First Day of School | The little girl is not so little anymore

When I went to wake up McG for her first day of preschool today, she immediately started grinning ear to ear while her eyes were still closed. As she tried to open her eyes, we had this discussion:

“Good morning!” I greet her.

“Where do you think we are going today,” she said before I can say anything else. (This is what I say when we have something fun to do that day.)

“I don’t know. Do you?” I answered.

“The beach,” she said quizzically.

“Noooo…” I said.

“I was just joking,” she said. “Church”

“Noooo…”

“Class school,” she at first whispered, then her voice got louder and higher in pitch as she did a little dance while her eyes were still closed, she was still laying down and had that same huge smile on her face.

Priceless.

The school hosted a donut breakfast and story time for the official first day of school for all the kids that started on Monday. We went to practice being on time, so technically the above photos are not from her first day of class.

We met up with some of her friends. Is the top middle photo not a foreshadowing for prom photos in about 15 years?

These are from her real first day of class. She picked out a “Keera backpack” (that is our chocolate lab’s name who is McG’s best friend.) She got to bring her favorite stuffed animal to class on the first day. This is her classroom door and her cubby.

She was still hyper when she got home and now is sleeping soundly. I’d say the day was pretty sublime for her.

A New Start for a New Year

I follow a lot of other blogs, I mean, A LOT! Photog blogs, wedding, home design, mom, business, ministry… A LOT! One blog trend that I absolutely love and have wanted to start for some time is posting monthly goals. I am definitely a task-driven kind of person, so I’ve been setting goals since I was about five years-old, but I’ve never had the guts to post them for the whole world to see. Well, today is the day I’m manning up!

I want to make a little bit of an introduction before I get started. First of all, these are not just business goals, but personal, too. Since I work from home and I love what I do, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between work and fun, so I’m just going to include all of them. Secondly, I’ve decided to make three lists of goals, one for the month, one for the season and one for the year.  I’m just trying this out I may abandon this format, but we’ll see. Finally, this is not a strict list. I’m constantly learning to let things go and not be too terribly hard on myself if I don’t meet every goal I set. Well, I think that’s it, so here goes!

January 2011 Goals:

• Finish up my 2010 edits and designs
• Transfer all of my pc files to my new Macbook Pro! I am finally a Mac!
• Attend Genesisters!
• Update my web portfolio
• Reveal my new headshots by Simply Told Photography
• Start a new Journal
• Take more photos of my family
• Start a menu plan

 Winter 2011 Goals:

• Design and Decorate my workspace
• Read Reason for God
• Order new sample albums and books
• Do a shoot with my Brownie Box Six-20
• Purge for our church Yard Sale
• Help organize our churchYard Sale
• Paint the rest of the house
• Revamp my business (big changes, people!)
• Move to Kinston!
• Potty-train McG (yikes!)

 2011 Goals:

• Stop working when Josiah gets home
• Book 50% more weddings and 100% more portrait sessions than 2010
• Take a vaca
• Sell our house!
• Keep my inbox to 0
• Submit weddings and engagement shoots to my fave blogs, including Southern Weddings!
• Be completely organized

That’s a lot of goals! Do you have goals you set for the new year of for each month? Let’s hear them! You can do it! Type them out in the comments or send me a link to your blog. Happy New Year!



Get it Together!

Fellow Photogs, this is a totally awesome kit that will truly help you get organized. Check it out!

And here's your chance to win one!

Get it together now→win “Get It Together Kit” from @GITKIT / getittogetherkit.com at Paperie Boutique / paperieboutique.com by @shutterblog

Five Years! ∙ A Little Lindsay ∙ Eastern North Carolina Photographer

Five years ago on May 21, I married the man of my dreams.  Josiah and I were finally able to celebrate our anniversary last weekend with a trip to Charleston, South Carolina. I had never been to Charleston and a million and one people told me I would love it, including Josiah. We both have a love for historic homes. My favorite part of the trip was probably walking through the city neighborhoods admiring the restoration and upkeep of houses as old as 310 years. We went out on the town one night (something we rarely get to do). We had dinner at Mercato, which was absolutely delicious! Then we went to a little coffee bar for dessert.  It was HOT during the day and it cooled down a bit at night, but I still really wanted to jump in that fountain with all the kids. It looked so fun.

Josiah - thank you for putting off the opening weekend of the World Cup to romance me. I love you!



Spread the Word and win a $50 Gift card

So here’s the deal, I’m giving away a $50 gift card to the person who gets the most people to comment on my blog and $5 Starbucks gift cards to random commenters.

Spread the Word Prize: one $50 gift card to Ruche or Urban Outfitters (winner’s choice)

Random Prizes: $5 Starbucks gift cards

Task: get as many friends as you can to comment on any post on my blog and mention you sent them (first and last name, please!)

Winners: the person with the most comments mentioning their name wins the Spread the Word Prize and random commenters win the Random Prizes

Timeline: starts now and ends May 31, 2010 at 11:59pm.

Regulations: For the Spread the Word Prize, only one comment per email account will be counted, and for the Random Prizes, there is no limit to the number of comments. Thousands may enter, few will win. (I just had to put that in:)

Good Luck! I wish I could win one of these prizes!