These cute, sweet, fun, crazy kids were in the studio the other day.

Congrats Lady Cats!

The Seniors!

Gabi interviewed on FOX28.  (Fox has been great covering our lady cats, thanks)

Link to FOX Video from the Game

Gabi was honored with MVP and here she was a WB Hawkins Award Nominee.  This next shot I am sure some would say was a mistake, but I LOVE it, the big reason why it is so cool is the flash was coming from her grandpa’s camera.  I need to use his flash more often.  LOL

By the way, the lady cats beat LaVille 60-35.

My baby boy….

I took this shot last night.  It is going up on the wall somewhere.  I love it.  And last night was awesome, Samantha had girlfriends over and my niece and nephew came over with their kids and we got pictures of them all.  During all the craziness in the studio with a total of 6 kids in there Brandon goes in front of the mirror and was posing with his shirt off.  (I caught it with video too with my 5D- it’s so good I could charge people to see it)  Anyways the reason I am telling you this is I am so glad I have this picture of him, when I look at it I will look back and remember the awesome evening I had with the kids and how wonderful it is to be MOM!

Lady Cats won the 1st Round of Bi-County and will be playing at LaVille on Saturday at 8:00am and the Championship game will be at in the evening.  (not 100% sure of time because it might have changed due to the morning game)

Anyways if you haven’t been to the Bobcat Den this past week there are some new bleachers at each end.  They are really nice.  I love them! (And I am not one for change, but these are really nice)  Makes it alot better for me to take pictures.

And I wanted to share this shot of Samantha (the one in the superman cape LOL) following Gabi Minix around.  Just a reminder to all the high schoolers in sports that these little kids really look up to you guys so try to set good examples on and off the courts.  And big thanks to all the girls basketball team for letting Samantha hang out with you guys she loved it.  And FYI she wore her hunting coat and hat to the game because Gabi likes camo.  She couldn’t wait to get to the game and show her.

Good luck Lady Cats, let’s bring home another Bi-County Championship!

PS  I will get all the images from the girls and boys game in a gallery later today.  www.photographybyjayme.com/store

Happy 2nd Birthday Abby!

One of my all time favorite pictures of Samantha is one where she is doing this same pose.  I have it in my bedroom.

If you are a regular blog follower then you have seen Abby on the blog several times, and you also know that her dad is always doing something funny and I always post a picture of his craziness.  So here it is, he was getting the bubbles ready for us and spilled them all over the place and I ran over to take a picture and here is what I had in front of me.  (the hat is a girl’s hat and has glitter on it)

Abby- I just love how you tilt your head when you smile, and I love how you are silly like your daddy.  Thanks for always making me smile.  Can’t wait to take your 3 year old pictures.

The Lady Cats played in the Chicagoland Classic on Saturday.  Me being the loyal fan that I am made the trip.  The game wasn’t so fun to watch.  The girls were tired, they played a tough game the night before and well for some reason just didn’t get a good start.  And they happened to be playing IL’s #1 ranked team. Of course I have fun where ever I go and whatever I do so the trip was still awesome.  Ate some good pizza at Connie’s Pizza with some family and friends.  Oh and I tried Calamari for the first time.  (yeah didn’t realize I was eating squid until afterwards, and FYI it isn’t that great, kinda rubbery)

Some other people that made the trip was Harold from WKVI.  I snapped a couple pictures of him and his son. (they were on air while I did it, leave it to me to bother people while they are on the radio, thankfully Harold likes me, oh and actually I heard that his daughter called him on his cell, so I think me snapping pictures wasn’t the most distracting thing he had to deal with that day)

And the OD band rocked the place.  Even the other teams fans clapped several times for them.  Super cool they made the trip.

And I am just gonna post one action shot.  I love how Harold and his son are in the background and the McDonald’s banners.  (McD’s sponsored the event)

Bi-County is this week!  See ya all there.

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.

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!)

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

Santa made a stop at Elizabeth’s Garden to see some good boys and girls.  Thought I would share a few pictures.  We had a great turn out.  Seemed like I was snapping pictures the entire time.  Oh and I did manage to get some shopping done (for myself) I got a cute Vera purse that I LOVE!!!  Okay back to santa, here are some photos for yesterday…  I am putting in gallery form, you can click to enlarge, lots I want to share.

That is just a sample of the photos from that morning.  We also had some  crying babies too.  Oh and that last photo is of the upside down tree that is in the middle of the shop.  I just love that tree, it is super cool.

Thanks Elizabeth Garden staff for hosting such an awesome event.  Santa, Gwen and I had lots of fun.  It is nice that many of the kids have been there every year that we have done the event.  I can’t wait until the next one.  Oh and I already had someone ask about Easter pictures.  I am sure we will do something, not sure if we will do the bunnies again though, I will come up with something though.  Email me if you have suggestions gang.