Needler Family

Yes, it's going to be a 24 hour blogging record for me...first and last I am sure. Without further ado...meet the Needlers...

Such a cute family and also dear friends. Alisa has become quite famous for her "cliff jumping" (aka havasupai fall and helicopter rescue) I'm confident that someday she'll be known again for her warmth and personality first, not just for the "accident" she was in...but here I am contributing to it just the same!!

(on a side note she has done A M A Z I N G in her recovery. After not walking for 3 months she "took her first steps" again in September and is now fully RUNNING again! Her docs are amazed at what she's done with the extent of injury she had from the fall! We're all so proud!)

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...her cute little family!!!

Miss Morgan...LOVE this girl and her attitude!

Payton

And Corey, such a handsome guy!

And I couldn't resist another of Morgan, isn't she so CUTE?

Thanks Jason and Alisa for the fun photo session!

To be two...

Isn't two just fun?

Seriously, if looks could kill...

More on this group to come...

CORRECTION

Ellen's show is on at 3pm! Thanks Nicole!

Gearing up...

Calling all "HOLY DAY OF SHOPPING" FANS

I'm gearing up for another year and another fun and crazy shopping event! I'm already bummed, some places are opening at midnight, others at 4am...when's a girl supposed to get her beauty sleep?? I'm sure this year won't disappoint because really its more about the fun with my ladies than it is about the sales! Holy Day of Shopping would NOT be fun without a group of girls (and of course NO KIDS ARE ALLOWED, some people are CRAZY to bring those little ones).

Thanks to Janelle for sending me a link to the ads early...here you go for your viewing pleasure...

If you're unfortunate enough to live in a depressed family where people sleep in and don't venture out to the stores, leave me a comment and I'll tell you where to join us Friday for our before sunrise madness. And when I say madness, I promise that we will have none of this!

I mean it, you have to go with trained Black Friday shopping professionals, cuz we have a system!

Now taking...CELEBRITIES

Yes, that's right, I'm moving up into photographing celebrities...!! Remember Janelle one of my best friends who recently debuted on my blog? Tomorrow she'll be having her first (certainly can't be her last) tv appearance on the Ellen Show!!!!! She was the lucky girl chosen out of 4,000 (yeah...totally rigged) audience members to do an audience gambling segment when they taped the show in Vegas!

Janelle is the most hilarious and animated person I know and Ellen is the perfect show for her to get on...so go set your DVR and watch Ellen Monday afternoon (in Arizona its on at 4pm) so you can see what happens. And if you want to read Janelle's account of getting to hang for a bit with Ellen, click here.

Check out my handsome date...

I went on a date last night. My date was a perfect gentleman. He told me great stories with lots of fine details, most of which were made up. He held my hand and he even held the door for me once! He did really like to flex his muscles for the camera though, I didn't tell him this wasn't good date etiquette

cuz I liked how he smiled when he flexed.

(don't be jealous of my 1.0 megapixel camera phone...if the mean people wouldn't have taken my point and shoot camera, I would've used that!)

We went to As You Wish to paint some pottery. After steering him away from the snakes and dogs that wouldn't have a good place to sit in our home (I know I know...who's date is this?), we settled on the perfect piece...a football helmet piggy bank! Perfect for his sports themed room and much better than the empty peanut butter jar he is currently using.

Daddy had warned me before we left that he didn't think Brennan would like this date and that I shouldn't get disappointed if he doesn't. Brennan raved about the date the whole night and LOVED painting. I did realize that maybe painting isn't my thing, I'm sort of a perfectionist and it's pretty frustrating to TRY to just paint a helmet 2-3 colors without them bleeding on each other when people around you are creating beautiful masterpieces! Oh well, I got over it, and I'm sure the helmet will look great when we get it back from the kiln.

This is his "I'm an ASU football fan pose"

The whole drive home I told my date all the reasons that I love him. Then I surprised him at the end with a chocolate shake. That was his favorite part...

oh wait, when I told him he didn't have to share it with his brother

that was actually his real favorite part.

And my favorite part was the whole thing, but especially the end
because I got a kiss goodnight!

Matt, Heather and Blake Part I

We recently ventured out for what was supposed to be an Engagement session...but what do you do when you show up to work without your name tag...or if you're like me and you show up to work and you forgot your CAMERA! Yes, it DID happen, first and LAST time I'll ever do that! I had the back up equipment, lenses, memory cards...just not the batteries or main camera! I thought I might DIE when I went to grab it out of my car at our shoot in Scottsdale and it wasn't there, you see I had left it right where I set it when I grabbed water on my way out! OOPS! Thankfully my assistant Elisha's fabulous husband Eric saved the day and met me halfway with it...we had just enough light left to shoot part one of this session which was some shots with Heather's son Blake.

Blake is a fun loving boy with his own agenda when it comes to photos...he's all about the faces and what he really wants to do is bypass the real smile above for one of many goofy faces he has in store, here's a few of my favorite Blake shots...





Heather and Matt are getting married next February. I'm really excited to shoot their wedding and work with them. Matt was ultra easy going even though he does have to do TWO engagement sessions instead of one, thankfully they live a few minutes from The Scottsdale Civic Center where we were shooting so at least they hadn't driven an hour to meet me!

Heather works with my husband and is super sweet, laid back and fun to be around. She's such a good mom and has patience I could only dream of! I'm really glad she's getting married and can't wait to do more photos of the two of them next week and at the wedding!

This last photo cracks me up...Blake gets it, even though it's their engagement session, he knows life's really all about him and he's happy to show off for his moment of fame!

CALLING ALL PROCRASTINATORS!!!

From one holiday procrastinator to another...here's your late chance...

Holidays are here...not coming...they're here and it's past time to schedule your family photo session!! I will be doing a limited number of additonal holiday family sessions over the next couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and am offering up a holiday special with reduced pricing from our standard session rate. Normally the pricing is $300 with a $150 print credit, however, for sessions in the month of November only you can book a holiday session at a rate of $200.

With this package you will recieve the following...

Single family session at a location of our choice (dates and times are limited)

25 double sided 5x7 holiday cards with images from your session

1 - 11x14 linen finish mounted print from your session

If you are interested in booking a session email me right away jen@photojenic.net to reserve your spot as I only have a few dates starting NEXT WEEK! Sessions will be during the week in the afternoon and locations vary throughout Phoenix and/or Scottsdale.

And because I can't end this post without a picture...here's little miss Emery sporting her new love of sitting up...gotta love her!

My Vegas Family

A couple weeks ago I went through Vegas on my way to St. George for a small wedding and family reunion. It's always fun to pass through Vegas to visit one of my best friends ever, Janelle. I heard that her family was heading to St. George too in hopes to get some informal family photos! I jumped on the opportunity to take photos for them as it had been SO long since they had any professional photos done! Thankfully they got up in the WEE hour of 4am to get to the shoot before I had to be at the wedding, thanks guys! The family didn't disappoint choosing a great location and some fun colors to wear, here's some of the shots from our session...

The girls of the family

Quinn is such a sweet little girl...

Grayson...

And Benjamin, he's such an honest boy, I jokingly asked his favorite aunt and favorite uncle...he answered maybe honestly and quite possibly offended some aunts and uncles present...oops!!!!

Pay attention gents...

these gorgeous ladies are SINGLE........

the fabulous and beautiful Jill

Here's Janelle, isn't she beautiful...her smile is incredibly infectious!!

Brother Brent...

Collette and Jared, parents to the adorable kids that this family just ADORES!

Mom and Pop...such a sweet photo of them

Thanks guys...I'm so glad I got to see you all and take some pics for you!

Joe, Emily, Colby and Parker

My good friends came by awhile back and we did a few quick photos of them before heading out on a much needed double date...I sort of forgot about these photos all together until Em reminded me (sorry guys), so here are a few of the quick family shots we did with their new little Parker who's only 3 weeks older than Emery...

Joe is such a good Dad..I thought he'd never want kids after a few of our visits to their home with an active toddler...

he's definitely adjusted well and is REALLY cute with the boys!

Emily and I were married within 2 weeks of each other and although we started sooner, they have followed right behind with two boys and HOPEFULLY they keep following to get that ONE little girl for the family!!

Emily is also a good mom, she's super creative and organized and has the most RESPECTFUL little 3yr old around...he needs to spend more time with his friend Dawson, I know he could learn some things from Colby for sure!!! I just LOVE the face on little Parker in this one, such a ham!

Halloween and birthday party...

With school parties and sweets and candy and ending it all with a birthday party and cake...I can safely say it's time to get back to the gym!! Here's our weekend...

being the avid baker I am...I whipped up these fancy treats for school handouts...yes, I know you are jealous of my wonderful skills! The boys actually were a huge help and LOVED this little project...and at the end when bedtime was WAY PAST DUE I suggested that Daddy was a good spider cooking maker too and begged for his help to wrap up our night. The next morning the boys proudly exclaimed to our cousin every bit of the details of our cookie fest...

Brennan "my DADDY made these super cool spider cookies and they have 8 legs and red eyes..."

Dawson "yeah, my Daddy made these cookies, you want to see..."

Me "who made those cookies??"

B & D " DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!"

I guess having the idea, getting the supplies and working on them for over an hour doesn't count...you just have to join (against your will) the last 10 minutes or so to get ALL the credit!

Halloween brought us to my sister's house where there's always great chili, cornbread and over 100 kids trick or treating...and the occasional mom (yes I'm serious mom's with bags that WEREN'T their kids bags) we set up camp out front around a cozy fire in case the weather dips below 80 and our toes become slightly chilled! This year there was a precious pink poodle...

she had her eye on a cute little dalmation...

it was love at first sight, a perfect pair...until....

he really liked her tag...

oh and those eyes, he really liked her eyes, a little too much...

our pink poodle was super sad after the attack...

but the dalmation moved on, there were more eyes to be had!!

thankfully we found some other friends....

for the record two dedicated moms spent countless hours visiting countless stores and calling many others to find tigger and piglet costumes...you'd think that would be EASY!!!!! In the end, our "free" pooh and eeyore worked out well even though at the last minute Pooh decided to be more true to HERself and changed into a beautiful tinkerbell...

Oh yeah, word on the street is that a really cute red headed, RED NINJA was racing through the streets of Texas with his cousins and Grandpa Friday night! I wish I had a photo to share...at the very least he had the TIME OF HIS LIFE on his first solo vacation! Thanks Grandpa, Annalee and Husk family for taking him in =)

OK, last but not least...check out this cute boy who just turned ONE! Here's a few pics from my nephew Aidan's party

Have you ever seen a better looking pinata? You might want to wait before you answer that...

It's a bit disturbing when he comes apart...

Don't worry, we're providing counseling to any scarred children...

Aidan was the best cake eater...first he did it without his hands...

he quickly gave up and just sucked the life out of that frosting...

the finished product...Happy Birthday Aidan!