I’ve been working through my bucket-list of shoots so to speak. There are different types of shoot I’ve wanted to do to push creativity and build my portfolio. In this session I wanted to play with motion and dance. Thankfully I was blessed to work with a fabulous local dancer and she can really catch some air. Enjoy!
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In the slow season at the beginning of the year, I take time to create. I like to push myself to experiment with photography and grow my craft.
I also spend that time mentoring, hosting workshops and mini styled shoots. It’s always fun to get together with other creatives and talk about tips and tricks. Growing within a community is far better than trying to grow alone.
This session was a fun one, and almost didn’t happen due to Texas and it’s crazy weather. The sun came out and really showed off which really set the scene for a dreamy background to such this precious couples love story.
Here are a few of my favorites from the evening. Enjoy!
Wow. First off Hello! There are way more of you reading this blog then I anticipated. I knew for sure my momma would read it (thanks mom) but there are so many more of you that showed your support and excitement as well so thanks!
Have you ever thought something, or said something out loud maybe to a friend or spouse that is so definite that you immediately think “I hope I don’t regret this later.”? Like so matter of fact, decision made, no chance of changing my mind statement that God kinda chuckles and probably thinks “is that so?”. You know, like famous last words?
My husband had one of those moments when we were pregnant with our 2nd child. At our gender ultrasound we were told it was a boy, we picked out a boy name, got rid of the girl clothes and moved forward in that direction. After our second ultrasound (again confirming “it’s a boy”) I said to him “maybe we should pick a girls name, you know, just in case.” His famous last words were… “Deb they don’t get this stuff wrong. We don’t need a girls name”. A few weeks later, a bad April fools joke and a c section later .. SURPRISE It’s a girl!
That’s really a story for another day though. Today we are talking about my most recent (I have them a lot, I should really know better by now) famous last words.
My husband and I have been married for 11 years now. We’ve been through the ringer a time or two and it’s taken us 11 years to finally buy and purchase our first house. It took a lot of work, several side hustles and a great support system to finally get us to a place where we were ready. In 2017 we moved into a rental house in Texas that, at the time, fit our family perfectly. Budget, size, yard and a fireplace made it the perfect little space for our family. As the years progressed our kids grew which meant the space they occupied needed to grow as well. They joined sports which meant sports gear. They are close in age, which means they get in fights sometimes and just needed to be separated. Plus given our cajun background our house is always a revolving door of friends and family coming over for food, football or an afternoon chat. Basically… we out grew the house.
Like somewhat responsible adults my husband and I put together a time frame, budget and set goals to prepare for buying our first house. After months of working on our credit score and window shopping online for what we wanted in a house, the day came in September of 2020 where we were finally ready to start visiting houses. We set out with 5 houses on our list and a great realtor. The first one we visited was at the top of our list and before we even walked out of it, it was already a no. We saw a three more contenders that were nice but we would definitely be settling. There was one more on the list (and i’m sure you can see where this is going) that my husband was really excited for. I didn’t even want to go look at it. It didn’t have a fireplace (yes even in Texas its a big deal to me) and it was missing several other things I knew we needed but regardless, he wanted to look at it. My response “We can go, but I can tell you it’s already a no for me”
FAMOUS. LAST. WORDS.
We walked in viewed the house and then stood in the kitchen with our realtor to go over specs and I knew I’d regret my famous last words. I’m a very visual person so standing there at the island I could visualize the kids running around getting ready for school, or a football game on in the living room and friends gathered round for a birthday party. It was missing a fireplace and some quirkiness (it was very builder grade, cookie cutter) but I knew it would be ours. I’m not quit sure who wrote up the listing for the house because they missed 2 KEY elements. Neither the upstairs game room nor the office where listed and both of those things where big “NEEDS” on my list. Regardless we walked out and made an offer. Over the next few days we consulted a few people and had a few professional (and parental) inspections and everything fell into place.
In December of 2020 we moved in and celebrated Christmas in our new house! I say ALLLLLLLL that to say, we’re working on the character of the home. Like I mentioned before it was a very cookie cutter/builder grade style house. Over the last few months we have already made small changes that have totally changed the look and feel of the house. I started posting pictures and stories of it on my Instagram and the response was overwhelming. So many of you had questions and comments about the changes we were making. Many of those comments were “you should start a blog” and look … here we are.
So thats a little back story behind how my famous last words turned into buying our dream house and now getting to do fun things like painting 2 bathroom walls for 6 hours and still not being finished. Or painting and entire room black (yes I really did that and I LOVE it). All those stories will be coming don’t worry.
Until then… enjoy this fun photo of me and my crazy crew in front the house I didn’t think I wanted but God knew would be perfect for us.
P.S. Mom thanks for the Turkey you cooked and brought us for turkey sandwiches the first night in our new house. An easier meal has never been cooked in our house since.
Well here we are…. again. It’s been a while but, I’ve started getting a ton of request.
“Start a blog” they say. “You’ll do great” they say. Well before I officially start let me give you a bit of a back story an introduction and I guess a disclaimer as well.
I’ve tried this before… not just once but a few times. I’ve enjoyed it, writing is something I like to do, but it’s a struggle for me. See I’m dyslexic and writing, spelling and even grammar are a struggle for me. Putting thoughts into words sometimes makes me feel vulnerable and afraid that what I’m trying to say doesn’t come across right. Most the time I write something out and then it never sees the light of day because I worry about things like if I’ve missed punctuation, did I spell the wrong word and it auto correct to something totally different then what I mean, is my writing just really one long run on sentence (like this one). It’s a struggle. The anxiety is real. The thing is often I write like I talk. It’s a reflection of my brain and I guess putting it out there for the world to read and see can be scary. I often think what if I come across as stupid and then why would anyone really want to hear what I have to say. Yet here I am… cause well some of you have asked (and continually encouraged) me to get back to it.
For those of you who may have stumbled across this, or are new here let me tell you a bit about myself. My name is Debby. I’m a wife and mother of three littles that are 7,6,5 (yes it’s as exhausting as it sounds at times.) a coffee and F.R.I.E.N.D.S fanatic and I’m a photographer here at HillsCreativeCo. Sometimes I like to refer to myself as a creative soul because even though I’ve done photography the longest I do A LOT of other creative things. I currently work part time as a social media manager and a graphic designer for a church nearby. On my off time I’m either reading a David Baldachi book, exploring a local trail or national park or redoing a room in our new house. We spend Saturday’s at the Farmers Market or the local waterpark in the summer and well life is never boring.
So here we are. That’s a little bit about me. I don’t think it’s all that exciting, in fact some of it is a little embarrassing, but what is the point in sharing one’s world if the sharer isn’t transparent. I mean who really wants to hear from someone who is faking it? So in all honesty I can’t guarantee that my grammar and spelling will be right (I’m sure you’ve already found some typos) or even that the words I string together will make sense. I can’t even promise that all my blogs will follow a certain theme or be cohesive. I’ll probably be a little bit all over the place most of the time but if you’re down for blogs about nothing and everything with a dash of coffee thrown in then hey… lets be F.R.I.E.N.D.S!
P.S. Mom if you’re the only one reading these… Thanks 😉
