I gotta brag on my friends a little bit. A lotta bit. They’re amazing, and they threw us the greatest baby shower known to man!

First off, Allison & Jordan are the most gifted party planners/throwers I know, so the fact they were both hostesses, along with all of my other talented friends, made for a pretty shweet party.

My friends know I love popcorn, and it is most definitely one of my weaknesses in life, so they went with a “brittany is ready to POP” theme. I mean, seriously, every single detail tied into the theme in some awesome, creative way, and it was so fun to see it come all together!

I’ll post a couple photos that Jordan took, but if you want the fo real rundown, visit Allison’s blog post on the partay, along with Jordan’s post on Kojo Designs

Check out these invites. Jordan designed them (isn’t she SO good??)

and all the popcorn. goodness gracious it was delicious.

fun decorations

i just love it!!

all the guests wrote on these cards for Cooper. I can’t wait to read them to him someday.

Aside from all of the decorations, fun ideas, and so much time that went into this celebration, the most amazing part was feeling so much love, and knowing that we’re experiencing something so great with our friends and family. Throughout the entire day, I just couldn’t find the words to express how grateful we were  or how much we appreciated everything – super humbling and comforting. Cooper is already one loved kiddo – that’s fo sho.

Life has been so full lately. Full, in the best way possible. I feel like we’ve had such good times with friends and family and it makes my heart so happy.

Some of you might know our current, awesome living situation. We have a full house of seven people, and it couldn’t be more fun! If you want to know more about that, you can check out this blog post Allison did – it spells it all out pretty well.

Anyhow, Bob and Allison brought McKenna into this world three weeks ago, and it has been amazing getting to be a part of all their life’s changes and excitement. Not to mention the great practice we get before our little Cooper comes into this world. Although, I keep having to remind myself that most babies DO cry, unlike McKenna :) Really, though. We’ve learned so much from this family, and life has been so much richer getting to share in all of it with them.

And maybe I’ve been a little camera happy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Here’s Ella, hanging with Allison before she went back for her C-section.

Last family photo of three!

McKenna is here! She is just perfect. And yes, Allison JUST had a child in these photos, and yes, she is so stinkin beautiful.

bathtime

McKenna’s first photo session.

aaaand her second photo session… :)

Hey folks.

Amy-Rose King is doing a pretty sweet project of interviewing Lubbock photographers, and featuring them on her blog. We grabbed coffee last week and got to know each other a bit (so fun!) and then we went out and she took my picture. I’m so awkward in front of the camera… for real.

Thanks, Amy-Rose, for the coffee and for taking the time to chit chat!

You can check out the interview here.

It’s official. Jordan and I put our old house on the market. But it’s not just our “old house.” Jordan bought it when he was a sophomore in college, so when we got married two years later, it became our little home together. I’ll never forget, the summer we got married, Jordan and his family went crazy on that house when I was out of town one weekend, and they tiled, painted, replaced fixtures, and probably did a million other things I never even knew about.

For the last 3 and 1/2 years, that house has become so special to us. I tried not getting too sentimental and preggo-emotional about it, but when I started thinking of all the fun times we’ve had in it, and all the people we’ve done life with in it, I just couldn’t help but to get teary. It’s funny how many memories a house can bring. I guess it makes sense though.

Anyhow, here’s a link to our casa. Check it out. It’s been good to us :)

And here are some pictures if you don’t feel like clicking on the link.

the kitchen

living room

master bedroom

bathroom

guest room #1

guest room #2

guest bathroom

Hey folks. Welp, I’ve put in all my orders, answered e-mails, and backed everything up, and the time has come to shut the ol compy down for a solid five days.

Yep, Jordan and I are off to Mexico with my family! The last time Jordan and I were there was our honeymoon three and a half years ago, so it’ll be so much fun to make more memories. We definitely have some good ones from before… Like me losing my passport, having the privilege of riding to Mexico on a bus, and us both being sick the whole time… But we totally watched Arrested Development the whole time when we weren’t taking turns in the bathroom being sick. Haha good times.

If you need to contact me, e-mail is the best way, but hopefully I’ll be taking my vacation seriously and not checking it… we’ll see about that :)

Here’s a picture from back in the day. Sooo funnnn!

Maybe you’ve noticed I haven’t been posting much lately. Let’s just say life has been a bit loco… Fun and exciting, but loco, nonetheless.

We’ve been remodeling a house since the end of April, and we moved in last Sunday. Talk about YAY!!! There will be a full blog post with lots o befores and afters, but I thought I’d post a little update until then.

The kitchen before. Dated much?

And the kitchen now! We’re still waiting on our cabinet faces, and the island will have butcher block on top.

Here’s the basement/man cave before.

And here it is now! Pardon the clutter :) Let’s just say our productivity levels have gone down slightly since the man cave was put together.

Now that it’s out in the open that Jordan and I are expecting a little one in March (woohoooo!!), I think it’s time to talk about how this might change Brittany Strebeck Photography. My job is awesome like that because it can change with our little family as we grow, too. But here’s the thing. In order for me to say exactly how this business will play out over the next year, I would have to know how having a baby will affect our daily lives and schedules and jobs, etc. Needless to say, I’m not too sure what that will look like, other than the fact that we’ll be the happiest parents in the woooorld.

Here’s the thing. Ultimately, being a wife/mom is way more important to me than being a photographer, so obviously, that role comes first FO SHO. I don’t even want to come close to having to choose between my family and my job in any circumstance. So here’s what the hubs and I have decided. I’ll stop taking sessions next year beginning in February (I’m serious, seniors… get on it!!!), and I’ll start back up in May (I have two weddings scheduled in May, so that’s what I’m referring to). Now when I say “start back up,” I don’t know exactly what that means, and I don’t think I will until next year. Whether it means I’ll take a couple sessions a week, or one a month, or none at all, I’m resting in the fact that things will fall into place the way they need to. In all reality, I don’t expect to be shooting many sessions at all. But you know, never say never, blah blah blah.

And weddings… Ahhh weddings. I do believe weddings and me are taking a break from each other. I love them so much, but I’ve always said that when a baby comes along, I couldn’t imagine peacing out on the one day of the week that Jordan has off. Huge props to moms who shoot weddings and have husbands with normal people jobs, but I’m just not one of those super human ladies who is willing to figure out what that looks like. I’m sure I’ll take a couple of weddings a year, but I’m confident that weddings will no longer be my main photog squeeze.

Anyhow, I just wanted to keep my peeps in the loop, is all. Feel free to e-mail me with any questions you might have! (brittanystrebeck@gmail.com)

And here’s our little one’s profile. Eeeeee!!

Just in case you haven’t come across our exciting news, here it is!

And yes, at some point there will be a follow up blog post about how this will change Brittany Strebeck Photography :)

Last week, Redeemer (our church) had a sports camp every evening. I could only make it a couple of days, but I most definitely snapped away while I was there. Here are some beautiful faces.

Yep, three years of marriage to the most amazing man I know. I really can’t believe it’s already been three years, but on the other hand, it seems like we’ve been together forever. Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?

Here are some photos from when we first started dating, to when he proposed.

A photo from our wedding at Spirit Ranch (hooray Kristin Bednarz!)

And since then! (and no, I wasn’t preggers… it was halloween)

I definitely lost lots o productivity looking through so many photos this morning… But it was such a sweet reminder. We have had so much stinking fun and God has been so good. God IS so good. And Jordan is the sweetest, most hilarious, most loving husband EVA. And we have the most amazing friends and families, too. Without you peeps, our marriage wouldn’t be quite as sweet.