The Erwins: O' pumpkin pie, your time has come 'round again and I am autumnrifically happy!

So I apologize once again on the severe delay in my posting J I really have a gap this time! I’ve just been so busy these past couple months and so when I actually thought about posting and went to look at my last one I was kinda surprised how long it has been! So I figured I’d better get one out of the way before the holidays and I get even more behind! (Although I'm writing this as we travel and I left all our pictures on our other computer so this might not post til after we get home :)

Let’s see…after Evelyn’s birthday one thing we did was go pick out pumpkins and carve them! We were gonna go to the farm nearby and do the hayride like we did last year but the day Mark had off they were closed so we just went to one of the nearby churches that brings them in every year and got some there instead. I was pretty pleased with our pumpkins this year, they turned out pretty cool! I found both Mark’s design and mine online and really loved them. Unfortunately the days after we carved were pretty wet so they went bad realllly quick. Super gross.

Next up was Halloween! I went pretty simple with the kiddos this year and Evelyn went as a “nice witch”, I made her tutu and then she just wore a hat, leggings, and shirt with it, and I found Andrew a sweatsuit/skeleton costume…which I thought would be easy to find, and they were, but only for little babies! So I finally found this one at a consignment sale and luckily it fit him at Halloween. He was so excited to go around with the big kids though and had so much fun! He really think he’s such a big boy and can do anything the big kids can. It’s so cute!

One of the bigger things we’ve done since my last post was take a little family vacation to Myrtle Beach! Mark had a long weekend for Veteran’s Day so we decided to take the time to get out of town and do something different. I originally wanted to go up to Asheville and do stuff up there but it was just gonna be too expensive and the drive was much longer so we just found a hotel/resort place in Myrtle Beach that had a nice indoor pool/water park area and was on the beach and enjoyed a nice relaxing time away from home!

We went to the aquarium one morning which was fun although smaller than I expected. Then we spend time at the beach, walked around some of the nearby areas, and spent time at the pool. So not the most thrilling/exciting vacation but still nice. Evelyn had a lot of fun and has asked to go back so I’m gonna take that as a successful vacation. J

They had trees decorated for every state throughout the aquarium, this is the Missouri tree :)

kinda creepy to have these big sharks swimming above your head... :)

view from our room! :)

she ate pretty good with chopsticks! I was impressed anyway

Mark turned her into a mermaid :)

enjoying some deeelicccious ice cream!

TOO CUTE!

Feeding the birds!

Evelyn was too scared though so she threw some bread down from the bridge instead

He likes to use our flip flops to dig

As for day to day, Mark has been busy with his usual work stuff. Evelyn has her preschool 3 days a week and then dance once a week still and is loving both. They had a parent watch day (we don’t get to watch every class period which kinda sucks but I get to run errands while she’s in there so that’s nice J ) so that was fun. She was super cute and did really good! She got a little “report card” that day and she had good remarks and only had a lower one on rhythm or something…basically timing issues really…which I did notice during the class that she had everything down but she was ahead of the beat/other girls. So yeah, she’s doing great though! Her Christmas recital is in December so I’m excited to see her on stage.

Andrew is keeping me busy cuz he’s getting into everything but he’s really a good boy and I’m so grateful he’s good at entertaining himself, especially while Evelyn’s at school, cuz I can get a lot done! He’s so adorable and fun though.

she's sooo cute and sooo funny when she dances...especially at home

he already loves to rough around with dad!

Andrew LOVES to sit at the table like a big boy :)

putting 'em to work!

Andrew loves the slide but only goes down on his tummy...

it's pretty cute

although his leg got caught this time

he doesn't care though!

being a big boy!

snooping in the pantry cabinet...I had to get a latch after this...

It randomly snowed one night so the kids went out for a minute

he wasn't quite sure what to do though :)

this was just Andrew being silly one night...

he was being so funny and cute!

more cleaning! they really like to clean this window :)

trying to be an even bigger boy and eating with a fork! not very sucessfully though :)

As for me, I’ve had a busy couple months like I said! Between the day to day stuff with kids and church stuff and the increase in pictures I’ve been taking…I haven’t had a ton of free time! I’ve been taking a lot of pictures for my friend Kelly still…a lot of Homecomings, which are fun, and then this past month I’ve been doing quite a few other sessions for her cuz her other girl up here has been out of town. So super nice for me! I’ve done quite a few family sessions for her as well as a maternity, a couples session, and a 9 month old session. I’ve also done quite a few family sessions for myself with the holiday picture season upon us J.

And then the biggest picture happening for me is I did my first wedding in October! I can’t remember if I mentioned anything on here before or not but a co-worker/friend of Mark’s (I actually did their engagement pictures) got married in October and had a photographer but a month before the wedding backed out so they were kinda freaking out and asked me to do it. I was a bit hesitant at first, mainly cuz that’s just such a bigger undertaking than a family session in many ways…timewise, editing wise, planning…lots more pressure cuz it’s one of those moments you either get or don’t get and you can’t really redo J.

Anywho, so I thought about it for a couple days and finally said yes and really am glad I did. I very luckily got a friend from church to second shoot for me and together we did a really good job! I’m super happy with how everything turned out anyway so I’m pleased with myself. Still not gonna go out and make weddings my main focus or anything cuz they are pretty stressful and I got super lucky and had a really low-key/low-stress wedding for my first one and I know they definitely are not all like that. But at least I have that experience now and know that I can do it if I’m ever asked to do a wedding again…WHICH I actually am gonna shoot my second one in December! J My friend Kelly that I work for, has a best friend, Melissa, up here that does videography for weddings so they team up a lot and do weddings together, the photos and video…anyway, I’ve met Melissa and have seen her around a lot and really like. Anywho, she contacted me the other day about a small/intimate wedding (like there’s only gonna be 12-15 people total with the bride and groom) that she’s doing video for and needed a photographer so she asked me and I’m gonna do it! I’m super glad it’s gonna be so small though. Definitely seems like less pressure/stressful.

Here's a few collages of pics from the wedding :)

SO yeah! That along with my YW calling at church and then the little projects I throw in for myself here and there…I’ve been busy! It’s good though, makes time go by and I feel pretty productive! I know that next year is gonna be super different so I’m really glad for all the pictures I’ve been able to do lately.

Here's our Family pics this year...I know almost everyone has seen these already or gotten our card but they're so cute! My friend who shot at the wedding with me took them and I love them!

The kids didn't cooperate enough that day to get one of the two of them so I took them out one day myself and took some pics in the cotton fields...which I've been dying to do cuz they're so pretty!!! Nothing has worked out to do anyone's pics there though so I used my two favorite models. :) Doesn't hurt to have more pics of your kids! I love how they turned out though, even though they still weren't cooperating together so I only got the one good shot but that's all you need sometimes! Evelyn was great though and I got some awesome shots of her...she's just growing up too fast though!