Project.12 {Black & White}

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When I was expecting my first child, I made a goal to take her picture often.  In fact I made it a very specific goal!  Each one of my babies would have their pictures taken monthly until they were one.  Then I would have that toddler have their picture taken every three months until they were 2.  Once they were 2 and until they left our home, I would make efforts to take their picture every 6 months. I didn’t just want to take their pictures, I wanted a photo session just about them.  In time, those pictures would act as reminders of who they were, what they were doing and what they liked at that time in their life.  I love having them.
Lots of my family laughed when I made this lofty goal. Especially because they knew I wanted a large family.  “It can’t be done!”  “After a few kids you won’t be able to keep up with it!”  “Good luck with that!” 
I heard it all, but the more people hinted it wouldn’t happen, the more I was determined to prove them all wrong AND do it!  Well I’m proud to say that I have kept up, my kids have LOTS of pictures of them (and it kinda helps now that I can just do it myself)!  On top of their milestone sessions we often will take pictures as a group for Valentines, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween and Christmas!  Often because there will be more than one child needing a session in a month, we’ll group together, maybe doing pictures of just the girls, just the boys, or maybe the oldest two.  We take back to school pictures on the first day of school, and last year I got a picture of all the kids together every Sunday with the Sunday Best Project I did.
With all that said though….do I have enough pictures of my children?  Nope.  I don’t think so.   Am I very creative with their sessions?  Nope.  That’s why this year I wanted to do another photo project and when I found one, it was the perfect one!
Project.12 is all about taking pictures of your family, your home, your kids.  Each month there is a theme.  We all post our pictures on our own blog or facebook by the 3rd Tuesday of each month, then post the link on the Project.12 facebook page.  Seriously the greatest idea ever!  The theme really makes me think outside the box, get creative and have fun with it!
I really struggled with this months theme of Black & White.  I had ideas of using just one child, maybe a couple of them together, some pictures just done in B&W, maybe foot shots….capturing just our family doing our thing, but of our feet in our black and white shoes (because we all have one or the other!).  But then while looking around online I saw something that gave me an idea; an oreo cookie.  I had been wanting to do candy houses with the kids sometime soon(gingerbread houses, but with cookies and whatever candies).  That was it!  We would do our candy houses in all black and white candies!  So Fun!!!
Now that church doesn’t start until 11, we have all kinds of extra time in the morning, so before we got all messy with our white frosting…we had to take a Sunday Best picture!

Emma had to take a nap, so her involvement was eating the marshmallows as her pre-nap snack!  Needless to say, she was happy with that snack choice.


Once baby was in bed…..let the candy house decorating begin!
  This picture just makes me giggle, thinking about how ANXIOUS she was to get started!
 

A little bit of frosting and some candy may or may not have been consumed in the process.  And it may or may not have ended up in hair and on clothes.
 
I was impressed with my kids creativity, and ability to make their creations with little help!




I love her expression in this picture!  Nanna always tells us that she loves us or that we are ‘the best!’  I can just hear her right after Daddy washing her hands saying. “Daddy, you da best!’

Kyson definitely won the award for using the MOST cookies!  He built the Tower in the movie Eldorado.  Covered in Treasures and jewels!



Jayden created a “Cake Machine”  and then added little decorated cakes that CAME from the cake machine.  (where does this kid get this stuff!?)

I love that he has my eyes.




I love that Kyson loves to take pictures and amazingly is able to figure out my camera pretty well!  I finally am in more pictures than I have been in the past 9 years!

Savannah’s Bridge.  For a 3 year old…I think she did pretty dang good!

When we were done, of course the kids enjoyed their creations (minus the black licorice…yuck!)…but my favorite part was when Maliyah asked, “since church is later now, can we do a fun project every Sunday morning?” 
I’m not sure if I can pull that off or not, but I’m so glad that they enjoyed themselves!