I ♥ Faces “Faces and Flowers” Photo Challenge: Beautiful Mari

Oh, I couldn't help it. 

I know I'm supposed to be chillin' with the blogging, but my favorite photography site, I ♥ Faces, has an irresistible challenge this week—they want to see faces with flowers.


And I just happen to have the perfect one!


I took this picture during an impromptu photo shoot when the girls were out on the front lawn, wrestling with our absolutely perfect Goldendoodle, Teddy, and pulling flowers off our Spring shrubbery. A lesser mom would have been a little ticked off about how many pretty pink flowers Mari and Lila destroyed that day. But really, isn't that what flowers are for? The picking? Plus, next to the lovely Mari's face, that flower is made all the more spectacular than it ever could be on some ol' shrub. 


Wish me luck!

The I ♥ Faces "Celebrating Mom" Challenge: My Amazing Mother-in-Law, Helen

This week's photo challenge over at my favorite photography site, "I ♥ Faces," encourages us to show off our favorite pictures of our moms—and though I haven't participated in any challenges of late, I just had to have in on this one. How could I not with this picture of my beautiful mother-in-law, Helen, all up in my iPhoto crates?

I caught this photo of Helen when we traveled together as a family—11 strong—to St. Simon's Island here in Georgia (I wrote about our trip HERE). We had an awesome time, made all-the-more amazing by the presence of Nick's parents, who got to vacation with two of their children and a bunch of their grands. You can tell from the look on mom's face that this was, indeed, a blessing for her. But I hope she knows just how blessed we all are to have her—not just on fancy vacations, but every single day. She's brilliant, witty, no-nonsense, super-loving, and incredibly fun—a class act, for sure.

I'm so proud to count myself in her family.

Love you, Mom!

I ♥ Faces “Blue” Photo Challenge: Scary Cole

This is my nephew, Cole—fiery, funky, super scary, and all awesome. I super ♥ taking pictures of this child. Could be because he has the most amazingly expressive eyes. Or that he gives good camera face. Me thinks it's probably because he's my adorable nephew who, when he isn't flirting with my camera lens, is an amazingly intelligent, thoughtful, huggable little boy. I do adore him so!

This picture is part of the I ♥ Faces “Blue” Photo Challenge, over at I ♥ Faces, the photo sharing website co-founded and co-run by my bloggy buddy, the amazing Angie of The Arthur Clan. Click HERE to check out some of the other amazing "Blue" photos being shared around the blogosphere.