Count Your Blessings!

What does this image mean.....a great night of fun...ALOT of kids...... A very LOUD house...And most of all A HOUSE FULL OF WONDERFUL FRIENDS....... Laughing, sharing, making memories...that is what life is all about!

I just came across this picture taken last year and it reminded me how blessed our family is to be surrounded by such amazing friends. There are not many who can say that they have one close friend let alone handfuls of amazing friends that they can call family. This is a picture of just some of our closest friends children. Funny thing is..these children are a little older, two have sadly moved away and some friends have added to the number of kids that should be in the picture if taken today. LOL

I don't usually post to many personal entry's on here but.....ok..... so have you ever had a best friend..you know the one you can't live with out. The one who really knows YOU. Who you can cry with, have your house a mess when they stop by, feel like the the day is not right unless you have talked with her ( or text messaged) like 20+ times. Well other then my lifetime best friend - my husband Jason I am blessed to have many many girlfriends, and Jason and I are blessed to have many couples that we are close to, that have children that Madison adores too! Many of them we have been friends with for years. It is so comforting to know we are surrounded by amazing friends who are genuine. I am soo looking forward to our next cook out or get together!

Even that dads..have fun. I have soo many goofy pictures of the dads at different times. I should do a post of just silly dad pictures..maybe around fathers day we will have a contest!!

Jason and I are sooo blessed to have many many good friends. We have probably 12 couples that we count as our closest friends. The Elliott's (times two..they know what I mean), The Atalla's, The LeBar's, The Alvey's, The Henrickson's, The Milliman's, The Schwarburg's, The McKenna's, The Roth's, Sue B, Jenna, The Patzia's and soooo many more. And the friendships that we have made with all these people are truly a blessing that we are sooo thankful for. I am soo thankful for my girlfriends. And especially my close ones that I can call on for anything..So Becky, Tonya, Carrie, Julie, Heather, Janna, Jenny, Kate, & Sue & Jenna too ( i know I am leaving someone out) I LOVE YOU GUYS and thank you for blessing me, for blessing our family with all your humor, your strength, your love, your grace, your understanding, and your time and patience!

Here is something you DO NOT see very often...me IN a picture...LOL

Last Fall I was blessed to meet another incredible woman and she has become my dearest and bestest friend in the world. (Not that I don't love the rest of you still lol)
But I just wanted to add...Becky...I love the friendship we have been blessed with. It seems like we have known each other for years. You have not only become my best friend you all apart of our family. You encourage me whether it is with being a mom or with my job. You make me laugh and you have made me take time to enjoy life and put work aside (just for an hour or two :-) ) and I am soo grateful for that. All who have meet you guys at Cherry Hills are blessed to have the chance to know the you guys. Thank you for being you and loving me for me, flaws and all! You are the best!

Again..thank you to all our friends who love us, put up with us, encourage us, help us, support us, pray for us and make memories with us. Our heavenly father has overly and graciously blessed us with amazing friends. We don't know what we would do with out all of you!

LOVE ALL OF YOU!

And A little plug: If you are looking for somewhere to connect with amazing people and find out more about The heavenly father that we love and put first in our lives then join us on Sunday morning at Cherry Hills Church (corner of Chatham and Woodside Road) Right now we are in a great series about Reasons for Believing! We have services at 8:00, 9:15 and 10:45 We have amazing pastors and a family in Christ at this church. They are some of the most incredible people you will ever meet! If you want more information please call me or the church directly.

They also have great things for children and Teenagers of all ages. The kids love going to church!

Ok...I'm done not sure how I got off on pouring my heart out about our family & friends and church but hey sometimes we all have to let our guard down and just be real!

And the wedding season has started and so have the engagament..

We shot these two couples actually several weeks ago...but we have been so busy I have not had a chance to put them up so here they are. And we are soooo excited to be doing there weddings this summer.

And we have had a blast with custom Save the Date cards, Thank You cards, Birthday Invites and Graduation Announcements. We really do customize each clients pictures. Each one we do is designed just for you and from scratch. Don't worry about someone else in the area having one just like yours because at Creative Candid's each piece is uniquely made and designed by us. So unless someone is copying the idea you won't find another like it. We have many examples in studio for you to view to help keep our designs truly original. You won't find our creations in any pre-designed "customized" book. Although we have carried a selection of various vendors such as Style-Art and Carlson Craft for Wedding Invitations for about 3 years now. But we prefer the actual personalized-customized product. Call for more details and to see more of our example selection.



More to come tomorrow

Celebrating With the Matthews Family

I am honored to be apart of an Organization that Celebrates with Families that adopt a child. It is such a blessing to meet parents who are willing to love on these children that would other wise be possibly neglected. This week I was able to meet the Matthew's Family and what an honor it was. Janelle, Andrew and of course Isiah were wonderful. This little guys has to be the cutest thing ever. He was full of beautiful smiles and contagious laughs. Thank you guys for letting me capture your first family pictures and allowing me to meet you guys.

They are soo cute!

Seniors 2009

We have already started Senior sessions for the Graduating Class of 2009! This fantastic senior is just the first of some amazing sessions we have for this year! Absolutely amazing! We had so much fun with her. We used new locations and made an incredible start to this season!

Gas prices and then some

Ok, so I usually don't post things like this but I decided that everyone needed to be aware of this. Yesterday I had to fill up our truck with gas and I stopped into a gas station I have never used before.. Super Pantry on Stevenson due to the extreme hike in prices yesterday I decided to only put in $21.00..hoping it will go down again (even a little) in the next day or two. Anyways, when I got home I was checking my account and saw that this gas station not only debited my account for the $21.00 I bought (that's fine), they also debited out $76.00!!! as a "drive off insurance" so that if I would not have paid for my gas..(mind you I put in my debit card and pin before pumping) then they could get 76.00 from me. It will take 3-5 days for that debit to come off my account and for me to be refunded my 76.00 that I never authorized in the first place. I have never heard of a gas station doing this. And the employees, and the manager of this station were un-helpful and very rude. I finally had to call Springfield Police to ask for this help in the matter because I was getting no answers or help from the gas station it-self.

So to make it worse not only are gas stations killing our check books with the price of gas, now there taking more money out of our accounts "just in case". So watch your accounts and what gas stations you go to...they do not post that they do this!

Weddings

Seniors

Yes I know its been a while since the last blog. We have started alot of new things this year and we hope that everyone is as excited as we are.

Baby Days at St. Johns

Don't forget to come check out Baby Day at St. Johns on Sunday. It will be alot of fun and educational. I have gotten to know Shannon Mathis and I am soo excited to be working with her. She is an amazing person and has a wonderful spirit! I look very forward to working with her in the future on other events and hopefully with March of Dimes!

Come check out our booth, We have a some really cool new package options that you MUST SEE! Wait till you see what we have come up with. If you have a children between new-born and well pre-teens you must see what we have up our sleeves.