PhotoJenic Photography [blog]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it is true that on Christmas Eve, the toothfairy rides along with Santa for all of her visits as well =) So Christmas came and what a CRAZY & FUN few days it was…not to mention BUSY and TIRING! We spent Christmas Eve at my sisters sharing a wonderful turkey, ham and all the fixings meal and playing games, reading stories about the Savior and His birth and of course the “christmas eve one present opening” jammie tradition so many share! But this year was a little different, Brennan had his FIRST very, very LOOSE tooth! This is new ground for us and guess what I learned? I learned I am in this ALONE! My very strong, very handy husband is apparently VERY SQUEAMISH about teeth! Surprising as he does fine with cuts and bruises, diapers don’t bother him ONE bit and he’s been a GREAT coach in the birth of our two boys, but who would’ve known that teeth can make this man want to vomit in one second flat? So, Brennan was anxious for this loose tooth to be freed so he could eat easier and Reuben was begging me to “not ruin his dinner” by pulling the tooth when we had such a nice meal to eat, and no I wasn’t making him be a part of it at ALL! He was just on the sidelines, in the room as we dealt with the drama! Here are a few pics of Brennan trying SO hard to be BRAVE despite it hurting him so bad!
Brennan insisted his Aunt Jessica do the duty, which I of course didn’t argue, apparently she has pulled two of my niece Hannah’s teeth so he felt she’d do the best job at it! And for the record… we did not FORCE him into this and we did give him breaks a few times…I guess you really do have to EARN that money you get from the toothfairy! We let him eat dinner and told him to just move it on his own and sure enough a couple of hours later, he came running in to me, toothless and so excited it was out! He had pulled his own first tooth! The only problem? Where was the tooth? He pulled it at the sink, in front of the mirror so we assumed it was long gone down the drain & Uncle Tim and Papa wouldn’t accept that, the tools were out and the drain was about to come apart…thankfully I did a carpet search and found it before we spent a lot of time trying to disassemble the sink! Here is the cute toothless boy now!
Now onto Christmas morning! We got to slip into bed in the wee hours of 4am after being housecleaners, present wrappers, Santa and toothfairy, and it wasn’t 5 minutes of us in bed that our 2yr old came running in, sick with a fever and really worked up over a dream! After about 10minutes of him literally “seeing” and grabbing for bugs and animals he insisted were in our room (hallucinations w/fevers? this was a new one for me), we finally settled for a few hours of broken up sleep with a sick, restless toddler! The morning was great despite the lack of sleep! Here’s Brennan proudly sporting his money that after reviewing the photos again CLEARLY wasn’t enough!
And the cute brothers waiting for Daddy to get moving so we would let them see what Santa brought…
And yes honey…this photo and their first expressions IS WORTH blocking off all the laid out gifts the night before so I can catch it on camera!! So get used to the idea, we WILL keep this tradition! No, I am NOT bitter that I was left to do this part alone as he quickly told me the tradition of them seeing gifts AFTER we are ready w/cameras was no longer and went to bed…granted it was 4am!!
A few other cute expressions…all they wanted was skateboards…I didn’t argue too much, did you know they are only like $10-$15, wow Santa got to be cheap!


Here’s a shot of the tree with only a PART of the gifts we opened with ALL of my family, they all brought their presents over and we took a couple of hours doing the gifts…it is pure CHAOS, but of course fun!
My gingerbread house couldn’t go unnoticed after the hours I spent working on it! I know it looks like I spent 5 minutes…I could never do those contests!

And to end on a sweet note…here’s my nephew Aidan, about 2 months old now and looking cute as ever! I hope everyone had a great Christmas as well, I am so thankful to have family and friends so close that I could be with them on these special holidays!

I couldn’t pass when I came across this CUTE image of my niece from 2 years ago at Christmas time! She looks so cute! So, Merry Christmas Eve. Like every year I am spending mine racing around trying to finish up the last minute shopping that I haven’t had time to do…and I am sure I’ll be wrapping til all hours of the night too =) I have SOOOOOOOO MUCH to add with plenty of recent shoots, I just haven’t had time to get images edited and online, so more to come in the coming week or two!
The last image is with Dawson and Sariah, both about 8 months old…aren’t they cute?

WOW! I can hardly believe it’s been another week! Sorry for the lack of posting, I have definitely been in cruch mode trying to get loose ends finished up for clients! Meanwhile, the world around me seems to be celebrating this holiday I hear is happening and I was wondering if I might find some time myself to get my shopping going! If it weren’t for Black Friday I wouldn’t have much of anything yet! My husband and I are NOTORIOUS for shopping on Christmas eve and the few days before it…not that we plan it that way, it’s just I don’t have time until everything for clients is complete which is usually a few days before Christmas! Thankfully I am finally getting to the point tonight that I think I can take a couple of days to focus on my favorite holiday…even if I do feel like I got robbed of it AGAIN! I swear every year it seems like it will be better, but every year it’s the same or WORSE! I am thankful for all the card orders, the canvas orders and the patience of everyone as I struggled through this season with 2 little ones, a baby on the way and way too much to keep up on! I think I am more thankful for my husband and next door neighbor “on call” sitters that supported me through all the long days and late nights! Now let’s get to the fun! Let me post a few images of the last week…then a few more client items I’ve been behind on! Here is a visit Dawson and I made to Brennan’s school for a very special visitor! Dawson was especially excited to be in Brennan’s class and it was cute to see ALL the boys in the class SWARM him, I didn’t think 5yr old boys cared about little brothers!! Brennan was especially proud to have his brother in his classroom!
Ok, I guess it’s safe to say who the special visitor was since little kids don’t read this…but…just in case…here’s your warning! Dawson got to see Santa A.K.A. Papa in the lobby of the school here’s the shot of him seeing him…He LOOKED HIM UP…. AND HE LOOKED HIM DOWN… and as long as Santa didn’t try to hold him, he was content to be right by him, unlike Brennan at his age who couldn’t be convinced no matter what! Here’s a shot of Brennan’s face surprised to see Santa, none of the kindergarteners knew Santa would be coming!
We are blessed that “papa” has been a great Santa for many many years, and even more blessed that our children grow up and don’t quite figure it out until they need to! Funny thing is, they don’t put things together like…”why did Santa just show up at our house conveniently when we were decorating the tree” or the fact that Santa sounds JUST LIKE Papa…he has a very distinct voice, but they overlook that as well, then there’s the whole not figuring out why when Santa showed up at Brennan’s school Grammy just happened to be there with too and Dawson and I…but thankfully they don’t piece that together yet! Here’s the boys getting their moment with Santa, as you can see Dawson was more into the candy and Brennan was a bit nervous being that close to Santa’s face… And last but not least…today I was able to go to Brennan’s school to help with their gingerbread houses, here’s a few shots of that. I’ve learned the big camera is a bit distracting and bulky to bring along so I have to settle for the red eye and poor image quality…having a camera that fits in my pocket however, is very NICE! This is Brennan’s cute friend Jacob, they’ve had a few play dates and just love to hang out and be boys!

I am still working on posting recent photo sessions! Before my cousin’s left town a couple of weeks ago, I was able to take some images of the kids here at home…These are some of my favorite shots! This is Bryson, my little Brennan loved to have Bryson here to play with!
Here’s Caitlyn, she’s super sweet!!

And then Kaleb, he can ham it up for the camera so good, this day he was quite distracted so I didn’t get as many of the genuine smiles!
This is Camren, he is a TRUE ham! He reminds me of Brennan at his age, you don’t have to work too hard to get a good smile from this little guy!

Abby was the only one we didn’t get a recent photo of cuz she was napping. Here’s a couple cute shots of her from our recent vacation to Utah.

I LOVE this shot of her looking out the window at Grandma’s house!

How could a little red ball teach such a grand lesson? Well, this is the little ball Brennan picked up when we recently visited a store. I allowed him to play with it as I shopped so it would keep him occupied. Right before leaving, I asked him to put it down so we could go. Not surprisingly for him lately…he didn’t listen & didn’t put it down! I of course didn’t realize this and we went on our way home. Later that night out came the red ball, being thrown around at home. I looked at him and said, “where did you get that?” he looked at me with guilt and said, “at the store.” He was promptly sent to his room until Daddy got home and we could all talk about it. My husband and I were taken back by this as he is really quite an honest child, we wondered if he really understood what he did. So, we talked, I asked him if he was told to put it down before we left and he recalled he was. We discussed the magnitude of this event for awhile, never seeming to really phase Brennan as he didn’t seem as remorseful as we’d hoped! We discussed the 10 Commandments and how Jesus would be very unhappy (to which he was more worried how Santa would feel about it)! We taught him about repentence and told him he would have to take it back to the manager and hope that he or she was nice and would not be angry. At this point, he STILL seemed unphased but was willing to face the consequences! It was then that my husband mentioned that it was AGAINST the LAW to steal and that he could in fact GO TO JAIL! I was surprised, but happy to see Brennan finally GETTING IT!!!! Ah ha…lightbulb moment, THIS IS A BIG DEAL! It was just what we were looking for that he understood how important it was to not steal! So, the tears finally came and my generally very gentle husband kept on it telling Brennan he should really be worried about where he might sleep that night! So, we ate dinner and drove the whole family back to the store despite it being the kids bedtime. Brennan didn’t seem too nervous so Reuben again mentioned that he should be concerned for what the weekend had in store for him. So we asked for the manager and this younger lady came out and walked up to us, I motioned that my child had something to tell her, she was confused and obviously didn’t pick up on what we were doing. He handed her the ball and said, “I took this today and I am sorry and I won’t do it again” he was at least nervous and slightly emotional by now…the woman happily responded “oh sweetie, it’s ok, thank you so much!!” I looked to my husband with HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT…clearly this woman didn’t get that we were trying to TEACH him a lesson here, while we didn’t need her to freak him out, a simple stern response or reiteration of the law and importance of NOT STEALING from her store would have been GREAT! So, that was that. Brennan has to earn money to pay us for stealing a ball and we HOPE that he has learned a lesson from his experience despite getting off TOO EASY from the store!

This is baby Gage, my other newest nephew! He is the son of my stepsister who lives in Colorado! I don’t get to see her often and had fun visiting with her and this little one a few weeks ago! We took a few minutes to take some shots of Gage…he was really tired though, so not the normal smiles he usually gives.

Check out these cute little feet!

Stephanie is such a good mom to Gage, she’s so patient when he’s fussy, it’s great to see her finally have the baby she has wanted!!

I just love this shot and his tired eyes looking up at me!!

Since I see SO MANY first dances, I couldn’t resist posting this funny one sent to me by a friend! Hopefully you have speakers to hear the music with it! CLICK HERE TO VIEW

My kids were SUPER excited to get our house ready for Santa this year! Daddy on the other hand is a well known grinch and wasn’t quite as excited! =) Thankfully we were able to take some time this week to decorate the tree with the boys and share some hot chocolate while we burned a fire…a new thing we are LOVING about this home, we’ve never had a fireplace before and it is so fun for us! We purposely open up all the windows to cool the house down JUST so we can light a fire…gotta love Arizona! Here are a few images of the boys decorating the tree with the help of Daddy!

And for some reason I told the boys to hug and say “I love my brother…” and guess what…they did it, and they didn’t even fight! WOW!

I haven’t posted in a few days, not for lack of desire, I’ve been busy and have lots of posts to add, hopefully I can get caught up soon. I just got back from shooting an incredible wedding in San Diego for Erin and Will. Erin is my cousin, she is absolutely beautiful and made a STUNNING bride! She chose a wonderful guy to marry and I was incredibly thankful to get to document their special day! I feel so blessed to have such a great job that I can travel to a beautiful place to document such a special occasion! I have so many images I have my editing work cut out for me! Here are a few of my favorites from the first part of our day! This is Erin getting her make up done by her sister Katie.
Here is Erin’s mom peeking at the beautiful bride and holding her brand new grandson Eli!
The beautiful dress was purchased at my favorite bridal shop I Do I Do Bridal. Helen and the staff there take such great care of their brides!
Here’s the bride heading out for the wedding which was held at the San Diego Temple. Despite days of horrible rain, we had beautiful weather, especially great clouds in the sky!
This is a cute shot that speaks for itself, you can totally see the love these two have for each other!
Perry Sevey was the videographer. We have traveled to lots of weddings together and are a great team! It’s always fun to work with him as I feel like we feed off each other’s creativity and have so much fun that we never want to stop shooting! Thankfully the couples we’ve worked with are great sports and always in for the different ideas. Here is a shot Perry took of me while I was shooting Will at the beach. To get to this spot we had to climb over some guardrails and down a short hill. It was way worth the effort, thankfully Erin was a good sport doing this in her wedding dress! I have MANY more incredible beach shots, but can’t get to them now, so more to come on this wedding!