Kruse Family {First Christmas}

I love spending time with family. With Adam and I living in Seattle, WA, and most our family living in Oregon, we don't get to spend much time with them. Adam and I are in our first year of marriage, and this is the first Christmas where our parents had to "share" us :). It was a bit of a transition, but we feel blessed to have such wonderful parents that LOVE us dearly. Above is Adam and our oldest nephew Parker Kruse (3). He is such a joy! Just look at the bright smile.

I was very Excited to give Parker his Christmas gift. Giving gifts to children may be one of the most joyful and entertaining things. However, I learned a very valuable lesson this year...I was more excited about the gift then the three year old. Adam tried to tell me the boy's would want trucks or something they can play with. Silly me! I thought he would want a Spider-man pajama set. I thought it was cute, considering his name is PARKER. Look at the pure Joy on Parker's face! Is this due to the excitement and thrill of being able to pretend he is the real Spider-man?

This excitement is for the awesome remote control helicopter his Uncle Alex got for him. WOW! Was it a big hit. I will be taking pointers from Alex moving forward.

Look at Parker's little face above, he is simply mesmerized by this thing. His mom, Suzannah, also thought it was such a cool gift. I love to see Alex with Parker, he is such an amazing uncle. He loves Parker so much. I can't wait to enjoy our children connecting with him in the future.

Above Pam catches the Helicopter when it fell from the sky. Parker loves his Pamma!  I'm not sure why I don't have any pictures of Adam's dad, Tom... He is somewhere :) Pam and Tom are LOVED deeply by all of us!! Such a joy for me as in-laws. Suzannah is such a blessing in my life! I feel so lucky to have such an amazing sister-in-law. I love spending time chatting about life. She is  wonderful mother to Parker as well. He is one lucky lucky little man.

Howdy Partner! This is our second little nephew Jonah (2)! Oh man, this little guy is the joy of my life. Look at this little face :) He is saying "cheese". Yes! I did buy him these Woody PJ's. Jonah is the first grandchild born to my family, the Miller's.

Jonah is in LOVE with Thomas the train. My brother and is wife, Nicole, bought him this whistle and train. When you blow the little conductor whistle, the train goes. Jonah spent hours under the tree playing with his new train set. He loved loading things onto the train cars and then moving them along. I enjoy watching children at play. It is so cute!

Papa and Jonah trying out his new bike! Jonah is so blessed to have such amazing grandparents. I don't know if I have seen any two people love one little guy so much. Him and his little brother, Kendrick, are the joy of their lives. Speaking of Kendrick... I guess I didn't get any photos of that little one. He must have been sleeping.

We spent Christmas morning at my parents house. The whole family was together. Here are all of our stockings hung. There is even one for my parents dog, Buddy!

Here we all are on Christmas day! I LOVE this family so much. The thing that I am laughing so hard at is two things you may never notice... but I'm going to point out to you. See the cane my dad has? He doesn't need a cane! He thought it would just make a nice addition to the family photo. Second, my brother Jason, on the far right, yeah he isn't that tall. He decided he would stand on his tip toes to be the tallest guy in the photo. You got to love em!!!

Here we are! The Kruse family. I love our little family. What an amazing year filled with joy and blessings.

Nicole Maternity

Yesterday was such an amazing February day. The SUN was out! Due to wintertime the light was low in the sky, creating a wonderful back light for this session. 

I headed up north from Seattle, WA to Anacortes for a maternity photo shoot with Nicole. She has 6 weeks to go. She is beautiful, glowing, and her and  her husband Jason are very excited for their first baby boy, Elliott Raymon (yes. this is Raymon with no D :) He is named after his grandfather).

Nicole's family lives in Anacortes. She headed up north from Eugene, OR for a baby shower put on by the lovely ladies at her father's church, New Hope Christian Fellowship. Nicole and I headed to Washington Park for the photos. Washington Park is an amazing park with views of the San Juan Islands and Olympic Mountains. We headed to this small cove with a beach. You can see the evergreens in the background. Water, trees, low light, a photographers dream :) 

I LOVE the Soft light on the Water from the Photos above!

My Favorite part about this above photo, is how the curves of the sand reflect the beauty of the curves from Nicole's beautiful baby belly.

The Photos above were not the most comfortable to take for Nicole, notice the rocks. I do enjoy how they turned out. Thanks Nicole for the sacrifice!

The below image was captured while Nicole started laughing because more and more people started coming to enjoy the small beach. She felt silly posing for the camera. So glad she did. The photos turned out amazing. 

Nicole saw these ideas for the ribbon around her belly and the "hello my name is" tag on Pinterest. She wanted to use these ideas in her photo shoot. I love Pinterest. You can always find so many great ideas. 

You can follow Rachael Kruse on Pinterest. Click HERE! I have wonderful Photo ideas. It is also a great way to get to know me better! I also have craft ideas, decorating ideas, and party ideas. Check me out!

Thank you Nicole for allowing me to work with you! Congratulations to you and your husband Jason! I can't wait to meet baby Elliott :)

Rachael Kruse craft files :)

Framing Joy

1.  I bought this frame in an antique mall in SODO Seattle, WA. I got it for about $8. I didn’t have a vision when I first got it, but when I decided to work on this project, I knew this was the perfect frame.

2. I found this beautiful green chevron and gold metallic paper @ a cute little store at the University Village in Seattle called Papyrus.

3. I chose the Font of JOY I wanted on my computer, printed it, and cut it out to use as a template for my Gold paper. I then traced the Joy on to the gold paper and cut it out. I simply glued the JOY on to the chevron paper and put it in the frame.

4.  The finished Product! I plan on hanging it on this wall, which I am in the middle of painting :)