I can’t wait until tomorrow, I have several young ladies coming into the studio and they are going to get their hair and makeup done and we are gonna have lots of fun, oh and I will be taking some pictures tomorrow too, but really most of the time we will just be having fun.  Bob and Kyle are busy working on a new prop for me.  (let’s hope they get it done and there are no fire calls for Hamlet or Koontz Lake in the next few hours)

I know I have’t posted much lately, that will change, should have lots of images to post after tomorrow. The last few days consisted of one entire day cleaning my house,  and one entire day playing Nintendo Wii. (yeah I am addicted to wii fit, if you follow me on facebook you already know that)

So I am now back to work, yesterday I spent most of the day planning and talking with some of my photographer friends about upcoming projects that I will be doing this year.  I am so excited about the new year.  I have goals written down in writing and I will make them happen!!!  If not I think Nichole may end up sending me non-stop facebook messages until I get back on track (at least that is what I would do to me if I was her- hint hint).

A couple weeks ago Gabi was over working on a school project and took some pictures of Samantha in the studio.  I of course had to snap some too.  My kids take instructions better from others so Gabi told her how to pose and I snapped away.   My baby girl is getting so big.  Sometimes she reminds me so much of me when I was her age.  (she talks too much and is loud like I was like I am)Anyways here is a shot of Samantha my little cowgirl.  (her front teeth are still coming in, the joys of being 6 1/2)

Our Christmas Card…  My favorite photo of the kids this year.  So them in their cowboy gear.  The saddle is the one they ride in which was Dad and Uncle Larry’s when they were little.

I hope everyone has a great time with family and friends today.  Create memories together and make sure you snap a photo or two.  Great time to get everyone together for a group photo!  (we did that yesterday with my mom’s family)  Christmas Eve was amazing for us.  This morning Bob and I were up before kids we were so excited for them.  Today we will be sure to have a blast at Bob’s parents home.  (they are scared because I told them I have something fun planned)

Be safe driving.  Slow down, it is better to get there late then not at all.

The following photos have been sent in from my blog followers.  It was neat to see and read everyone’s emails.  Thanks for participating.  Oh and remember how I mentioned that I would let Brandon pick a winner that will get a free session, well Sam and Brandon both picked their favorites and because I am in the giving mood I decided that everyone that participated would get a free mini session.  Thanks again, and here are the photos…..

Brandon’s Pick:  Monica Cummings sent in Brandon’s favorite.  The train is Matthew’s and was given to him out of his Great Pop’s stash after he passed away.  The other photos are the family tree and then pictures of two special ornaments. One of them is for Addison, their daughter, and the other is a piece that Ryan’s grandfather carved.  He gave Matthew and I that ornament on our first trip out to New York, three weeks before he passed.  Those two will always go up top close to the star.

Samantha’s Pick (she liked the nativity set):  Barbara McCurley sent in Samantha’s favorite.  Barbara’s two  grandchildren Bryant (7) and Kaylinn (5) decorated her tree.  Here is what she told me about her tree..  Each one in our family has a name ornament placed on the tree.  We have 3 “special ornaments” that are placed on the tree, in memory of my mom, dad and son (Bryant and Kaylinn’s daddy).  The nativity set is always placed under our tree and it is rearranged many times.  The Christmas tree is a special part of our Christmas celebration.  This year we used the artificial tree because we are going to CA for Christmas, but usually have a real tree-so much fun going to cut one.

And here are the rest, so many good ones I couldn’t pick my favorite, so glad I didn’t have to.

Lisa Marie Wutzler sent a picture of her German tree.  She was an exchange student from North Judson.  Her tree is from Troisdorf, NRW, Germany.  She does admit to having some American ornaments on it as well.

Andrea Brown’s family tree. (if I would have told Brandon this picture was Miss Andrea’s tree, I am pretty sure he would have picked it).

Lindsay Brown’s tree (I think this one is tooo darn cute)

Kim Carpenter’s tree: (If it was a photo contest you would win)

Brooklyn Radtke made this Mrs. Claus ornament for 4-H.   She dehydrated an apple.  The hair is wool from her 4-H lamb.  Super Cool idea Brooklyn, I wish I was that creative!!!

And last the person with the most Christmas spirit. (is it possible to have too many trees??)  These next few images were sent in from Toni Baldwin-Dufour.  Three are in her house and one is at work at Valparaiso University.

The first tree is a 9ft that is in their living room. (Samantha and I loved how she did the top of the tree)

The second tree is a 9ft that is in her dinning room.  She put photo ornaments of family on it.  I love, love the ornament of her grandma.  (I so need to do that next year!)

The third tree is there live tree.  They have a tradition of going out to Hensler’s every year.  It hold all the kids handmade ornaments her the hallmark ornaments on it.  (her favorite tree)

And her 4th tree is a 7.5 foot slim. It normally  goes in their family room with all of my family heirloom ornaments. The health center needed a tree this year, so she took it there.

Thanks again gang.  If you didn’t get to see my tree go HERE. I just have one.  Well Samantha and Brandon have tiny trees in their rooms, but I didn’t take pics of them.

PS  I want to say a special thank you for Toni that did something nice for me the other day.  I love when my clients are so happy with my work that they tell all their family and friends about me.  It is appreciated big time Toni!

Tomorrow I will post the Goetz Family Christmas Card.  I sent some out by mail, but pretty much if you weren’t already in my database of addresses  I didn’t send one to you.  Just got too behind, so I figured I would post on here so everyone gets to see it.

One last photo… for some reason I didn’t get the email that included this photo and since it is a realllly nice tree (I espicially love the town below) I had to go head and post it.  Thanks Trista, and sorry it didn’t get posted with the rest.  Darn email, you just never know about it some times.

Lou Ann from WKVI radio interviewing Aubrey Minix.

5.4.3.2.1…  Samantha Sims made two baskets at the end of quarters.

One of my favorite photos of the night was when Sami gave Kelsey five at the line.

Some of these girls traveled from far to visit family during the Holidays.  They couldn’t miss seeing the Lady Cats and Aubrey’s jersey retired.  Love ya all girls.  Was so nice to see you guys.

By the way, the Lady Cats beat Rochester in Varsity action.  Go BOBCATS!

If you follow my facebook you will know that my friend Nichole Frank is pregnant (due some time in January) so I helped her out a wedding this weekend.  After I told her I would help she informed me that there was THIRTEEN (yes 13!!) flower girls and ring bearers going to be in the wedding.(information that I wish I knew before I said yes, just kidding)  So my job for the day was to help with kids.  So basically I acted goofy most of the time.  And if you know me, that is so hard to do.  LOL

I did manage to snap a few photos also.  During the ceremony I planted my butt up in the balcony while my poor pregnant friend ran around all over.

My fave, they had the church decorated really nice for winter….

I had fun teasing this little guy.  He was so darn cute, but he had the wrong color tractor.  Tractors are  green at my house.  (note to his parents, I have a six year old daughter, keep that in mind when he is looking for a prom date)  Isn’t he just soooo cute.

Remember how I mentioned there was 13 kids in the wedding party.  Well we got them all in one photo.  I was kinda off to the side acting silly, but I just had to snap one shot of it because I am sure I will never see this again.

Here is Nichole in action….  (one sexy pregnant chic!)

I just love her baby belly sticking out.

Anne and Nate- you guys have wonderful families.  I loved talking to both of  your dads.  I can’t imagine how crazy Christmas is going to be with all those kids.  Do you guys have to rent a hall or does grandpa have a big house??? (most of the little kids are Nate’s nieces and nephews)

***Side note.  Just wanted to stress how important it is to help out a friend.  Nichole came with me on my OD Lady Cats poster shoot and helped, she has also taken my family photo too.  I was just returning the favor.

Not sure how much I can post since it was a corporate event, so I am just gonna post one safe photo.  Here is a shot from the balcony in the Palis Royale.

The place was beautiful and the staff was super.  Before going there I also did head shots at the LaSalle Grill.  They were so accommodating and even helped me carry my studio equipment up the stairs to the room I set up in.  I would highly recommend both the Palis Royale and the LaSalle Grill for events.  Both were top notch in every way.

Also huge thanks to my mom who went along for the ride and helped me carry my stuff.  I tricked her into getting a head shot by telling her to pose for me so I could test my lighting.  LOL  So here is my super duper sweet mom that is always helping me out. So lucky to have her!!!  Thanks MOM! (you still looked good after all that running around we did)

Nothing fires me up more then seeing kids do good things.  The Lady Cats have dedicated their season to their friends and family battling cancer.  Fox28 News ran a story on them last night.  If you missed it you can check it out online.

All you girls were awesome on TV.  Very smart and talented young women.  You will go far in life when you do good things for others because it all comes back to you- trust me.

FOX28 NEWS VIDEO LINK (if you are a cry baby like me, you might not want to watch it in front of someone else, Christina you got me there at the end girl- love ya!)

Northern Indiana Class of 2011 I am looking for models to represent my studio.  I will take a very limited number and will only be shooting these a couple different days.  The first day is scheduled for Dec. 30th.  Makeup Artist Heather Dirrim will be in the studio doing makeup and we may have someone doing hair that day also.

Models for my studio will have lots of perks thru the year.  There will be products available only to the models.  There will also be a chance to get discounts on your print orders as well.  Plus your photos will be used for my marketing materials.

If you would like to be considered please do the following:

1. Fill out an application which can be found here… www.photographybyjayme.com/modelapplication.doc

2.  Email the application and a recent photo (nothing fancy just snap shot) to me at jayme@photographybyjayme.com

3. Make sure you parents know that you have sent an application in.  I will be contacting them if you are chosen.

**This is only for the Class of 2011, so current Juniors.  Please if you are at all interested fill out an application.  For the best chance to be picked for the Dec. 30th date please have your application back to me prior to Dec 21st, however I will continue to take applications past that date.  The application is very basic and will only take you a few minutes to fill out.

**This will be FUN, I rarely do anything that isn’t.  So only apply if you are fun to be around and you will laugh at my jokes.

I got this idea from my friend Jackie who was trying to figure out how to decorate her tree.  When she was home for Thanksgiving we looked thru magazines and stores getting ideas for her.  It was fun.  That is how I came up with this idea, plus I thought it would be neat for my blog readers to participate in a blog post so here is what you need to do….

Send  an email to jayme@photographybyjayme.com put Christmas Blog in the subject, attach a photo of your tree, an ornament or you could even send me a pic of your Christmas lights outside of your house.  I would rather people not be in the photo so we don’t have to worry about someone’s picture getting posted without their okay.

What I will do is create a blog post that will go up on Christmas Day that will have pictures that are sent to me,  I will put the name of the sender and where they are from along with their photo.

Depending on how giving of a mood I am in, I will send one or two people a gift card for a free session just because I like giving it is almost as much fun as receiving.LOL

Make sure you send it to me by Tues. Dec 22nd at noon central time because I want it all done and ready to go before Christmas.  The post will be made early Christmas morning.

I think this will be lots of fun and neat to see how everyone decorates their tree.  To kick it off here is a photo of my tree.

We have an eclectic theme going on.  Firefighters, angels, stars, snowmen, and lots of homemade ornaments.  The kids did most of the decorating.  Brandon has a bunch piled in one area to the right.  I left it that way.  To me it doesn’t matter as long as the kids had fun and they like it.

We have some meaningful ornaments on our tree, one is a cardinal bird there up top, that is for my Grandma Jernas that is no longer with us, there are a couple from Bob and I first started dating, and a mother-to-be ornament my Aunt gave me when I was expecting Samantha.  There is one of mine dated from 1992 on it.  I like to look at them and think of certain times in our lives and certain people.  Seems like we add at least one new ornament a year to our tree.

This ornament I like because it has a horse on it, and riding horses with my dad is one of my favorite things to do…

I can’t wait to see everyone’s tree.  You have about a week to get this done, but don’t put it off, because I am excited to see pictures.  PS this isn’t a photo contest.  The gift card give away will be totally random.  I will probably just have Brandon look at the pictures and tell me which one he likes.  So I guess if your photo will appeal to a 3 1/2 year old boy that might be an advantage.  LOL

Oregon-Davis won 54 to  48 in the varsity match up, and it was an awesome game.  OD JV girls won also.  Both teams hustled all over the court.  It was so much fun to watch.  Of course I wanted OD to win, but I wanted to see a good game and wanted the Knox girls to play well too.

I am going to post all the images in the storefront after I post this and I have to mention, there are alot of images of Elizabeth Caudill.  I have known her since she was little and most of her family has known me since I was little.   Since I am busy following the Bobcats I don’t get to many of her games but always make a point to take pictures of her when she plays OD and she sure put on a good show.  For awhile it seemed like she couldn’t miss.  Great job Elizabeth and thanks for making it easy for me to get some good shots for your mom.  :)

Here is Elizabeth in action..

Shelby Gilbert works her way thru traffic.

Kelsey Minix drives down the court.  Someone mentioned she was player of the game.

Samantha Sims take the ball to the hole…

Alivia Sims makes an awesome pass right after I took this shot…

My little buddy Megan got a bump under eye during the JV game.  And it looked like Justyne got a black eye during the varsity game.  It was a rough battle out there, glad I was on the sidelines taking pictures.

Thanks for the fun night of basketball OD and Knox girls.  OD girl’s next game is on the 17th at home 5pm JV start.  I might leave my camera at home and just sit and watch (pressure from hubby to sit and enjoy a game with him, guess I should be glad he wants to be with me, but hard to just sit and watch)  LOL

I am off to post the images from the Knox and NJ games in the storefront.  They will be viewable in a couple hours HERE.

And thanks WKVI for all the nice compliments on the radio this morning.

This afternoon I attended the Starke County Economic Developement Foundation’s Open House.  They announced their new name, logo and released their new website. I didn’t take many pictures, I was too busy eating and talking to everyone. (I do both too much)  But here are a few images from todays luncheon.

Charlie was working right up to the start of the open house…

Lisa, Tammy and Ron greeted people at the door…

They unveiled a banner that had their new logo on it.

It was nice to see everyone.  Thanks for the invite Charlie and Lisa, I always have a wonderful time with you folks. We are very lucky to have a wonderful team working to get business to our area.  I love the new website, I hope we have more groundbreakings in 2010!!