Our family was blessed with a new addition this Christmas. My brother, Chris and his family welcomed baby Gabriel Ian Jones on Thursday, December 21st. Making the celebration much more special.

Here is the first picture of GI Jones with his father. This picture was taken by my mother at the hospital. Chris is adapting well to his role as a father of a newborn!



More photos will follow when we get back to our house and process the many we took over the weekend.

Congratulations to Chris & Robin and to the new big sisters Casey & Ashley.

Cat

Last Saturday was the start of Atlanta's annual Festival of Trees, a week-long major fundraising event to benefit Childrens Health Care of Atlanta. This show is comprised of mainly Christmas trees of all sizes and descriptions, which are decorated and donated for auction to help raise funds for different programs. Along with the many hundreds of trees, are Christmas ornaments and other goodies for sale, a gingerbread house showcase, arts and crafts, shows, concerts, carousel, a build-a-bear workshop, and a few other kid activities.

Our youngest daughter was dancing in one of the Christmas dance shows comprised of different dance companies from the area. We spent the morning taking in the sights of all the beautiful and innovative tree decorations, as this was our first time at the event. Emma was on stage at Noon, so we wandered over to watch some of the other dancers before it was her time. Emma always dances with "attitude", and we really enjoyed watching her dance since we have not seen the routine they had been working on the last month. Below are a few pictures from our morning out.

Here are a couple of the cool trees for auction.



Cat took this portrait of Emma and her bear "Vanilla Creme" reflecting in the Christmas ornament! How cool!



One of Emma's dance instructors and her friend. We will be shooting a portrait series for her in the near future.



One of the showcase gingerbread houses. I liked this one since I went to GA Tech when I started college.



(more to follow)

There were hundreds, if not thousands of trees for auction.



Emma dances with attitude on the main stage!



Vanilla Creme comes to life in the build-a-bear workshop.



The kids really enjoyed the carousel. I liked this shot the best.



To get to the World Congress Center we go through the CNN center. Photo opportunity in the big CNN logo outside. Inside the front entrance is this huge picture wall of CNN images. Really cool!

The weather is cooling off, shoppers jam the stores, and the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season has arrived. And along with the holiday festivities, Santa has made his appearance!

Thursday evening was the Baker Elementary Holiday PTA fundraiser, and Catherine and I were there to shoot "Pictures with Santa" as a way to help raise funding for new playground equipment. We spent a few days prior to the event putting together a faux window backdrop and Christmas tree setup for the shoot. We put together a package that includes a 5x7 and 4 wallet pictures that the parents are sure to enjoy! We will also be producing a slideshow that they can link from the PTA website. Proceeds from the shoot go to the PTA fund.

We would like to thank Baker PTA (and Santa) for including us in their fundraiser, and hope that next year we can get even more kids to have their pictures made! Santa was awesome! The kids had a blast talking with Santa and telling him their Christmas wishes. We had a great time hearing some of their requests! And of course, there were plenty of big smiles for those getting their picture made! Here are a few of them!