Woodyard Family

So this weekend I did a shoot with this wonderful family from Anderson :)  Jamie is a Pastor and Krista, his wonderful wife, is a stay at home mom for their two boys.  I had such a great time with this family!  They were so patient with me and totally understood that I am a beginner!  I think that these turned out really good, and I hope you enjoy them!

Aren't their boys the cutest?

















And what beautiful family they are--not only on the outside but on the inside.  I know that is so typical to say, but it is SO, so true.  They are so genuine, and they treat you like their own family member from their first hello.

This is Aaron, their oldest.  He was such a trooper!  He smiled when he was supposed to, he even struck a few fierce poses!! :)  Oh, and he loves his little brother a lot!

























Meet Luke, their youngest boy.  He is such a cutie--I just wanted to take him home with me :)  For only being 2 years old, he did an awesome job!  Of course it really helped that Daniel (my husband) was there and made lots of weird faces to make him laugh!

Brothers being brothers.... :)

They love their mom :)  After this Jamie came up and jumped on top of them...let's just say, I dont think it was something they wanted to remember!!  Haha! :)

Finally, after the kids got comfortable with Daniel, we were able to sneak in a few photos of just Jamie and Krista.  I love these pictures, it just shows the love they still have for one another.

One of my favorite group shots :)

Father & Son :) 

Krista and Luke, how sweet is this picture?! 

Aaron is such a sweet kid--I just wanted to squeal when I captured this picture :) 

I want to leave you with my favorite image of the day.

This family means so much to me, and I have only know them for around a month!  Jamie & Krista, thank you so much for letting me capture these images of your beautiful family :)

Love,

Courtney

Dreams...

This week as been such a blessing for me.  There is this class I have been watching live online for the past couple of days.  CreativeLive & Jasmine Star have come together this week to create this awesome online session for beginning photographers.  So, I have been listening & watching as she has answered questions about how she started her business, how she markets her photography and also how she shoots!  I can't even begin to explain all that I have learned from her in just the 3 days I have been able to listen to these sessions!  I think yesterday was such a eye opener for me, though.  She talked about how when she started out, she didn't even know how to turn her camera on!  How she knew absolutely nothing and had so much to learn because she was clueless.  Now, here she is only 4 years later and is one of the biggest photographers in California.
I found this sooo soo encouraging, because if she started out clueless, then why can't I?  It makes me feel so much better to know someone else out there started out just the way I did--loving photography but having no idea how to start.  Being able to witness and hear her journey has inspired me to just get out there and DO IT!  Go for it!  Who cares if I have no idea what I am doing?  I am never going to learn if I just sit around and mope about how I don't know anything!

I am filled with passion today, and I can't wait until I can go at this full force.  And I can't end this post without giving a shout out to my friend Michael Early.  I mean, this guy--he just rocks :)  Since I don't have a camera of my own yet, he has been SO GRACIOUS enough to loan me his camera whenever I want to use it.  I mean, what kind of friend is that?  An awesome one!  I will never be able to tell him how thankful I am that he is such a giving person.  I wouldn't be learning what I need to learn right now if it weren't for him :)

THANKS MICHAEL! :)

Well, I will have some wonderful pictures for you guys next week as I am shooting a family session this weekend--I am totally excited :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Love,
Courtney

Dinner Time!

This past Monday, I made a wonderful dinner out of my Pampered Chef cookbooks.  It was in the "Table for Two" section, so the portions were just enough for the both of us!  Having leftovers can be a blessing or a curse....just depends on your routine I guess.  Daniel LOVES leftovers, but sometimes I cook so much he eats them for every meal for the next 2 days.  So, he is basically eating the same meal for every meal for 3 days!!  Bless his heart, on the 3rd day he always says...."let's not have such & such for a while....ok?"  I love him :)  So sweet :)

So anyway, I ended up making this yummy salmon recipe with some wonderful fresh veggies and mashed potatoes :)  I have a picture of it for you!  The topping on the salmon was basil pesto, lemon zest and lemon juice (soooo good!)

It was so good!  I am not really a huge fish fan (mostly because of the smell...) but this turned out pretty tasty!

I hope you all are having a great week! :)

Love,

Courtney

TDQ Homecoming

I am totally starting to lack on the posts, I apologize!  Daniel and I have been a bit busy lately, mostly with group stuff.

The Disciples Quartet (Southern Gospel group I sing in) had our "Homecoming" this past weekend! :)  Now, when you hear homecoming, most of you probably think of your high school football games, and homecoming queens, etc.  But in the Southern Gospel industry it is a time to celebrate the year of ministry!  Normally, you bring in one of your favorite groups to sing with you and just have a great time :) This year we had Soul'd Out Quartet with us.  They are an AWESOME national group who we have really looked up to over the years.  These guys are so down to earth and are truly in it for the ministry and to see souls saved!  I wish I had pictures to share, but I don't :(

We had a wonderful time and the best part about it was we recorded it LIVE so we can put out a new LIVE RECORDING!  We are super excited about it.  Daniel and is mixing it right now actually and we hope to have it out within the next month or so!  We had such a great time and are so blessed to have so many supporters.

Now onto personal stuff :)  So Adam (Daniel's twin brother) is getting married next July to a wonderful young lady named Natalie.  I went with her and some of her bridesmaids to see her top 2 dress picks.  I had such a good time with all of them!  I am also going to be helping her with flowers and other things for the wedding.  It is so exciting to help someone else through the wedding process.  I can pass on all my advice and "don't do this" suggestions to help make her wedding day the most  perfect day ever!  It is so wonderful to finally be bonding with her and getting to see how much we have in common and how well we are getting along :)

I am slowly starting to feel like the Lord is restoring the joy in my heart again.  Yes, my job is still frustrating, yes I still drive an hour and 15 minutes to work, but you know what--at least I have a job.  More importantly, I have a knowing salvation of my Lord & Savior Jesus Christ!!  Nothing on this earth matters except for honoring Him and witnessing to others!  As long as I am seeking God's will he will have his way in my life and I am so thankful to remember that daily.

Love,
Courtney

babies, babies and more babies!

I know what you are thinking and NO!!  But it seems lately that so many of my friends and past high school classmates are all having babies!  It is crazy to think that I am at that stage of my life.  Sometimes I still feel like I am 18 yrs. old....

But anyway, this post is about my friends Josh & Carly who just recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Reagan :)  We normally don't see them much because he travels with another Southern Gospel group and they are super busy!!  But we happen to be at the same convention a couple of weeks ago and I took the liberty of taking some shots of them with their beautiful little girl! 

I wanted to share these with you because:
1) It is so rewarding to see their faces when they hold their little girl
2) Reagan is just plain beautiful--and who doesn't want to see pictures of a beautiful baby??

Ok,  I will stop rambling and show you the darn pictures! :)

This is Grandpa holding his precious new grandaughter :)

Josh (Dad) and Reagan

Carly (Mom) & Reagan

At last but not least, my favorite one of the night :)

I hope you guys enjoyed these!  Tell me what you think! 

Love,

Courtney

Anniversary

This past Sunday (8/8/10) was Daniel and I's 1 year anniversary.  Can you believe that??  SO much stuff has happened in just one year!  All I can say is that even though Daniel and I sometimes have struggles, I cannot imagine being married to anyone else.  God truly did prepare us and makes us exactly to fit together!  I am so blessed to have a husband like Daniel--one that cares for me, loves me, makes me laugh (very important!) and most importantly loves God with all his heart.

Since we were singing at a Convention in Marion Friday & Saturday, we only really had Sunday to celebrate.  So Daniel wanted to start this new tradition, and it was so cute :)  He was explaining it in his "little kid" voice, which is my favorite :)  He wanted to start a movie tradition where we pick out one "chick flick" we haven't seen and one we have seen and watch them back to back.  The only problem was, he bought one we haven't seen--but it wasn't a chick flick!  It was the movie "The Reader" and it was about an older teacher who has an serious affair with a 15 year old kid.  I was like"....um....honey....this isn't a chick flick."  and his response was..."But it has Kate Winslet in it!!"  Apparently any movie with Kate Winslet is a chick flick?  Anyway, it was still an awesome idea so we picked one out of the many that I have that he hasn't seen and watch it.  It was awesome to just relax on the couch and watch a totally stupid (yet funny!) movie!

Then after that, we got all dressed up and went to this amazing Italian restaurant that we love called Matteo's Ristorante Italinao.  I am telling you, this place is awesome.  They make everything from scratch--pastas, breads, sauces, its amazing.  Did I say that it was good?  Because it is :)  It is downtown Noblesville on the square. 

So all in all, our anniversary was very laid back and relaxing!  Which is just what we needed.  We have been so busy lately.

Oh yes, and we are still watching mom & dad's dogs!  They are being such great sports :)  Jake has yet to destroy anything, so that is awesome.  We have to give them back this week though, and while I WON'T miss getting up super early to take Jake out, I WILL miss their company.  They are such sweet and loving dogs!

How was everyone else's weekend?

Love,

Courtney

Business as usual

This will be one of my shorter entries today. Life lately has been so, so busy & still is.  TDQ (The Disciples Quartet), the southern gospel quartet I sing in, has been busy these past couple of weeks.  We have another convention this weekend we are going to be singing at in Marion, IN. Also another event this weekend--Daniel and I's 1 year anniversary! :)

So I have been contemplating lately on how much action to take on starting up my photography business.  Even though I don't have my own camera yet, I have still been able to get quite a few pictures while borrowing a friends camera.  Yet, I dont want to put all these pictures on facebook and everywhere else without a logo on it.  BUT then if I want a logo I have to find a name (ugh) get it designed, created, etc. (thankfully I know an awesome graphic designer!)  so anyway, I am just trying to figure out what the right way to go, and more importantly, what the Lord is calling me to do.

So, hopefully this weekend my husband plans something great for us to do on our anniversary!  I am looking forward to it, even if it is lounging around at home--because we have have Zero time together in a while!  We are also watching my parents 2 dogs all week until the 10th!  It will be a blast because they are the cutest dogs evver known to man:

Do any of you guys have advice for me out there?  Any experience in this area or "lessons learned" type things in regards to photography business??

Love,
Courtney