Life Lately {via Instagram}

I love Instagram!

Love isn't even a strong enough word. I'm obsessed with Instagram!

It allows me to document so much of our life that I normally wouldn't if I had to carry around my big old camera. The only down fall is now I find myself not documenting our life on a real camera. Oooppsss!!!!!!

And, even though I know Instagram is nothing new in "Blogland", I thought it would be fun to recap my favorite snaps every once and a while. Oh, and I may or may not, be sharing a little Instagram project I did around these neck of the woods!

So life lately via my Insta feed:

This guy is getting so big. We finally finished sorting through his preemie clothes. I just had to snap this pic to remember he really was that little!

Laneydoo has taken to Instagram as well! She shoots and picks a "color" for her photos at least two times a week. This snap of her brother is one of my recent faves!

This girl is becoming such a little lady. I look at her and think, wow, we made that...blessed! Then she'll do something that drives me completely insane and I think...what were we thinking? Mama-hood, right?

Over the weekend we stayed the night in Huntington Beach. When we were walking to dinner, I realized the spot we sat and talked on our first date was right up the street. I fondly refer to it as the first date fountain. We drank coffee and talked for hours that night. Fifteen years later, here we are with our babies. If you told me then that in fifteen years I'd be sitting in the same spot with a hubby and three babies, I would have kindly told you what you were full of. I guess sometimes life has different, better plans for us!

The mister ran in the HB half marathon this weekend. That's him waving with the white hat and blue shirt. The tall dude waving is his cousin and Mr. T's Nino. At first I thought it was silly for The Mister to do a half. He's already done the full distance with his tri's but now I get it. It's about training and time. He did good:  01:50:40 something. He finished and said he wants to get faster. Translation: here we go again! Oh, and, I really don't understand why people pay so much money to inflict pain on themselves. I'm working on figuring this out!

The race was on Super Bowl Sunday. Needless to say, we didn't attend any parties. We were all pretty wiped out so this is how we watched the game.

Last, I opened this today, realized it's February and that it's about to get crazy in this hood! No really...crazy, crazy, crazy town. You know, more than usual! We officially slow down in June...say what?

Oh, and P.S., you can find me on Instagram @mjpohl1999.

My Style {Family Photos}

Once a year, every year, we have a little photo session with our family photographer to capture a small glimpse of our family and freeze it in time. Usually, I've been brainstorming ideas and planning/researching since the time Angela snaps the last shot of the prior years shoot...pinning photo ideas and contemplating the look and feel that I'd like the photos to portray. But after all the dreaming and the planning, our annual family photos must always fall within a few guidelines:

They may NOT cost us a fortune.

                      AND

We MUST use what we have in regards to clothing.

Sometimes it gets a little tricky but most of the time it ends up working out perfectly. Here are a few of my tips and tricks for styling our family photo sessions.

{1.} Plan, plan, plan. Think about what you want the photos to say about your family in that moment. For us, this year, we were doing a gender reveal for baby #3 and I knew I wanted to represent the new "blue" coming into our house while still representing all things pink and girly! But this could also be something as simple as a special treasure like a blanket or a little ones favorite t-shirt. 

Via PBKisses Photography

{2.} Think about any props you may want to include...if that's your thing. Styled photos are such a big thing right now but make sure that any styling is still a representation of your family and your life. For this shoot, I knew I wanted pink and blue balloons, a boy or girl gender reveal box, and blue and pink converse. These items were my starting points for everything else related to the photos.

Via PBKisses Photography

{3} Make sure to shop your closet before you buy a single item of new clothing. Lay everything you like out on a bed and mix and match it all up. You'll be amazed at what you can come up with. Remember, clothing should always coordinate but never be matchy-matchy. So, think of it like this...the kids can wear the same color/tone but the days of them being twins probably isn't what you want for the photos. Here's how our clothing broke down, with what we shopped our closest for and what was bought at a good old brick and mortar:

Via PBKisses Photography

My starting point was this blue and white striped dress on my Laneydoo with the sweet pink button detail and both the girl's pink converse. Both of which we already had on hand. Next up was finding something the Monkey could wear that coordinated with her sister.

Via PBKisses Photography

Lucky for us,  she had worn a plain white eyelet dress for Easter this year which would coordinate with everything and we always have a jean jacket on hand (it's a must have wardrobe staple). So I threw that in to add a little blue. Last the girls just needed a little more pink, so I opted for some matching pink bows. I ordered these two from SoSoBella.

Via PBKisses Photography

Next up was the Mister and I. I had everything for myself except the pink converse and some jewelry. I find that dressing the Mister always manages to be the most difficult and requires the most out of pocket $$$. He needed navy blue converse and a new shirt. Thankfully, I scored this plaid shirt number for him that incorporated both pink and navy. Double score for us, the pink is very muted and he can wear this shirt to work. Booyah!

Via PBKisses Photography

So there you have it, family photos on a budget. Now, in an effort for full disclosure, I did spend extra $$$ on props (i.e. painted box & balloons).  

Total Clothing Budget:  $123.00

2012 Family Photos

Every year we try to take family photos with our favorite photographer Angela of PBKisses Photography. She is truly AMAZING!!!!! She gets my crazy and she's down for shooting almost anything. She's witty, funny, energetic, and the kids love her. It makes for fun family photo sessions, where you'll usually find her rolling in the dirt and shooting us for longer than our allotted time.

This year, when our spring session time rolled around, we knew we wanted to do something special to announce that Baby #3 was indeed a boy. Here are some of my favorite shots from this years session:

The picture on the far left was how we announced to the grandparents that our little bun in the oven was going to be a boy. I love it because the picture doesn't scream...look this is a gender reveal!

Balloons were fun for the girls too. All in blue, of course! Since these two girly's will be big sisters to a little boy come October. We had a about two dozen to start with, but when it was all said and done, the girls left empty handed. All those balloons were either lost to the blue skies or popped.

And some of my favorite black & whites from the session. And probably the coolest photo of the entire shoot, well, to me at least:

My Monkey doing cartwheels. This is such a representation of my cartwheeling, hand-standing, twirling and whirling girl forever captured in her six year old form.