Vegas! | Mikaela Joy: El Paso Portrait Photographer

Have I told you about my awesome Thanksgiving yet?  

As we are in the midst of our next little vacation to Washington for the holidays, I realize that I'm a little overdue to share the images from our last one.  Over Thanksgiving weekend, little man turned 3, so naturally we took him to Vegas.  That's what everyone does for their third birthday, right?

Just kidding- really Vegas worked out to be a great middle point for meeting up with my family.  My brother in law hooked us up with an Airbnb right by the strip and set everything up where we could spend the holiday and little man's bday together.  Plus he treated the grown ups to a night out on the town, so that was pretty dang cool.

When planning a trip for Vegas I spent a lot of time thinking about photo possibilities.  But when it came down to it I really didn't end up getting my camera out much.  I took some documentary style photos of the kids together, but mostly I just enjoyed the trip.  

My favorites ended up being the black and white photos of the kids playing in the house in their PJs.  I love the realness.  It made me want to shoot a lot more work like this- documentary style photos are fun!

Anyway, here are some photos from the trip. 

Side note-  Get ready for a MAJOR photo overload from this Washington trip.  There is snow here.  And horses.  It's a freaking winter wonderland here and I don't plan on putting my camera down at all!

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday Riley!

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

We are in double duty here baking both pies and birthday cakes, because as we celebrate thanksgiving, we will be celebrating little man turning two as well! 

That's a little hard to wrap my mind around- two.  It seems like he was just a tiny little thing that couldn't do anything but eat and poop.  Now he's a full blown toddler with the attitude to go with it.

Since his birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year, it seemed only fitting to do his 2 year photos as a pumpkin pie smash.  In doing this, I learned that my kiddo absolutely does NOT like pumpkin pie.  Which doesn't seem right, considering it's both my and Robert's favorite part of thanksgiving.  Oh well.

We are off to celebrate so I better wrap this up with this message-  Happy thanksgiving! I hope you all have a wonderful day of food, family, and friends.  That's what we'll be doing!

Giving Thanks (Without Buying Things)

This Thanksgiving was a very special holiday for me this year.  It was the first turkey day (or ham day, as we did it) in my husband's and my first home.  We had a gathering of family and friends that, despite a lack of space and chairs, turned out to be quite wonderful.  We had enough food to feed an army and yet were blessed with very few leftovers (thank God! My fridge is already full).  But I think what I loved most about our holiday is that we didn't spend hours in line at some store.  

This may turn into a bit of a rant, and if so I apologize, but I find it absolutely despicable that Walmart and other major retailers have turned Thanksgiving into an extension of black friday.  I may be lucky enough to have one of the few retail jobs that don't require me to work on Thanksgiving (we'll see how long that lasts), but a lot of people don't. Workers are pulled away from their families so that shoppers can move quickly through the thanks and family part of the holiday in order to literally fight with each other over flatscreen TV's and other things that they don't really need.  With trends like these towards black friday on thursday, Thanksgiving is no longer about giving thanks, but rather about getting things.  The CEO's of these companies are eating turkey and raking in the millions, while their employees are being mauled by crowds of crazies, and it is all supported by every person that leaves their Thanksgiving dinner to hit that 6 p.m. sale.

I have never participated in the black friday thing personally.  I don't have the patience.  I did try, last year, to go to Walmart to buy my husband a TV, but saw the lines snaking around the store and said screw that.  There is no deal good enough to make that okay.  I saw something on the news about people bringing tents, food, and microwaves and camping out outside of best buy a week before black friday in order to seal the sales.  What could possibly be that good?  I'll take my warm bed and home cooked meals over $100 off a computer any day.  Maybe I'm just weird.

I understand that Christmas is coming and everyone is looking for a good deal.  I totally get that.  Buying gifts for everyone can easily break the bank not even considering the cost of a giant ham and christmas decorations and travel expenses. But really, that's not what's important.  I love the holidays as a chance to spend time with the people I care about.  I don't need anymore than that and I don't think anyone else should either.

The best gift for me these days for me is a morning spent sleeping in with the hubby. I don't think it's fair to take that away from anyone in exchange for just another day of profit.