Baxmeyer Family

I met up with this awesome family up in Indy a few weekends ago. What a wonderful, fun, adorable family.

Click the following image to view more from this fun session.

Hank and Dawn are Married!

What a wonderful day these two had! It was the perfect, crisp Autumn day to have an outdoor wedding.

See more images by clicking on the picture below.

Best wishes, Hank and Dawn! God bless your new journey.

Moving Right Along.

Things are starting to get super exciting at the house! When you walk in, you actually feel like you’re entering a house as opposed to an empty dry-walled box. We have new doors! We have new floors! We have paint! It’s really wonderful to see it all starting to come together.

The door front door/entry light/door hardware make such a huge difference and make the front of the house appear much more welcoming. Now, we just need to pressure wash the vinyl (hoping to eventually replace it), paint the front door and replace the old, broken shutters.

You can kind of see our front-porch view in the glass there. So pretty

I love the new doors throughout the house! They’re cute as can be.

The new window sills and casing make me want to weep with joy. No more will we have to look at those disgusting faux-marble laminate atrocities!

What do you think of the paint color? That’s the master bedroom. I *love* it. It’s not quite as dark as this picture makes it look.

So, about the flooring. Laying hardwood is hard stinking work. If you are thinking about DIYing it, sleep for about a week straight, buy some knee pads and Ben Gay and pray for a lot of patience It hasn’t really been that bad and we’ve had a lot of help, but still, it’s very, very, very hard work.

This is what we started with.

We are now finished with 5 out of 7 of the rooms in which we are laying the flooring. The hallway is finished as well! Hooray! We ordered “utility oak” flooring from Lumber Liquidators and it isn’t for the faint of heart. If you want a super smooth, knot-free, perfectly-grained wood floor, this is not the flooring for you. We love the look and are so very excited to sand, stain and seal it.

There are only sections of the the office and guest bedroom left to finish. Hooray! It’s just so exciting.

All of our rooms, aside from the bathrooms, have their first coat of paint. We still need to do some repair work and touch-ups but at least that first coat is up. I love all our colors! I can’t wait to live in them

I’ve grown so excited about our rapidly-approaching move that I’ve begun picking up decor items here and there I bought this old mirror at an antique shop down in Madison. I’m so deeply in love.

That old nail box will hold pillar candles. I’m going to cut the ugly, too-new-looking rope off because it just doesn’t “go”. Obviously, the mirror won’t be reflecting too much that will be identifiable but it will reflect light and that’s all I’m asking of it I smile every time I look at it.

And just because it’s beautiful, I want to share the following picture. There are a couple pluses to rising early enough to be at our house before daybreak. One of the pluses is this gorgeousness.

We’ll be able to see sunrise out one of our master bedroom windows. ::sigh:: I cannot wait to wake up to that sight over the next several years!

House Updates :)

I am a huge fan of progress. I love it. Right now, I’d venture to say it’s my favorite thing in the entire world

The house is taking shape! Woohoo! The drywall is finished, the walls are primed, the ceilings have a very subtle texture on them (which looks fabulous), the new doors are ordered and our project this weekend will be preparing the floors for the new rustic oak hardwoods we’ll be laying. Shooey!

In this post, I want to focus on one room in particular. The kitchen. The kitchen is the space in this house that I’m most excited about. I think it’s due to the fact that I love, love, love to cook and in the past few months I haven’t had a kitchen of my own to cook in. The kitchen is the heart of the home and I have so many plans to make this space truly personal. I touched on the kitchen a little in this post. For the most part, our plans for the room remain the same, though the green is a touch deeper and will be more rustic. You’ll just have to see

Anyhow, let’s take a quick walk down memory lane, shall we?

Here are some images of the kitchen the first time we walked through the house:

Walking into the kitchen from the front room/dining area you were greeted by a small, closed-off doorway. Upon entering the kitchen, the ceiling was dropped down to seven-foot. SEVEN! I could touch in on my tip-toes and I’m just a smidge over five-foot tall. Pure insanity, I tell ya.

The tiny kitchen felt dark and dreary, what with the low ceiling and super dark cabinetry. Notice the half wall that opened up to the family room ’round back. Why? Why would it open up to a family room and not the dining room? It defies logic.

The view from inside the kitchen to the dining room. Notice all that light getting blocked by the wall? So sad.

From the prior kitchen post (link posted above) you can see a little of what it looked like while we were still knocking down and moving walls That was FUN!

And now, the kitchen looks like this:

Here is the view into the kitchen from the dining room. We cut down the full wall that was between the dining room and kitchen, blew out the doorway all together and left it wide open and raised the ceiling to the proper eight-foot height. We also installed a full wall between the kitchen and back family room because, well, that makes actual sense The fridge will reside on that wall. We also borrowed about two-foot of space from the family room. You can tell in the kitchen (it feels giant!!!) but cannot tell in the family room. LOVE.

Can you handle all that yummy light?! Woohoo! The stove will reside on this wall. There will be a small bar-top on this wall for additional seating when we have guests. I looooove this. Look how BRIGHT it is!

I’m sorry I can’t provide a view of the sink wall in the kitchen. I had the incorrect lens on my camera Sorry! I cannot WAIT to post pictures of the finished kitchen. It’s going to look amazing if it turns out like the image in my head

Another addition to the kitchen will be a little island This island has a very special story and a very special look and you’re just going to have to wait to find out what that’s all about This special island needs lots of special love to be use-able and I’m still working on that. I’ll have a lighted pot rack over the island and I’m stoked about that. If you have any copper pots or come across any that you don’t mind snatching up, I’ll buy ‘em from ya. The more well-used, the better. I like character. My only stipulation is that they must be able to be used on the cook-top. We’re trying to minimize “stuff” in our house so we want to try and make sure everything has a purpose other than collecting dust.

Here’s a peek at the ceilings, too! I’ll have an updated pic soon. They’ve been painted since this photo and they look AWESOME! I’m so excited to have ceilings that aren’t marred with nail-pops, visible seams and joist-lines. Hooray!

I know I can’t get away with so many blog posts without posting some recent ones of the Tedster, so here you go.

Here he is at the new house, hanging out on the front porch.

And here is, bugging mommy while she tried to get work done! The greatest thing about working at home is the fact that I can wear pj’s all.day.long and no one can enforce a dress code Except me. And I won’t.

Is he not the most forlorn creature you’ve ever seen? Hehe. I love him to pieces.

JC Photography – Session Rundown

This post should prove to be slightly mortifying, as it will reveal just how far behind I am in blog-land. Below, I will be posting my most recent sessions, in the order in which they were taken. I cannot, cannot, cannot believe there are seventeen sessions to post! Each image will be linked to the Facebook album containing more images from that session. While you’re visiting the Facebook albums, become a fan If you want to, of course.

First, we have little Andrew. He’s such a sweet little guy! I’ve known his momma for a few years so it was great to get to know her little family.

Next up was Baby Briar. This little cutie patootie lives out in the country with his momma, daddy and two brothers. Oh so sweet!

Devin and I got together to celebrate his love of baseball. What a great kid!

Tabitha, who works with my lovely mother-in-law, Sandy, contacted me for some extended-family pictures. Such a bunch of adorable, adventurous girls!

Lexi is a fantastic young lady. She’s super athletic and super kind. Up for anything, she was wonderful to work with, if you can call what I do “work”

Shauna and I have known one another for a few years now and it was wonderful to get together as she and her husband, Shawn, were preparing to welcome their baby girl.

I got a chance to work with Levi, Erin and Madison again! I love this family and cannot wait for their wedding here at the end of the month.

Debbie commissioned me to capture her daughters and son-in-law. What a great group of young adults! We had a great time.

Sarah, a friend of mine, and her husband Jeremy recently welcomed twin boys into their family. It was a joy meeting her little guys!

I got to work with my dear, dear, dear friend Amanda and her boys. It’s always wonderful to hang out with them! I can’t believe her little Gabe is getting so big.

Hank and Dawn… such a sweet, sweet, perfect couple! They were married this past weekend (more on that later ) and it was beautiful, just like them.

This family was wonderful to work with! Christine contacted me to photograph her extended family as an anniversary gift to her parents – gladly!

Jodi is a senior here in my hometown. I loved our session at her family farm, such a beautiful place and a beautiful client! Best of luck, Jodi.

Kelli and Jed were married on the last day in July. It was a beautiful and incredibly moving wedding! I can’t wait to photograph these two again.

Miss Maya blessed Shawn and Shauna just a couple weeks after we had their maternity session. What a precious baby girl. She was the most alert newborn I’ve ever photographed! So sweet.

Baby Olivia was welcomed by her parents, Kelley and Jake. Jake was deployed in the same brigade as Abe so Kelley was a constant source of strength and support for me I’m so happy for these two!

And to wrap things up, we have Grant and Tana. They are such a sweet couple and Tana’s kids are wonderful! I hope the best for this beautiful group of people.