Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 13th anniversary. I'm married to the most wonderful person who is a great husband and dad. We've been very blessed. On a side note...don't you love the early 90's hair! I'm sure glad that I don't have to maintain that style anymore.

Uggh.....

OK...here's the facts

1. I don't like what the scales have to say to me


2. I've paid a monthly fee for Weight Watchers for over a year now with no change in weight


3. I made Monkey bread today and I knew better. (For the record, it was delicious)


4. I've felt yucky all day long

(For the record, Weight Watchers will work, but you have to do more than just pay the monthly fee. I pretty sure you have to eat right and exercise as well)

So here we go

1. Tomorrow is New Years Eve. I will enjoy myself, but not to excess.


2. The weight bench will be cleared off in the garage


3. Tuesday we will be eating in a different manner.


4. The leftover Christmas goodies are being tossed!

So for those of you out there nodding in agreement, come join me! :) For those who can eat whatever they want and not have a daily argument with the scales....I'm sticking my tongue out at you right now, but I still like you. :)

Christmas Roundup

Merry Christmas

And an angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" --Luke 2:10-11

Merry Christmas everyone! We'll update after Christmas.

Too much time on my hands

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Ho..Ho..Ho..

Tonight was the last night of Awana for the year. The kids were wired! Our Cubbie class had only boys and one lone little girl. After the Cubbies were done with their crafts, we started pulling in the little ones to do crafts with their footprints. So I had to have a snapshot with one of my favorite little girls - Little Ali. She always makes me smile.

My Crafty Friend

I wanted to post some of the latest creations by my craft guru friend, Lisa. She made the cutest frame that had Colts gear on it for us. Then last week during Mom's group she made footprints of all the kids and took them home and decorated them up like Christmas trees. She's so creative. I've copied off of her on the frame for some Christmas presents. For some reason mine don't look quite as smooth as hers. :)

Snowy Saturday

We got a few inches of snow this morning. Right now it has stopped, but there may be more coming in later. Aaron's out front building something out of it. We went out and did a little shopping while it was snowing. I thought I was being stupid for getting out in it, but then I discovered most of Hendricks County was out being stupid with me! Oh well, I'm done for the day. I think we'll cook some of the ham that Dusty got for Christmas and watch "The Nativity Story" on DVD tonight.

O KitchenAid....O KitchenAid

So I jumped the gun and bought an early Christmas gift for myself. I've been wanting one of these for a while. Made a batch of chocolate chip cookies earlier today. A word of warning....if you put in the flour and then jack the mixer up to medium, you will have a cloud of flour in your kitchen! Never had that problem with the hand mixer. Next I may try a batch of divinity.

**UPDATE - Tried the divinity - Crashed and burned! It had the consistancy of spackle when I was through with it. Funny think is, we ate it anyway. But at least today's fudge turned out better. :)

O Christmas Tree...O Christmas Tree

I give you the Hackney family Christmas tree. I thought about getting a real tree this year, but we're going to be going home for Christmas a little earlier than usual this year. So the artificial tree will have to do. You will also notice that there are no packages under it. Still working on shopping! I also don't have any decorations outside yet. Maybe some lights on the porch and bushes.

Aaron came home sick from school today with a stomach ache. I forgot my cell phone at home and the school had to call Dusty. He was up in Carmel taking a class and had to leave early to get Aaron, then he had to go into work at 7PM to fix a problem. It's been a long day. Aaron was feeling fine by this evening, so I'm sure he'll be back to school tomorrow.

Home Stretch!

One more day and I'll be into my self-imposed photo break! I really like taking portraits for people, but I need a break. :) Tomorrow (actually later today, I just noticed that it was after midnight) I'll place the last photo print order before Christmas. Then I need to get going on shopping. I haven't got a whole lot done in that area. I also need to get the cards in the mail and look up some good Christmas cookie recipes. We had 5-6 inches of snow fall on Wednesday and Thursday and it is about gone. Just been a lot of rain this weekend. Saturday and Sunday evening was our church's Christmas dinner theater. I took family photos to help raise money for the youth group's Mexico mission trip next year. This is our choir all decked out for the dinner theater. I know they put a lot of work into their costumes and they all looked great!

Just to make you smile

Here's one of my favorite subjects again. Allison always makes the sweetest little photo. She's just a ray of sunshine. I was supposed to take some baby photos today, but Rachel woke up saying that her stomach hurt and all she wants to do is cuddle. So we moved the photos to Saturday. Maybe I can get caught up on my housework and Christmas decorating. I'm pathetically behind.

This week brought to you by...CAFFEINE

That's right....caffeine! I think it's what is going to get me through this week. Diet Dr. Pepper, coffee, whatever works. Tonight turned into 3 family Christmas shoots. I set all the equipment up at our church and just had everyone come to me. It was a lot easier that way. My friend Lisa and her family were first up. When Lisa got there I asked her if she wanted something somewhat formal looking or casual. "Oh", she said, "we are definately casual. You haven't seen Julio yet." In walked her husband, Julio with a red T-shirt that looked like a Santa outfit and it said, "Does this shirt make me look fat?" Never in a hundred years would I have thought she would have got him to wear that!! For those of you who know Julio, imagine his voice and accent. For those who don't, try to imagine a Mexican accent. Julio said, "I look like a sausage." It was too funny!

Christmas Rush - Part 2

More....more...more photos! I've got at least 2 more shoots on Tuesday. If I can keep up with the edits then I should be home free by the 10th! :) I couldn't resist playing around with some I took tonight of a family in our church. I've discovered that every kid likes to jump around!

The Christmas Rush

I'm in the midst of the last minute flurry of photos before Christmas. I'm going to try to wrap them up by December 10th. Last night I took my friend Christina and her family. Her daughter Avalyn is one of the hardest little kids to get a smile out of. At one point she bent over and her brother Garrison dropped his head and Gary & Christina looked down at them. I had to laugh when I looked at the photo, because it was almost as if they were all praying to be done with the photos. The kids were getting tired of me by this point. :)

Family Favorites

So we live around Indianapolis...therefore we cheer for the Colts. Dusty's brother Joel lives in Illinois...he cheers for the Bears. I couldn't resist taking this photo of both of them with their daughters. Just remember who won last year's Super Bowl!!! Truth be told Joel would have preferred to be in a Cowboys shirt. :)

Here's one of my favorites that I took of Makenna and Joel.

Thanksgiving Wrapup

Back from Thanksgiving in Illinois

• Hours in car (round trip) - 6.5


• Happy Meals ate - 2


• Bags of trash taken out of car - 1


• Tanks of gas - 2


• Thanksgiving dinners - 2


• Football games won by the Colts - 1


• Desserts ate - Won't admit to it :)


• Photos taken - 145 (Took Makenna's baby pictures)


• Friends from high school run into at Dimaggio's in Flora - 3


• Times I heard "The Incredibles" from the back seat of the car - 2


• Days until we leave for Illinois for Christmas - 27

Aaron's Friends

Since Rachel's friends got a mention last week, I need to include Aaron's friends. This is Aaron and his friend Nathan. Nathan live down the street and they spend quite a bit of time together. Nathan's family could probably use Aaron as a tax write-off during the summer since he's there so much. After this nice posed photo they proceeded to do mock Kung-Fu fighting for me to photograph!

Back from Nashville

My friend Sarah and I spent 3 days in Nashville, TN this week at the National Women's Ministry Forum. I really enjoyed the speakers and I picked up a lot of great ideas for our ministry at Hope. I got to hear from Kay Arthur, Shaunti Feldhahn, and several other authors. It was nice to get away for a while and since Mom stayed with the kids while I was gone, the house looked great when I got back! THANKS MOM!!! I don't think Sarah was quite as lucky. :)

I'm taking family photos for a friend from church tonight and then I should have a break for a little while. We'll be leaving for Illinois on Wednesday evening. The only downfall - we won't be around here for all the after Thanksgiving sales. Aaron is going to buy a Nintendo DS with his money and he's heard that they are going on sale on Friday. I think the plan is for Dusty and Aaron to go to the Wal-mart in Charleston, IL early on Friday. Then it's off to Flora on Friday to see Dusty's family. It will be good to see baby neice, Makenna. I'm sure she's growing fast. Well I'm off to edit photos. Have a great weekend!

Full House!

I took family photos for my good friend Dacia this evening. Dacia and Brad have 5 kids: Jackson - 3 1/2, Gabrielle and Connor - 2, & Brady & Cooper - 1 month. That's right, 2 sets of twins! Needless to say, we were hopping. They're a great family and I had a fun time. I think we may have even snapped a few where everyone was looking at me. Here's a couple from this evening.

Rachel's Friends

There are quite a few kids at church that are Rachel's age. She loves to go to church and play with her friends. This is Rachel and her friend Hayden. We watched the Colts game Sunday at the Painter's and Rachel and Hayden were both decked out in Colts gear. They made a cute little team. We have Mom's group every Tuesday morning and Rachel always talks about playing with friends. I would sing silly songs about "all my friends" when I was getting her ready in the morning. Now on Tuesdays she dances around and sings, "All my friends....gonna party...party!" Sometimes it sounds like she's saying, "gonna potty....potty". I really wish she would! I bet my friends with the toddlers would agree.

We tried to wear big girl underwear today since we were going to be home. After making it to the potty once, we had to deal with a spectacular mess that required many wipes to clean up! After that the diapers came back out. I need a new approach.

A couple more pics

Here are a couple of my favorites from the last week. The first is Ben, who's a member of my church and is a senior this year. I had a little fun with the photo. I don't usually get to do edgier things like this with the little kids. :) Then there is Lauren. She's my friend Sarah's daughter. I think it's representative of her personality. She's usually in a laughing, giggling mood. I'm working on getting used to the indoor lights. I'm still learning a few things, but I'm pleased with the results so far. It will be fun to be able to take photos all winter and not have to rely on the natural light.

Today I'm trying to get caught up on laundry! It just keeps coming. I've also been switching out the warm weather clothes for the long sleeves. Aaron has been requesting a pair of gloves for the past 2 days. I finally got them down out of the attic. Well I heard the dryer turn off; time for the next round. :)

A Birthday Party and Photo "Free-for-All"

Monday was Mom's birthday. Her and dad came over and we chowed down on pizza and cheesecake. Later I set up my new lights and backdrop to practice and play around. Here are a few shots from the evening. Mostly it was a "free-for-all" with the kids running through the room and me snapping them when I could. We did manage to get them to hold still for a few shots, but just for a few. (I need to remember to iron out the muslin backdrop before the next time!)

Baby Makenna Kate

We got to go to Illinois and see Makenna yesterday. She sure is a pretty little thing! Makenna, or as Rachel calls her "Baby 'Akenna" came home from the hospital yesterday. She and her mom are both doing well. She's sure to be the hit of the family Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Pictures...Pictures...Pictures

I've been busy taking fall photos lately. I counted it up and I will have had 15 different photo shoots in the last 2 weeks. They are mostly for families in our church. Everyone wants a photo while the leaves look nice. This one is one of my favorites. This is my friend Heather's daughter, Allison. She has a smile for everyone. You can't help but be in a good mood when you see her cute little face! Her brother J.J. usually just looks at me as if to say, "Oh...it's you with the camera again". But he did great and we got some fun photos of them both. We're off to Illinois tomorrow to see our new neice.

A New Hackney

We have a new neice! Dusty's brother, Joel an his wife Sarah are the proud parents of a baby girl. Makenna Kate Hackney was born at 4:24 PM today and weighed 7 lbs and measured 18 3/4 inches long. Rachel is excited about going to see her new baby cousin on Saturday. She was helping me pick out some gifts for the baby earlier today.

The Pirate & Cow!

After much debate and thought, Aaron settled on being a pirate for Halloween. Fortunately his good friend, Nathan was a pirate last year and still had the gear! This came in handy as Aaron made this decision on Monday evening! Rachel was going to be a Colts cheerleader, but we found this cow outfit in some clothes that were given to us and she loved putting it on and running around the house saying, "I a cow....Mooooooo!" We did a quick turn about the neighborhood with our friends, the Painter's and then headed to church for Trunk or Treating and then Awana. Lots of fun.....Lots of candy. Let the rationing begin!