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My son turned six last month and I had tons of fun planning a camping themed party for him!  If you follow me on Pinterest, you probably already know that I’m a bit obsessed with party planning.  I was really excited with how this party came together… Lots of work but it paid off when my little Gavin told me that his party ROCKED! 

I ordered the invitations and all the tags from BrightSide Prints and was so pleased with how everything turned out.  Jill did an amazing job designing everything!   

I forgot to take a detail shot of the ”Camp Gavin” banner, but the middle flag says “established 2006″… thought that was so clever and cute!

I made the cake with homemade chocolate mousse (try this recipe!!!) and saved some marshmallow ghosts from Halloween for the party.  I was definitely planning ahead!  The acorn idea was a Pinterest find and they were super easy and REALLY yummy!

The s’mores bar recipe was the BEST bar recipe I have ever eaten (if you’re a fan of s’mores… which I am!  Try it!).  Recipe found HERE.

The camp cookies were purchased on ETSY here.  I’m not usually a fan of sugar cookies, but these were seriously delicious!

The fort kits were the take home gift… They ended up being quite a bit of work, but after hearing from party guests about how much they have enjoyed them, I decided that it was worth it!

Each kit included a sheet with grommets on the corners (my awesome hubby did all the work on those!), rope in different lengths, clothespins, clamps, suction cups, and a flashlight.

I love how this girl one turned out!

The day of the party turned out to be bright and sunny but very, VERY windy.  That combo caused all the chocolate to melt and everything to blow all over the place, so I ultimately had to bring everything inside… try to ignore the cluttter in the background!  I like how the mason jar drink cups turned out and the paper on them doubled as a place to write their names and keep track of which drink was for each child!

I also bought some plain muslin bags online and then stamped on each of them… aren’t the little tags cute?  (also from Brightside Prints.)  The Trail Mix Bar turned out to be a huge hit with all the kids!

For the craft project, the kids decorated pet rocks. 

The big finale was the marshmallow shooters (my hubby also made and spray painted all ten of these!  He was so helpful with the party planning and ran the party while I was running around like crazy taking pictures!).  The kids had a little marshmallow war in the backyard.  SO fun!!!

Whew!  Aaaaaaand now to plan the next party!  Hahaha!

One of my new year’s resolutions for 2012 is to do a photo shoot of one or all of my children each month.  It’s my solution to the whole “the cobbler’s children have no shoes” theory (which I am totally guilty of!!).  I thought it would be fun to choose a theme each month to make it a bit more interesting, so January’s theme was “glitter”.  I took my oldest daughter, Kate, out for a super quick photo shoot… it was seriously about 15 minutes and we just walked down the street to the park, but I totally love the pictures we were able to capture!  And she had lots of fun playing with the glitter.  Check out my favorites…

This one is going up on the wall, for sure!  LOVE!

I’ve wanted to do a photo shoot at the Point Pinos lighthouse for quite some time.  So when my sister and her cute family came out to Monterey for Thanksgiving (with a request for some family pictures!) I suggested we try out the new location.  It was just as beautiful as I thought it would be!  The weather was a little crazy that week… it had been quite rainy, so on Thanksgiving morning, when it was cloudy with no rain in the morning forecast, we headed up to the lighthouse.  I rarely do photo shoots in the morning, but we were worried we wouldn’t have good weather for the rest of their visit and we decided to take what we could get.  Of course, it ended up raining about half an hour into the shoot and then was totally gorgeous that evening (figures!!).  What can ya do, right?  We were still able to capture some great pictures!  Here are my faves… 

From the time that we moved back to the Monterey area, I’ve been dying to do a photo shoot at the Santa Cruz boardwalk.  So I was delighted when my good friends, Nate & Becky, came out to visit this week and told me they were hoping to have their family pictures taken in Santa Cruz.  Wahoo!  It turned out to be such a fun, colorful location!!  I can hardly wait to do another session there in the future.  And I would LOVE to have our own family pictures done there!!  Any photogs interested in trading next year? 

I was so excited when my friend, Folsom children’s photographer Sandy Runner, asked me if I was interested in trading family pictures this year.  I’m a huge fan of her work, so I happily said yes!  Luckily, the timing worked out and we were able to travel over to Sacramento this past week for the trade.  Her family is so sweet and we had a fun time together.  Sandy is awesome at finding fun, unique locations, so when she suggested this field and barn, I could hardly wait to see it in person.  Of course, it was absolutely perfect and the weather could not have been better (I’ve already gotten used to the cool weather here in Monterey, so I was dreading possible HOT weather in Sacramento… thankfully it was in the low 80s).  Here are some favorites from the session… Sandy, thanks again for trading with me!  You know I completely LOVE all the pictures you took of our family and I hope you enjoy these, too!!  (Oh, and if you’d like to see some of the pictures Sandy took of my family, go HERE!)

Remember this adorable newborn from last year?  I can hardly believe he is already ONE!  I was so excited that his family traveled all the way out to Monterey for a session!  We headed down to my favorite spot in Carmel and had a great time.  Here’s just a little sneak peek for now… 

I had such a great time taking Olivia’s first birthday pictures last year, so I was thrilled when her mom contacted me to take pictures for her upcoming second birthday!  Olivia is such a cutie pie, and we had tons of fun exploring Old Sacramento together.  Here are a few favorites from her session…

Last fall, I donated a session to the silent auction at our local elementary school.  I was so excited when K. contacted me to schedule the session that they won.  Her family is just the CUTEST ever!  When we arrived at the location, I almost panicked because the lovely field of tall grass that we were planning to use had been mowed, but luckily I was able to scout out a couple of new spots to use instead, and the session went great.  SO many favorites… I even added one of the pictures to the splash page of my website, since I loved it so much.  Thank, H. family, for a lovely evening!

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