Christmas Light Photoshoot + Traditions

December 20, 2017 | Allison

MERRY ALMOST CHRISTMAS, GUYS! 😀 I thought this would be a good opportunity for the Christmas Traditions post I asked you guys about recently, as well as some photos from a little photoshoot Megan and I did a while ago. Megan already had the lights out so I thought we might as well take some pictures. 😉 The lighting was a bit difficult, but I think some of the pictures turned out pretty neat! So here’s a sampling.

Megan took all the pictures of me and I took all the ones of her. I believe the random bokeh/light pictures are mine as well.

1 (853x1280) — This is one of my favorites of the ones of me. 🙂

#1. December is practically a season of traditions for us because we have so many. At the beginning of December we start listening to Christmas music (NOT BEFORE, AHEM), and put up the Christmas decorations. Nativity scenes, snowmen candle holders, poinsettia table runners, handmade “stick” people… all sorts of things. I especially love to gently unwrap the ceramic Nativity pieces from their fragile brown paper wrappings and stand them up on top of the desk. I can see them if I look up right now.

#2. We usually get our Christmas tree the first or second weekend in December. We always cut down a live one, and wouldn’t have it any other way. 😉 It’s a great adventure and we usually end up searching the entire tree farm before we find the perfect one. XD But I think the best part is decorating the tree – pulling out each ornament and hearing its story, and sitting back to enjoy the magical end result when we’re done.

#3. Our grandparents take my siblings and cousins and I to their church play every year. It’s quite fun. This year they had more of a Nativity scene thingy with a choir, which was different but beautiful. And the wise men’s costumes were SO funny – the camel was attached to the suit, and had two little wise men legs sticking out the sides so it looked like they were riding the camels… Ah, it’s hard to explain, but trust me, it was super funny. The audience all laughed. XD

#4. Most every year we decorate sugar and gingerbread cookies with our friends. I, of course, love to make mine artistic and take a long time on each one, so I’m not very helpful in getting them all decorated. XD We don’t make that many cookies compared to some people, although we still have plenty of Christmas treats at celebrations and such.

#5. The Sunday evening before Christmas, our church always has a Lessons and Carols service where different men from church take turns reading parts of the Christmas story in between the congregation singing Christmas hymns together. And we have a little party with refreshments afterward. It’s beautiful and I can’t wait to go to it again this year. ♥

#6. On Christmas Eve we have a fancy, delicious dinner by candlelight, and then open our Christmas pajamas for that year. 😉 We all grab some popcorn and hot chocolate and drive around looking at Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music. Sometimes we find a house that has a light show synchronized to music and other times we just drive around neighborhoods and random roads, exploring.

#7. We’ve always had a ton of different family Christmas celebrations with different parts of our family. On Christmas morning we have a delicious special breakfast, and then open presents youngest to oldest, beside the tree. Christmas is obviously not about presents, but I do think it’s a lovely tradition, though it can easily get overdone. It’s so fun to see the expressions and smiles on your family’s faces when they open your presents and see what they picked out for you. 🙂

#8. We always like to drive up the hill to our grandparents’ house on Christmas Day too, after we finish our own Christmas celebration. Our cousins come up the road too and we all have a wondrous time. My grandparents are so, so generous and thoughtful with their gifts and their love, and we have so much fun giving them and each other gifts too. After the floor is covered in wrapping paper, we stop for a scrumptious lunch which always includes crab legs for special. We hardly ever have seafood, plus crab is one of my favorite foods, so ’tis extra delicious. 😛 The rest of the day we try out our new gifts and relax and talk and eat leftovers.

Ahh, Christmas Day is probably my favorite (or pretty close to my favorite) day of the year. 🙂

#9. My mom’s side of the family also has a Christmas get together which begins with a delectable feast of a brunch. Then Grandpa reads the Christmas story from his Bible and we exchange gifts. 🙂 After that we (at least the older kids and adults) play all sorts of games together for pretty much the rest of the day – it’s so much fun!

2 (1280x853) — BAHAHAHA Megan has such random ideas. XD XD XD

#10. We ALSO have two Christmas get-togethers with extended family. For my Great Grandma’s Christmas we, again, exchange gifts and have a delicious meal together. They’re all starting to sound rather similar, huh? But there’s always something different and special about each celebration – I guess that’s why we have so many. 😉 And lastly (well it’s first this year, but last in this post) we have an extended family get-together which in which we surprisingly do not exchange gifts (which is probably a good thing, heh heh O.o). But we DO continue the theme of amazing food with fried oysters and steamed shrimp that everyone gathers ’round and eats hot off the trays until we barely have room for the rest of the meal. I… prefer the shrimp. XD Once you take a look at the inside of a oyster, it’s a little hard not to think about it. 😛 Which do you prefer?

4 (893x1280) — Megan was frustrated with the lighter, I believe. O.o

Phew, so there you are. I don’t think I wrote down all of our Christmas traditions, but most of them anyway. 🙂 Traditions are great in general, but I think there’s something extra special about Christmas traditions, don’t you?

DSC_4176 (853x1280) — I love this one too. ♥

I hope you enjoyed this post, dears, and hopefully it put you in the Christmas mood. 🙂 Which of these pictures was your favorites? The traditions? Which of YOUR Christmas traditions are your favorite?

IT’S ONLY FIVE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS, GUYS. We can do this. *determined look* XD

***Allison***

~Etcetera~

November 21, 2017November 21, 2017 | Allison

Guys, I have SO many extra photos. And that happens pretty much all the time. So I decided to make a new little series: these “Etcetera” posts will have random photography as well as recent life, thoughts… etc. XD (kind of like monthly wrap-ups, but different). I hope you enjoy reading them!

Now, where to begin? I have SO much to cover. Aha, Maggie is a good subject to start with.

Maggie

I was trying to take a picture of Maggie’s eye but she kept MOVING. XD I did get this one good one, though:

I also got some other, less close-up shots of her. I just love all of Maggie’s expressions, hee hee. It looks like she’s saying, “Aww, you shouldn’t have,” don’t you think?

Such a pretty pup. ♥

It looks like she’s praying. 😛

Dad just finished combining (harvesting corn) for the year. WOOHOO! Now maybe we can jump in the grain bins…

Mini Sister’s Photoshoot

Speaking of fields, Megan and I (and Maggie) did a little mini photoshoot in the soybean field while it was golden green and brown. Isn’t the lighting AMAZING?

If you guys like my photography/lifestyle posts, you should totally check out Emmaline Figura’s blogs, Lucillian Photography and Crystal Ice Studio! Her photography is AMAZING – she deserves so many more followers!

I love this picture, but it sure took a while to clone out the soybean that so rudely butted in front of Megan’s chin. XD Humph, I shouldn’t have said that. Now you’re all probably inspecting Megan’s chin…

Megan got a few pictures of me but most of them didn’t turn out or I had a weird expression, heh heh. This is probably the best one. Still have a weird expression. XD

Guess what? My younger brother and I were driving to piano lessons today, and when we got there we found that one of my car’s tires was completely flat. O.o But guess what again? My brother changed it himself, while I was having my lesson! I really want to learn stuff like that – I’m much better at art than mechanics. XD

Sunset Bokeh

The sunset did capture well on my camera, but it did make for some neat silhouettes and bokeh!

Singing hymns is one of my favorite things at our church. The congregation sings beautifully, and it’s glorious when we do an a capella verse. ♥ I like singing for things like that, but not enough to take voice lessons or anything. I usually just hum and whistle at home. 🙂

Do you guys have any special plans for Thanksgiving? We’re having three different celebrations because we have a rather large extended family. 😉 Are you traveling? We aren’t – most of our family lives quite close by. But if you are, here’s a tip: salty snacks like chips really take carsickness away. Well, I mean they help if you eat them. They won’t do much good just sitting there by your seat.

Flowers

Dad and the kids always pick out a hanging flower basket for Mom for Mother’s Day, and it lasted all the way into late fall this year! Isn’t it pretty?

Ugh, I have to write a 15-30 page research paper for school. *Long sigh* At least we’re taking this week off for Thanksgiving!

We also have a rose bush (well more like a rose vine) by our door, and it’s a weird mix of knockout-type roses and “real” roses, as we like to call them. There are usually only a few “real” roses a year and this was one of them. ♥

To find the rose you must first get past the thorns. To find the rainbow you must first walk through the storm. Bad things make the good more beautiful. And always remember, my dear, there is beauty even in brokenness.

GUYS. LOOK AT THIS PHOTO! I just pressed the button and the moth behind just happened to fly in at the right moment. I LOVE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS.

Pretty butterflies + pretty zinnias – my photobombing car = a mildly pretty picture.

The Big Apple

We have one very old apple tree that usually produces nothing but food for worms. XD However, this year it actually grew real apples and they were DELICIOUS! I don’t know what kind they were, but they were stupendous. And I found this one extremely large apple – see? (The one on the right is a more normal-size one.)

It weighed 15 OUNCES. ALMOST A POUND.

Golden Garden

These might be some of my favorite pictures ever! I just love the golden lighting so, so much, especially with the golden tones of the flowers. ♥

Sometimes I feel wise and knowledgeable, and then I wonder if that simply means I still have so much to learn. I guess that happens when you’re a teenager, huh? 😛

(Side note: I rather dislike the word “teenager” for some reason. Don’t exactly know why.)

And would you look at all that bokeh? AHHHHH.

This picture seems relaxing, like you can feel the sun and hear the breeze through the willow branches. 🙂 I can sort of remember planting this willow tree, even though it’s quite a good sized tree now – it’s a curly willow so it grew SUPER fast.

This isn’t really a garden, but it’s golden. Even dust is beautiful when the sun shines through it.

I think cameras can make anything beautiful. In fact, here’s a challenge: find three things you think are ugly and try to take a beautiful picture of them.

Etcetera

We also have two black and two English walnut trees in our yard. I strongly dislike the bitter taste of black walnuts, but English walnuts taste great! (They’re the kind you get in stores.) We don’t usually shell these though, because it’s a lot of work for not much result. Have you tried black walnuts?

This is rather random, but I wanted to take a picture of a begonia blossom from my grandmother’s hanging flower pot because I noticed the beautiful, intricate curlicues in the center of the blossoms. I love the little things like this. 🙂

I got a picture of my youngest brother pressure-washing one of the wagons. 🙂 His birthday was today, actually! The frame was supposed to be transparent but it’s showing up black here…? I hope it works once I publish the post, but I’m doubtful.

I like the way shadows look on this barn. 🙂

And now we have come to the end of this post. Wow, Allison, what a moving conclusion. *clap, clap*

ANYWAY, I hope you enjoyed reading this gathering of orphaned thoughts and photos. 😛 I know it was an enormous post, but I’m only half-sorry because phew, I now have a large chunk of my random photos squared away. XD I don’t think Etcetera posts will usually be this long, though, if I do them in the future. Which category/picture/random thingy was your favorite? Do you think Etcetera posts would make a good series or are they too random and scattered (because I would kind of agree with you on that XD)?

Have a wonderful day, dears, and thanks so much for reading. ♥

***Allison***

GIVEAWAY WINNER! + Random Photos

November 1, 2017November 3, 2017 | Allison

ARE YOU READY TO SEE WHO WON? Don’t worry, I won’t keep you in suspense for TOO long.

And the winner is…

Continue reading →

Golden Hour Sisters Photoshoot

October 25, 2017October 25, 2017 | Allison

I’m SO excited to show you this photoshoot, guys! (Hmm, I seem to start all my posts this way, don’t I?) Anyway, Megan and I love doing impromptu photoshoots and we recently did two photoshoots at the golden hour. I have to say, they turned out GORGEOUS! I think these are my favorite of the sisters photoshoots so far!

Megan took all the pictures of me and I took all the pictures of her (well, obviously). Sometimes the “model” chose her own poses and sometimes the photographer did. All pictures in this post were edited by me, if they were edited at all.

I hope you guys have as much fun looking through these pictures as we did taking them!

We still have a beautiful tangled jungle of marigolds and zinnias which is perfect for photoshoots. Don’t you think?

I love the next one! Aren’t the marigolds gigantic?

Heh heh, I like this one too. XD

I told Megan to hold the marigold so it looks like she’s blowing a bubble, and then she PUT IT IN HER MOUTH. *Sigh* She said it tasted bad, but I didn’t feel real sorry for her. XD

I LOVE THIS PICTURE. IT’S SO FUNNY.

HA HA IS THIS NOT HILARIOUS? Megan thought of this – don’t blame me.

It looks like she’s yanking the flower out by the roots. O.o

Okay so Megan’s expression is just a tad odd, BUT THE LIGHTING. Ohhhh my goodness, I love it so much!

I loooove this next one! Doesn’t it look kind of Pinterest-y? (And maybe even aesthetic? Maybe?)

Oh look, I’m Ophelia. I actually love these photos though! I came up with the idea (although I’ve seen it before), and Megan arranged the flowers and took the pictures.

Here we have a classic, somewhat cliché picture. But it’s still pretty. 🙂

Wow my hair looks super long here. O.o

It was quite hard to get good, clear pictures of someone swinging, but I finally figured out that manual focus really helps for this because you can preset it.