I met Bo freshman year at Texas Tech, and we’ve been close friends since (almost NINE years?? yikes). I could go on and on about how great Bo is and what a wonderful friend he is, but that’s just not the point of this blog post (or the fact that I’m no longer “college-age”), is it? :)

The point is that OHMYGOODNESS, Bo and Caroline went on a blind date (not just a blind date… an i’m-flying-from-midland-to-houston-for-a-date blind date), hit it off, fell in love, got engaged, and are getting married in July. Now that’s a fun story.

What else is fun is the fact that these two are stinkin’ cute, and laugh a lot, which works out great for pictures :)

And another thing… We took these photos near Ingram, Texas… B-E-A-UTIFAL. Okay, now get ready for picture overload.

It’s been a chill week here at Casa Grande. We’ve had some down time, some sweet visitors, and a LOT of cleaning/organizing (which you will not see any pictures of. Disaster zone!!).

We had snow yesterday, and then went to the park today… Gotta love Lubbock weather!

Cooper excels in leg lifts. It’s one of his talents. You think he’s about to fall back, and then come to find out, he just wants to do a little core workout.

fun times with Nana & Athan

Mickey sharing his tunes with Coop

More leg lifts. Gosh I’ll be sad when those chunky legs are no more.

Ohhh these blue-eyed beauties!! I laughed throughout our entire session… this family is wonderful, and their love for each other and for the Lord is so apparent when you’re around them. Not only are they our neighbors (lucky us!!), but Bailley was in the youth group I interned for back in the day when she was a little junior high girl :) and Marcia was the awesome nurse who got to give our son, Cooper, all of his first shots and tests in the hospital.

I had the honor of taking pictures of sweet Shanna’s family last week! Beautiful day, beautiful family… it was perfect.

and then they ended the session with surprising their parents with silly string… so fun!!

well helloooo 2012! I seriously can’t believe it’s a new year. Everyone says that, but still.

SO much happened in 2011. So many good things, a few hard things, but dang it was a good year.

I started writing a post about the new year a couple days ago, then got inspired by those amazing chicas from Lullaby Lubbock, and realized that pictures make everything better (doy). So here it is – 2011.

Baby McKenna started off everyone’s year perfectly. Followed by Evie & Thomas.

Allison, Jordan, and many other amazing, non-blogging friends, threw me the cutest, most thoughtful baby shower ever.

I got to witness firsthand how an amazing party theme is dreamed up, thought out, and executed… Haha. Let me tell ya, Just Dance was amazing. And so fun. And the whole time I was thinking that maybe if I danced hard enough, Cooper would go ahead and come into this world :)

Cooper came into our lives!! And now he makes crazy faces like the one below. Love that kid.

Then the Booths moved, and CasaGrande was a little lonely. But not for long, don’t worry.

Coop had his first flight – Papa flew us to south Texas for me to shoot a wedding. Then I shot another one the weekend after that. We couldn’t have done it without Nana & Papa!

We had a big family reunion in South Dakota. You know it’s a good time when we have USA flag shirts on.

Coop and I went to Florida for my cousin’s wedding.

We threw a couple’s shower for Lindi & Taylor

Then CasaGrande got filled up again!

Jordan’s brother, Layne, got married to sweet Laurie, and Aric + Casey took the coolest picture I’ve ever seen.

Lindi & Taylor got married. Everything about this wedding was perfect, and it was so fun to see friends from all over.

Lots of football. Amy made it possible for me and Coop to go to almost every game. She was my buddy, my extra hands, my laughing partner, and my pack mule. And then we got to stand with Mickey on senior day. So fun!

Our little family took a trip to Boston. Jordan had an interview at Harvard Business School (because he’s a bad a), and he got accepted!!! We haven’t officially committed yet, but chances are, we’ll be in Boston in the fall. So proud of him. We got to visit the Booths before we flew to Boston, and it was SO GOOD.

Coop was Charlie Brown, Jordan was Linus, and I was Woodstock

Jordan’s flag football team won the Championship. Way to go guys. Because I know ALL of you guys are reading my blog right now.. haha!

Thanksgiving – such sweet time with family!

The Remkes moved out, and Mickey moved in. And Mick graduated from college, too. Woohoo!

My family came to Lubbock for an early Christmas, and Aric + Casey took our family pictures. We’ll cherish them forever!

I think this blog post could have easily been 5 times as long, but all that goes to show is that God is so good. He’s blessed us with so many fun memories with friends and family, too many to fit into one blog post.  So many celebrations of new life, marriages, milestones and just every day fun stuff. I feel like 2012 will be a very different year, but all I know is that among the crazy changes and hard goodbyes, one thing remains the same. God is sovereign and God is so so so good.

Lucky us, we got to start celebrating Christmas at the beginning of December. My family came in town, and we did a whole lot of nothing – it was a beautiful thing. Lots of eating, playing games, catching up, and more eating.

Dude’s hat is Cooper’s most favorite thing

Our little family got to spend Christmas Eve and part of Christmas day at home, and it was wonderful! I didn’t think it could get any better, and then it started snowing… how perfect is that.

Then, we headed to Clovis. We had a lot of sweet time with family. Thanks to Laurie for taking this picture of Coop and Grandaddy!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas!! See ya next year ;)

We have had SUCH a lovely Christmas… I know this is coming a couple days late, but what can ya do. There are more pictures coming from time spent with family and each other, but until then…

oh. my. goodness. These two have been a huge part of our lives for the past 7 years. Matthew and Sabrina were in the youth group I interned with throughout college. So there they were – Matthew, the little punk of a kid, and sweet Sabrina, with her braces and middle school-ness going on. I never knew we would all grow so close… But what’s more important here, is that I never thought THEY would grow so close, much less ever date each other! Well, they proved me wrong, bigtime. And they quickly became one of the darn cutest couples I know. And now they’re engaged. That’s how it works, folks. I could say more about these two, but I’ll wait for the emotional aspect to kick in when I do their engagement photos. haha.

Matthew did an awesome job of putting the perfect night together for Sabrina. She had NO idea what was coming, and as you will see, I believe she was more than pleasantly surprised.

Pardon me if I geek out a bit, but it was DARK in this room, and I was shooting at ISO5000… Seriously? I mean, I know there’s plenty of grain, but way to go, 5DmkII! Okay, I’m done.

then everyone came out of the back rooms to celebrate!

love this.

admiring the ring.

love all the girly giddiness and giggles

so happy for you two!!

This sweet family is in charge of all the greatness that goes down at The Watson Building. I’ve shot quite a few weddings/receptions there, and it’s an awesome venue! And turns out, it’s great for taking pictures of families, too :)

so precious.

Ahhh these sweet girls. I love love love getting to capture these girls’ fun stages in life. Even when it’s cold outside and we do the whole session on a bed… haha :)