I'm thankful for ...

I'm thankful for...


My little family.



My husband is too good to be true.

He is everything I wanted and more. I'm thankful for his love, support and friendship. Marriage has been amazing, truly amazing. It's a wonderful gift God gave us. The gift of a companion through life, someone to lean on through hard times and to rejoice and laugh with through the good times!

I have that with Cain. He is a hero in my eyes... how thankful I am to have him. I love you Cain.

We are both thankful for our families. When we need advice, a helping hand, shoulders to cry on (I would be talking about myself here!) or making fun memories, we have our families there with us through it all!






I have a lot to be thankful as you can see.

What a great reminder this has been. To see the faces of those who have done so much for us. We are thankful for so many things... I couldn't write it all down in one post but I hope everyone knows how thankful we are.

What blessings God has given us.

I pray that you too take time to remember the blessings in your life and the ones to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Grogg's










Plan-a-header and first thanksgiving treat!



I'm a plan-a-header.

Someone who plans way in advance for no reason but to just have it planned out.

So Sunday night I decided to plan our Spring Break trip! (That's just 4 months in advance, not so bad!)

I was cleaning up the dinning room and took a glance at our new wooden map. Just a few days ago I filled in the places we have been together and though we have been a couple places together,  I knew I wanted to go more places! So as I stood there staring at this map I got to thinking when the right time would be for our next trip as husband and wife and where that would be...

I knew from past talks that Cain would love to make a trip to Washington DC to see all the memorials and to visit the White House. Although I have been there with my family I would love to go back because I don't remember it all and there were things we didn't see in our trip there I'm sure.

But ...I really would love to go to New York and visit Times Square. So why not put both on the "Places to go" list I thought!

I sat down and started planning!

Once Cain made it home I had it all sorted out and gave him the ideas and he loved it :)

So I think we've found our next road trip! For those who know me, know I love saving for things. If I don't have something in mind that I want to save for, I will spend money randomly. I have to have a goal, a set thing to save for. Now that I have something else to save for it makes me really excited for the trip to be here!


Right now I have been saving for Cain's new big TV ! Every penny has been set aside and put into his TV fund. I've never seen someone so excited about a larger screen. It must be a guy thing? Haha

Thanksgiving is coming, but not soon enough! I can't wait to spend it with family and some good quality food!

But before Thanksgiving is here and before Cain goes into battle for his larger screen, we have to get through the next couple of days of work and school.

Let's just say I'm truly thankful for this Thanksgiving break. We need some relaxing and family time!



I will be posting our thanksgiving meals after this holiday is over!

Last year I believe my goal was to stay grain free and of course only eat real food for thanksgiving! But I love to set new goals so this year I will be grain free, along with eating all whole foods and going to stick with only a little organic honey and maple syrup! (Meaning no other type of sugar!)

This is huge for me! I have been without any sugar (Unless coming from little starch such as a sweet potato) for almost 3 months now!

So organic honey and maple syrup is a special treat that I will enjoy with my pumpkin pie this year!

But that will be it! Everything else will be real organic food with no processed crap!

Here is a peek into something yummy I will be eating for thanksgiving! I just made these today and yes I did taste test :p These came from Healthful Pursuit! She is crazy good at what she does. These are called "Sugar-Free Coconut Almond Bark"

Check out this recipe and more HERE !





Welcome | Lanette's Photography Giveaway

Welcome to my blog! If you haven't already visited this site I'm glad you stopped by! 

This blog is mostly used for personal journaling but also where I post updates and giveaways for my photography business! 

Now that you are here, I have a giveaway about to happen! 

But here is a little back story first!

My husband and I just moved into a house! Something we never thought possible as newlyweds! We are loving this place we call our "Cave" for a lot of reasons but my biggest reason is for the extra spare bedroom we have! I knew right away what I would do with the spare room.... 

Anyone guess what that would be? 

A studio!

Although, I rather a session be outside with natural light and natural backgrounds there is a need for studios around winter time for baby and toddler photos! 

I told my husband my vision on what I wanted my backdrop to look like and he went above and beyond to make it perfect for me! 

So the other night we had a special little visitor over for dinner and while there we decided to do a spur of the moment photo shoot! 

Isabelle was the perfect little model to show off my studio. 

Here is a peek!





So about that giveaway.....

I am going to be offering a FREE studio session for one lucky person!

Here are the rules and guidelines :


1) Click the "Facebook" share button below...

2) ... TAG as many friends as you can think of to the post ...

3) then SHARE this blog post to your Facebook timeline!


This session is for the ages of Newborn -12 month (Limited to only 1 kid)

The one with the most friends TAGGED wins!

This will go until Sunday evening at 7:00pm (Nov 23rd)

Ready, set... go!

:)


P.S The handband used in these photos were made by Amanda Douglas (Manda's Market) aren't they so cute?! 

Caption this WINNER

Times up!

This was my first "Caption" photo contest but I can promise it won't be my last! I take so many pictures a day I normally have one or two of them that just needs a funny caption to go with it! So thanks for playing along and doing this!



So you want to know who the winner is right?!

The winning caption is...


"Top Model? This has nothing to do with Tyra Banks! I was born to smize."

This caption was written by Lindsay Roseberry!


But wait! I'm not done yet. We decided to give a runner up prize! 

We love this caption - "Do you smell what "The Nova" is cooking? *With The Rock voice" - Brooke Swindell thank you for this caption! 

The winner is receiving a 50% off coupon for a "Kiddos" session

Runner up is receiving $25 off a "Kiddos" session!

Thank you everyone for playing along! More to come soon :)







Caption this!

Our girl Nova.

We might just think she is the smartest, cutest and best behaved dog there is. But we are her doggy parents so we may be bias.

I asked Nova to be my assistant today.

She rocked at the job.

As you can see here...




So after Cain and I laughed our pants off for about a good 2 minutes we decided we needed to make a caption for this photo!

What to help us?!

The best caption will get a 50% off coupon for "Kiddo" Session! This could be great for Christmas cards coming up or a nice Christmas gift to someone with kids!

Leave your best caption below in the comments! I will pick a winner tomorrow night! (The 20th at 9pm)

May the best caption win!



Enjoying the Cave

Now this is nice....

The cave is clean and I have no work to get done! Well... that's a little lie. I can think of about 20 things I would like to get done but it's not work (Photography) related. It's just hobbies, little crafty things that sound fun until you go to do them! I will have time to do those things all in good time but for now this is me enjoying my couch on a snowy afternoon. Yes you heard that right, I'm sitting on the couch blogging... this is not normal for me. I hardly ever have enough time to sit on the couch throughout the afternoon. The only reason I sit here at night time is because Cain makes me! 

We are just loving the fresh snow outside! Nova is our little snow dog. She has always loved the snow. She eats it, rolls in it and pees on it. It's a funny sight to see her get all excited in the snow rolling around like it is sand at the beach on a hot sunny day. 

Cain is such a good doggy dad!





Here is another little peek into the cave. Things are coming together a little more and more everyday. I don't think anything yet in the house has a set place though. I've moved things around at least three times since we moved in almost 2 weeks ago! I'm in no rush though for these things. 

Do you like our cute wooden map? I sure do! We haven't gotten pins yet to fill in the places we have been together but it's on my "To buy" list. (I hate how that list is getting longer and longer) 

While I was typing this blog post up Nova and I had a surprise visitor! We didn't think Cain would be home until another couple of hours but he stopped by to show us his new hockey gear before going to the rink to play a game with some other guys! 


Nova was a little jealous of the hockey gear though. While Cain worked on his new helmet Nova just sat there with her paw on Cain, begging him to play with her!



These moments just melt my heart. I love our cave and our little family. I'm thankful for every minute we spend together! 

Stay tuned for more pictures of inside our sweet cave and I also did a big clean up in my office and I can't wait to show everyone what Cain built for me! .. .It's pretty awesome. 

Stay warm!

Peek of snow and cave

Hello from my new office! My computer is all set up and I am back to working on pictures! 

Did anyone else wake up to some snow on the ground? It was a welcomed sight for us! I'm very much ready to hide away for the winter with my wolf pack (Cain and Nova) in our new cave! 

I'm normally not so excited for snow and winter time but for some reason this year I am. Now don't get me wrong I still hate driving in the snow and ice is not my friend but I guess this new season in our life as a married couple as made me think differently about hiding away for the winter :)



So this morning I felt like things went "back to normal" or we found a little peek into what normal will be like here. The past few days have been a little hectic with both our work schedules. We weren't home at the same times and when we were it was late and we couldn't enjoy our perfect new cave, together!

Last night was the first clearing in sight that life would all be okay and we would be able to enjoy this place, together. We had plans to have family over but due to their sickness the plans changed so that left us on the couch catching up on our favorite TV shows and a movie!

When we first got to the house I  wanted to put into action some of the goals I talked to Cain about for the new house and we did start the new set of goals the first night we were here and so far they have held up! I will share more about these goals in another post but one of them was to go to bed early, without a TV on or our phones.

You see in the last place we lived we shared our bedroom with the living room, my office and a "dinning room". So it was easy for me to stay up way late to edit pictures because it was right there, next to my bed. And while I edited pictures Cain would have the TV on which was right next to our bed.... everything was right next to our bed!

I've done a lot of research on the effects of not having good sleep and what the "blue" light does to our sleep cycle. Read more about that HERE .

So the first step into making this happen was agreeing that we wouldn't put a TV in our new bedroom.

This was a joke to Cain at first. He laughed when I asked him about it! I was like "I'm not joking!" We didn't agree on anything right away and after about a week I thought of an idea that I hoped would change Cain's mind.  I offered that what if we could buy a bigger TV for the living room but only if we could agree to having no TV in the bedroom.

It worked! He was game and we both agreed on that :) Cain wouldn't of minded not having a TV in the bedroom without me offering the bigger TV but I never want to force my ideas (as natural and hippie as they are) on him.

Through this whole journey of bettering myself through food and all around heath I have never wanted to make Cain do it, if he really didn't want too. Cain's a smart guy though (Hint: why I married him!) and he understands the knowledge behind eating right and living a natural way. So I've never had to make him do anything and he is always interested in the things I bring to him once I've learned them myself.

 He questions them and sometimes asks me hard questions about the things,  but only because he wants to know the facts, not just the "Hippie" facts. I've always have been able to put facts behind what I say and then once we understands, he can agree too. He likes to put up a fight sometimes, but I always win! ;)

So with our TV in the living room (not in bedroom!) we have made it a point to be in bed by around 9:00pm and set our phones aside. Easier said then done but I think over time if we keep trying we will make it a habit!

I will post all my new goals and better living ideas for our new cave, soon! Even if you aren't about to move these goals can be set up wherever you are!

So here is a little sneak peek into our sweet cave...

I love this window in the dinning room. I haven't decided yet if I will keep my Aloe Vera plant there but for now its there and I don't feel like moving it ...





I found this chair at a garage sale this past summer and painted it my favorite color for a prop at our wedding. It wasn't used at our last aptament because we didn't have space for it so I'm not quite sure where I want it here at the new place. 

Like the plant, it's there now who knows if it will stay... just don't feel like moving it! Graci put our "G" on there when she was here last. It's "Our" G because her first name starts with G just like our last name.

Nova is still getting used to her new cave. She would cry and cry when she and I first moved into the apartment with Cain in June. Poor girl. But she only cried the first morning here and I think that's because she missed her dad. 

We found out she is afraid of the furnace when it starts up, she was very worried when she first heard it and came running to me like "Mom, we've got to get out of here, something is about to attack us!" 

Just this morning when we heard it come on she stopped, looked at me with her scared eyes and I reassured her that it's going to be okay. She then relaxed and found her place on the couch. 


More to come on the house! Here is a little layout of where things are at :)


Chelsie | Senior 2014