A slice of Happiness.

The days after Christmas were just as sweet as the days before! My family took off to Dallas on the 26th to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law. It was such a great time! My parents and I stayed at the Gaylord Texan (Hey guys, let's go Gaylording!) which was so much fun! I get a kick out of staying in fancy hotels! The whole place was decked out for Christmas! I love Christmas. :)

So the whole trip was filled with good times with the fam including Christmas Dinner, Christmas light looking, and shopping (I bought a coat and a swimsuit in one day. Yes, weird.). The last day, I split with the fam to go shoot a wedding in Ft. Worth. It was a crazy fast paced day, but the wedding was beautiful! I've started editing the photos and they are awesome! Have a look on Facebook...I've uploaded some new ones!

This day before New Years eve, I'm at Starbucks, editing all my dear little photos. I've also found a new respect and love for Coldplay. I've never been too much into them, but now I am! Their short album Prospekt's March is rocking my world!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

What a happy day! I just love Christmas. I hope yours was wonderful.

So today ends the Christmas Countdown! :) I woke up and had a feast of cinnamon rolls (my fam always gets Grandy's cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning) that were delicious. Then we got ready for the "Casey Christmas 2008." Every year, my grandparents have ALLL of us Casey kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, grand kids, great grand kids, and such over for Christmas dinner and a pick-steal Christmas present thing. You know, commonly called Yankee swap, Chinese Christmas, Dirty Christmas...it seems like every person I meet has a different name for it. Where did all these names come from? Anyway...

Last year we had the Casey Christmas at Prime Time, a local family fun center. This year we did the same thing. The exciting thing here is that Prime Time is closed Christmas day, meaning the whole huge Casey side of the family gets the place to ourselves (yes, we have connections). Free games, free bowling, free drinks, free go-karts, free lazer tag, free putt-putt, free pool. Yeah, it's AWESOME! So we got there about lunch time, ate, stole presents from each other (I ended up with a Chick-fil-a gift card--yeah!), and then PLAYED GAMES! Man. So fun. It really brings the family together too. :)

After being gamed out, six or so hours later, we left, smiling, and headed home where I got to spend some time with my lovely best friend, Emily! It was so great to see her! We exchanged Christmas gifts, and then just caught up! Emily is so special to me...we've actually been friends since we were born! Literally, and even though we don't live in the same town anymore, we still keep up and make time to visit! That kind of friendship is priceless to me, and I don't know many people who have a friend like that. I'm so blessed! :)

Merry Christmas Day! :)

The Christmas Eve of Christmas Countdown 2 0 0 8!

Merry Christmas Eve friends!

This day was just all around wonderful! Let me share the ingredients of this wonderful day with you:

1/2 tsp   Sleep til Noon

3 tsp      Wrap more Christmas presents!

1 cup      Hang out with Scott and give him his kick-tush Christmas present (a Sufjan Stevens                          VINYL record!)

2/3 cup Beltway Christmas Eve Candlelight Service (simply beautiful)

1 gal       Open Christmas presents with the fam!!

Keep reading if you want the long version, otherwise Merry Christmas Eve! :)

Yay! It was such a wonderful day! I did sleep til noon, but that was because I stayed up til 4 AM the night before editing photos and re-fabulous-ifying my website! Go look! New logo, new pictures...I'm so proud! Anyway, when I did wake up, I hung out around the house with my mom, wrapping presents, drinking coffee, and enjoying the day. Scott got off work early and so he came over and I gave him his awesome Christmas present-- a Sufjan Stevens Vinyl record! It was awesome and he loved it! :) Then we ran around town and met with huge success as we tried to get his costume for his family Christmas (they all dress up at Christmas for a family picture...different? yeah, but definitely funny!). 

Later that night, my parents and I went to Beltway's Christmas Eve candlelight service. It was such a beautiful time, I hardly feel like trying to describe it because I know I just won't do the sweet time justice. Let me just say, the Lord spoke His love over me...and it was such a gift! There are a few song lines that we sang tonight that have just been so powerful to me:

(from Amazing Grace)

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear

And grace my fears relieved

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed.

I really understand those first two lyrics now...I've lived them. As I sang them, the truth of grace was so powerful and undeniable. Grace is a beautiful mystery! 

As we left the service and headed home, my family and I were so content and joyful. It was lovely! A little later, my brother and sister-in-law came over and we opened Christmas presents! Oh how fun! I LOVED the gifts that I got everyone this year, and it was so fun to watch them open their presents! I, as well, received so many cool gifts from them, including a vintage camera, an owl lamp, and a necklace from Anthropologie! :)

To top it off, right now I'm listening to Amy Grant's Home For Christmas album (which I grew up listening/dancing to). Hearing those familiar songs and thinking back on the blessed memories attached to the songs just brings joy to my heart. Check out the songs "Emmanuel God with Us" and "O Come All Ye Faithful." They are a couple of my favorites.

Anyway, I'm also glad to say that I totally love my hair now! :) And I'll be posting pictures of it soon, so don't worry! :)

Merry Christmas Eve! God is with us!

Christmas Countdown! The Short Version of 2 Days Away!

It is SO late...so here's the short version (like my hair now ha!).

Christmas-y things: Tonight my family and I drove around a looked at Christmas lights! Yay! Then we came home and ate a lovely dinner and watched the Polar Express! 

Told you it would be short! :)

P.S. The total hair changing process is now finished! Today I went back to get some high and low lights put in. It looks awesome! I'm getting much more used to my short hair, and am liking it!

Merry Christmas!

3 Days Left! Christmas Countdown 2 0 0 8

I drove home late tonight with the most gorgeous night sky as my companion. It was simply breathtaking with the dark blues contrasting the swiftly moving grey clouds. The moon lit it all up, causing the sky to take on a much more ethereal mood. This lovely sight was relieving to take in; Today was a day of massive change. I don't really feel the need to explain it all in great detail, but a while ago I decided to cut my hair and give it to Locks of Love, and today I actually went through with the plan. Maybe it sounds like no big deal, but it was to me personally.

10 inches. TEN inches. Ten inches. 10.

I cut off ten inches. Going to the beauty shop on this blustery winter day with my mom and sharing the excitement and thrill was an absolute blast! So much fun! I loved the experience and I loved how my hair turned out. But of course, it's going to take some getting used to, and that's been sort of difficult. I keep exclaiming to myself, "I can't believe you cut off all your hair!" Crazy. But I'm glad I did it. It's such a great feeling knowing that my hair will be used to make someone's life a little brighter. :) :) Let's just hope I get used to my short hair quickly!

Anyway, on to the Christmas-y thing of today! I initiated Scott into my Christmas tradition by making him watch "Fay's 12 Days of Christmas" with me! Oh I just knew a guy with his kind of humor would really appreciate that video, and he did! :) 

Merry Christmas!

Countdown to Christmas! 4 Days Out...

The Christmas-y things that I did today were:

(a) enjoyed a lovely Sunday morning where we turned our focus to the sweet, beautiful, sacred truth about Christmas. It all comes down to four words: God is with us. :)

(b) bought my own Christmas wrapping for the first time and wrapped all my Christmas gifts! So fun! I love wrapping paper...no cop-out gift bags for me! :) Usually I just use my parent's wrapping, but this time I wanted to leave my own personal style on my gifts! I'm a nerd, I know :)

Merry Christmas in 4 days!

The Countdown to Christmtas! 5 Days to Go!

Thursday and Friday I was engulfed in Wedding World shooting the amazing Lauren Yeater and Klint Bratcher's wedding (It was awesome!!). So when I woke up on Saturday morning, I was so shocked when I looked at my phone and it said December 20th! Christmas only 5 days away?! It totally snuck up on me, so I decided I was going to enjoy the pants off this week! Each day I'm going to do something to celebrate/focus on beautiful Christmas and what it means (and you'll get to read about it because I'm going to blog about it!).

So today, I enjoyed this wonderful season with my family. Scott and I met up with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" at the Historic Paramount Theatre! We even dressed up! Even though I've seen that movie many times, I was so into it! What a great movie and message. :) Afterwards, we went to my parent's house to eat homemade apple dumplings and hang out. It was so great to spend time with them!

Merry Christmas!

It's about time for another update...December-style!

Wearing: New clothes! Exciting story (and huge blessing): I spontaneously drove to Ft. Worth a couple of days ago to shop for student teaching clothes!! I've never gone shopping like that before! My parents blessed my socks off by giving me some money to buy new "professional" clothes for student teaching. Thanks Mum & Dad!! :) :)

Listening to: The Best of Bardot by Brigitte Bardot. "If you are a happy person don't pass up this gem" said an iTunes review. Hm...I'm a happy person...and they were totally right. I love it! Warning: It's French Pop. Yikes, I feel lame for even writing that. But it is very happy music! I find this strange enjoyment from listening to music in other languages :)

Looking at: Our glowing Christmas tree.

Just finished eating: A candy cane off of said Christmas tree.

Watching: The Jon and Kate Plus 8 winter episodes! I have gotten shamelessly into that show! But don't judge...it has really spoken to me and refreshed my perspective on life. 

Happy about: Living in Texas (random?), feeling cozy in my apartment even when it's freezing outside, and a delightful Christmas break. 

Not Happy about: a Dentist appointment in the morning, and knowing that I have no cereal or milk for breakfast in the morning.

Surprising myself: by deciding to cut off my hair! Alright, you've all been warned. Some time within the next two weeks, I'm getting the fateful appointment, cutting my hair, donating it (I'm SO excited about that!! I've never had hair long enough to do that!), and will be short-hair Caroline. Weird.

Ever so excited about: getting my student teaching assignment the other day! Now that I've got the assignment, I'm terribly excited about it! Although it will be hard to ease up on photography for a little bit, I'm excited for the change in focus for a few months.

Okay, that's all for now! Love, love! :)

I've gotten so into this...

I can't get enough! Yay family! :)

Christmas Decorating Around Our Apartment!

So despite crazy schedules, Megan and I finally managed to decorate our humble abode. :) It's about time!! Matt and Scott were both able to be around, so we turned up the #1 Christmas jams and just had so much fun! Our decorating this year was not quite as involved as last year (we just managed to get our stockings hung and tree decorated), but we've just been so darn busy! With Meg in grad school and me finishing up my last semester of undergrad...well ya know. 

On that note, today I took my last final!! It's so not even real yet that I'm pretty much done at college. I mean, I've got student teaching, but I won't be on campus at all next semester, so it's pretty much the end. :( Five years went realllly fast! I'm so happy though. :) :) I'm looking forward to the rest of my life :)

So high fives for being done with school! Bring on the holidays! I've got a busy break with weddings and such but, of course, I'm excited about that.

Random Deep Moment: I've been realizing just how careful I need to be about not overloading myself next semester during student teaching. This is extremely hard for me, since all I really want to do is keep moving forward full speed ahead with photography. It is the most difficult, frustrating, humbling thing to have to let 

awesome opportunities pass me by. But, despite this, I'm feeling really "mature" ;) about making wise decisions. I'm kind of weirdly excited to be absorbed in something other than photography for a little while. Variety in life is good!

Okay, enough from me, let's check out the decorating pictures!

Here's me putting lights on the tree (dad would be so proud) while Scott puts lights on me. :)

Carefully putting the star on top.
All of us high fiving for our tree-putting-up success! 

 

Home sweet home

My head is a Christmas tree?
And as a final visual treat...Megan and Matt gave me an early Christmas present--a vintage camera from the 1940s!! How fabulous is this?! Perfect condition, with the flash and 3 unused flash bulbs!! I'm so excited! Did I mention that I've started collecting vintage cameras!? I have and I love learning all about them. The history of photography is fascinating! :) Cool huh?

Christmas Shopping

Hi friends! I've been looking for Christmas gifts for my dazzling friends and fam lately, and I just wanted to share a few fun and unique gifts I've found to hopefully help you out as you're shopping! It's almost like the old Top 5 posts (remember those? ha) but...not quite! :)

1. Urban Outfitters was a surprising place where I found tons of cool stuff! I always thought of Urban Outfitters as expensive clothes, but that's not all they are! It seriously may be my one stop shop this year. They have a huge variety of stuff. We are talking not clothing here, but sweeeeet stuff for guys and gals such as: vintage cameras, retro electronics, really fun home accents, jewelry stands, etc. Really great stuff and such affordable prices! I can hardly write enough about how impressed and surprised I was about them! You will be blown away at all the clever stuff :) Go on! Check them out!

2. Although you can't shop online, I was impressed with Pier One's collection of little doo-dads. Again, some fun little vintage toys and such "for the person who has everything." :) 

3. The article in the December issue of InStyle has a GREAT gift guide in it! Buy the mag if you want, or just steal a glance while you're waiting in line. I was inspired by their selection of fun gifts for everyone! 

4. Shop Anthropologie.com for the girls in your life. I'm sure you can't go wrong. I enjoyed their selection of note cards and jewelry, especially their array of "statement" necklaces! 

Well, it's just a little, but I hope it helps!

Happy Holidays

Happy December 1st! It's so exciting to finally be writing "December" down...it just sounds like cold weather and cozy fires! And the holiday season is officially here! Yay!

Thanksgiving was fabulous, as expected. I just LOVE being around my family, and we were all together! I actually stayed home at my parent's house too which was fun :) We had fun just relaxing, eating, watching football, playing with my brother's dog, and decorating the Christmas tree! Yay! 

So, I realize this is a super short post, but I have homework that needs to be done. But, I wanted to share something insignificant! I painted my fingernails today!! Probably the first time ever in my life (except for times I've gotten a french manicure for a wedding or something). Anyway, it's so fun! I cut them short and then painted them this awesome dark, dark, dark shimmery brown color. They are so rockstar-awesome I can hardly stand it! :) Anyway, I was excited. 

Just about a week left of school! :)

Happy December!