Christmas Vacation | Mikaela Joy: El Paso Portrait Photographer

I finally got through all my photos from Christmas vacation: guys can I go back? I'm missing the snow and cozying up by the fireplace with good books and hot buttered rum.  I could very happily live in a permanent state of winter.

I think little man could too.  To him, there is not much exciting than putting on his Lightning McQueen boots and his gloves to go play in the snow.  And really can you blame him?  Who doesn't love a good snowball fight?

We really didn't do much while we visited home (well I didn't, anyway) and that's what made it so perfect.  Winter is the perfect excuse to curl up on the couch like a cat, soaking up the heat from the fire.  

I didn't take as many photos as I thought I would on this trip, but I did take some.  This was pretty much Riley's first experience playing in the snow (besides about 5 minutes when he was 1 and our El Paso snowstorm) so of course I had to document that.  Probably the best part of the whole thing was when he nailed me in the eye with a snowball (my fault, I asked him to throw it at me thinking he wouldn't hit me).  

I also took a LOT of instax photos that I still need to scan, and some holga photos too.  But until I get those all developed and ready, here are some of the digital shots I took.  I could probably photograph little man playing in the snow all day (except that it was flipping cold!)

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!