Her morning snack...

I was just on the phone and when I got off I found Mia in the kitchen like this:

She was in the kitchen eating Ovaltine by the spoonfuls!!! As you can see on her face she ate quite a bit of it. Glad I had my camera handy :)

I guess I had better go to the store and get this kid some milk to go with her "cocoa"!

Our trip to Lubbock....

I took so many pictures that I figured this would be the easiest way to show them......

We had so much fun:

1. seeing old friends

2. eating, eating and more eating

3. feeding the ducks at the park

4. JUST HANGING OUT!

Another one....

Here is another page that I just finished. I have found a new way to procrastinate AND get something done at the same time. :)

paper and info tag from www.designerdigitals.com

the notebook paper I scanned in myself.....I'm really getting into this!

My first digital scrapbook page....

My friend Samantha has inspired me to give digital scrapping a try. Here is my first shot at it using the photos I shared a couple days ago.
I have to say...I think I may be hooked. I really love traditional scrapping, because I like the messiness of it. The paint and the paper and the rub-ons........I REALLY love the rub-ons!! Although, this method was SO easy and didn't take very long and I didn't even have anything to clean up afterward. I may actually be able to catch up on our family story this way. I am considering making a coffee table book of digi-pages from Mia's second year. I will still do some regular scrapping with some of my favorite pictures, but I would really like to get some of the pictures and stories from the past year in print!


So here it it........What do you think?


By the way......I downloaded the paper for free at www.twopeasinabucket.com and I got the brush surrounding "snow day" at www.designerdigitals.com
I created the snowflake brush myself from a clipart snowflake. The fonts are Butterbrotpapier and Times New Roman. The journaling is from my blog entry accompaning these pictures.

Tomorrow....

Mia and I are off on an adventure. Just the two of us. We are going to Lubbock to LCU's 50th anniversary homecoming weekend. We are going to hang out with the girls (Rachel, my college roommate, and her daughter Kelsey) and see some old friends. I haven't seen some of these friends in years! I can't wait to introduce Mia to them. I will have my camera in hand of course so will be sharing once I return.

In the meantime, think of me tomorrow around 1:00 as I fly with a 2 year old alone for the first time. It is only an hour flight, and she will be in her carseat, but still I'm a little nervous.

Well, I'm off to pack clothes and the bag for the plane with lots of goodies to keep us busy!

By the way...I have updated my website with new pictures and a new shopping cart for my photo jewelry. It is not completely finished (still a few items to add) but still functional!
Go check it out:
www.cindymillsphotography.com

It snowed....

Not for long, but it did snow at our house this morning. From the time I noticed it to the time I could get Mia dressed and out the door it had almost completely stopped. If you look very close you can see a few snow streaks in the background of these pictures. At least I finally got Mia to put on her cute hat! She was super excited about the snow even if it wasn't much. Now we are inside staying warm. Hope you are all staying warm too. Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Bad blogger, but I have an excuse.....

O.k., O.k. I know I haven't posted in .......well awhile. I do have excuses though. And the main one is that I have been running. Well, mostly walking really fast, but I have actually been running some too. We got ourselves a treadmill for Christmas and I have been using it every other day since. So far I have lost 2 lbs. Too bad that I gained 3 over the holidays. Thanks for the GIANT TIN of Christmas candy mom!! I'm pretty sure that is where the 3 lbs. came from. It was TOTALLY worth it too.

Also, I am proud to announce that as of today I have not had a Dr. Pepper for 1 week! I have had a Dt. DP, but that doesn't count.

Anyway, since I haven't posted in awhile here is one of Mia with her birthday "cake" and I will post more Christmas pics soon.....I promise.

2 years ago....

.....at 4:52 pm Mia was born. She was 7lb. 2.8 ozs. and 20 inches long. I can't believe it has already been 2 whole years, but on the other hand it seems like she has ALWAYS been with us. It's hard to remember our family without her. Mia has always been a very busy kid. As a photographer I have learned that taking pictures during the first two weeks of life is best because the newborn will still curl up and snuggle. Not Mia! We tried to take her pictures at exactly 1 week and she wiggled so much we only got 1 good one! She was already pushing with her feet trying to move forward. She started crawling at 4 1/2 months and pulling up at 7months. Mia took her first steps at 9 1/2 months and she hasn't stopped moving since. I tried VERY hard to get a picture of her this morning and she was NOT happy about it at all. I got one decent one but might try again later. She runs from me everytime she sees the camera now. Maybe I'll get a great birthday pic next year!

Here she is on her birthday less than an hour old.


Mia on her 1st birthday........Queen for a day.


This morning........The big TWO!


We are off tomorrow to visit my parents. Have a Great NEW YEAR.

An early Christmas present......

Remember the family that I took maternity portraits of last month???? Well, here is the newest member of their beautiful family. He is just the sweetest baby. I know they are really excited to see a some of the pictures since they are going to have to wait until after Christmas to see all their pictures so here are just a few.......

Dad and baby........one of my favorites :) Ha ha.

Mom and baby by the tree

The whole family snuggling.....

and the one we waited, and waited and held our breath and were oh so still and quite until WE GOT IT!!!!!

Totally worth it!!!!!

There are so many more that they are just going to LOVE, but I can't show them all. It will give the family something to look forward to after the wrapping paper and bows have all been thrown away.

And since I have a few minutes to share.........here are some of my little one (who is not so little anymore) These are from last weekend, but I haven't gotten a chance to post these until today.

Getting the tree

at our church Christmas party.......Mia getting her first tattoo....aaahhh!

Mia waiting patiently to see Santa

meeting Santa......still happy.

but when it came down to it, Mia was not all that happy to meet Santa this year!! This one is priceless!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Run, Rachel, Run.......

My college roommate came to visit us this past weekend. She was here to run in the White Rock Lake Half Marathon. I had the honor of taking her and documenting the day for her and her friend Lauren. I am SO proud of Rachel for doing this. She really makes me want to run it with her. The beginning of the race was really exciting, with confetti and the national anthem complete with a jet fly over. Here are some pictures from the day. Way to go Rachel and Lauren!!!

Synchronize your IPODS

Just minutes before the start of the race

Crossing the finish line.....in under 2 1/2 hours. Great job!!

The medals. Don't they look great for having just run 14 miles?

The proverbial frost on the pumpkin.....

Texas weather is so weird! Yesterday it was 80 degrees and now it's sleeting. I just had to get one more pic of my pumpkin before it turns to frozen mush. Notice this year I put it on the concrete which will force me to remove it before it thaws into a slimy mush. Some of you may remember last year's pumpkin's which literally rotted into our flower bed. I like to decorate, but I don't like the clean up. Which is why when we finally get our Christmas tree up it will probably still be there until mid-January. I have lots to do so I'd better stop procrastinating and GET TO WORK!

This is going to be a big one.......

For Thanksgiving Day we went down to visit my parents in the Hill Country at their deer processing place. Here are just some random pictures I took while we were there. I had planned on making a mini book about our whole Thanksgiving vacation, but I'm missing half the vacation. We spent Sat. with Saylor's family and I had the camera IN THE CAR and didn't take ONE photo. I am so mad at myself. Shellee and I did have a great time shopping in downtown McKinney though...........Maybe I can draw pictures of everyone for that part of the book. Ha ha. That would be funny. Oh well.....on to the pictures I DO have.

Mia Cheesing for the Camera

My Sweet Mom

My Goofy Dad....can you belive Mom puts up with him? :)

My brother....Ed.....there's a better one later......sortof better I guess.

Saylor and Mia pole dancing????? Mia LOVED this big area to "walk".

The Star of the Show........The TURKEY!!!!

and making the stuffing.........

Mia "eating"......this is the most she ate the whole time we were there and she was just pretending in this picture.

Mia's Great Aunt............I mean my Aunt Rena. She's not old enough to be a GREAT AUNT.

Rena's youngest.......My cousin Brandon. He looks so grown up to me now! He also bears a striking resemblance to the guy in the next picture...

My goofy brother Ed.......If you want to know why he is this way see the picture of my Dad above. :)

and my Granny Davis. It was nice to have her there for a holiday!

And after lunch because there is not much to do and Cara (my cousin) and I had some time to do our favorite things.........She modeled and I photographed her.

The rest of the maternity from a few posts ago...

Just wanted to share these. I'm really proud of them.....and the good news is the family loved them too. They were full of praise over these and it really felt great and just makes me LOVE THIS JOB!
Here is the rest of their gallery:
www.cindymillsphotography.com/ross

A family....

These were last Sunday at the Arboretum. I really love the Arboretum for pictures. There are SO many great spots to take them. This family was fun. Each of the kids had such different personalities as you can see from their individuals below. I really enjoyed the one on one pictures with the kids. I usually photograph toddlers and infants and it was so refreshing to work with some older kids in the last few weeks.
Well, that's all for now I have so much editing to do it's not even funny! I hope to be all caught up after the Thanksgiving holidays though. If I can just make it until Wed. then I will be in the clear!

*click to see larger






I really love this one. It TOTALLY shows that misheviousness of a 6 year old. I think I really captured his personality in this one. I hope mom and dad love it because I do!