the main street in Jonesborough---Jonesborough is a great place to visit. Very historical (it's the oldest town in Tennessee) and quaint. I have been dying to just go take pictures downtown, but I haven't had a free day to do that yet.......
Anyway, enjoy some pictures from our day and this GREAT slideshow. GREAT because you've GOT to hear the song!!!!!! :) Enjoy!
PS The Lollipop Shop has franchises available, be sure and check it out!

Friday, August 17, 2007

Mr. & Mrs. Jeremy Ritchie


Andrea and I were friends in high school--we shared many hours of French class together (including very early 7 am class hours). I was so glad to connect again with her on the lovely Facebook. Now, anyone who knows Andrea knows that she is a very intelligent, sensible, level-headed girl. She is certainly not someone who rushes to make decisions, especially important ones such as who she will marry. You can imagine how surprised we all were to find out that in one week she and Jeremy had met, went on their first date, gotten engaged and set a wedding date! Yes, you heard me right--all of that happened in ONE WEEK! I was in shock but I was definitely excited for Andrea. I was even more excited when she said she needed a photographer and asked me if I was interested. I had been looking for the perfect "starter wedding" for awhile.
I was so nervous the day of the wedding that I thought to myself, "I will NEVER do this again. Why the in the world did I say I could do this?!" The wedding was the day after our Open House at school, so Wesley and I drove back to Murfreesboro from Johnson City and arrived late Friday night. Our dear friend Brittany came from Cleveland to help me shoot the wedding. She was amazing and did a great job of helping with the whole photography thing and keeping me calm! By the time we were half-way thru the day I told Brittany, "This is so much fun!" and by the end of the day, "I will definitely do a wedding again if I get the chance." Andrea and Jeremy were so wonderful to work with--she was the most relaxed bride I have ever seen. I took entirely too many pictures (if too many pictures is a possibility) and it has been difficult getting them edited since I have also been trying to learn how to teach 1st grade, but I am finally done!
Jeremy & Andrea, thank you SO much for allowing Brittany and I to capture your day. We hope that your pictures are all that you hoped they would be and more. Best wishes for a long and happy marriage.
Enjoy your slideshow!
Instead of the traditional guestbook, Andrea had her friends Amy & Linda (old high school friends of mine too) take pictures of the guests as they arrived. There were also cards available for guests to write a note to Jeremy and Andrea and put in their wedding mailbox.


Andrea's friend Sacha was her matron of honor and all 5 of these beautiful children are hers! They were the most well-behaved children I have ever been around. There was never one complaint out of them and they did all that we asked of them! Poor little Lolli didn't like the idea of walking down the aisle in front of so many people, but she sat so nicely on the front pew (and threw all of her rose petals on the ground!).


Jeremy had some spiffy "Kiss the Bride" breath spray for before the ceremony.



My FAVORITE part of the wedding-the kids sang "God is So Good." It was absolutely precious and they did an awesome job.


I loved the looks on Jeremy and Andrea's faces as the kids sang.


Husband & Wife!




Brittany and I caught each other in action!


I was so glad Brittany was there, but now I wish we had taken this picture earlier in the day instead of at the very end. But, you can see by our tiredness how hard we worked! Thanks to Andrea's brother for taking this picture of us!
Thanks again, Andrea! I hope you enjoy your pictures!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Maggie Slideshow


I have just purchased this fabulous slideshow maker, so be prepared for entirely too many slideshows for one blog for awhile. The first show I made is of my sweet and precious niece Maggie. Enjoy!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

It is coming.....


Andrea & Jeremy, your pictures are on the way.........I am working diligently and hope to have them up very soon. And I promise they aren't all black & white! I picked these out of the ones I had edited and just realized they were all black & white......oh well. Enjoy this mini-sneak peek! And thank you for letting Brittany & I capture your day.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

The Skeltons

A couple of weeks ago when we were in Cleveland, we went to Patrick (Wesley's cousin) & Leighann's to take family pictures for them. They have a beautiful yard area with cool rocks-it's where we did the band's (River Audio) pictures a few months ago.
Karley & Brody are precious & were great for pictures. We had awesome help from Mark (Wesley's brother, Maggie's daddy!)--he stood behind me and did all kinds of things to make the kids smile. He was the best assistant I have ever had. Although, after my bragging on him, he now thinks he's on the payroll......Anyhow, here are some of the pictures of the Skelton Family--including both sets of grandparents. I picked way too many to put on here, so I am inserting a little slideshow. Enjoy!



I LOVE this picture of Karley, but I couldn't decide between color or black and white......