As an East Coast girl, a white Christmas is the best way to enjoy the holidays and to end the year.  Living in California, you don’t have any opportunities to see a white Christmas ever.  This year, we were back in Draper, Utah visiting family and taking in the cold, cold fresh air and enjoying life as we know it.  To end the year, we decided to capture the Ongman family at their best…dressed in their winter jackets, having fun, and freezing their buns off.

We spent 4 days in Draper with Heidi and her family, it was such an awesome Christmas and I’m so thankful to have Heidi and her family in my life.  The entire family was in tow…my mom & brother along with Heidi and her family, Mama & Papa Lempert and the husband and yours truly (plus the two dogs).  It was a full house and a fabulous visit – stay tuned for the next post…the video that the hubby put together that sums up our family vacation fabulously…

Anywho…check out the fun we had at Draper Park with Heidi and family!!!

All pooped out after the photo shoot…

Now, you may be wondering how in the world I got the four kiddos to cooperate and last almost an hour, posing for tons of photos…here’s how the email conversation went between me and Heidi…Heidi:  “We’ll have to figure out how to get the kids to stand still and pose for photos…”  Me:  “Well, we can bribe them with something…maybe?”  Heidi:  “What do you think we should do?”  Me:  “Well in the olden days, wouldn’t they sacrifice a human for promise of good things to come?”  Heidi:  “That sounds like a good idea, who should we sacrifice?”  Me:  “Well the kiddos love Uncle Cool, let’s sacrifice him after the photo shoot…”

Luckily, it worked out…the hubby was my lovely assistant, making the kiddos laugh and assisting with demonstrating how to pose for a photo…

And when we were finally done, the promise of a human sacrifice was paid forward and we let the kiddos loose on Uncle Cool…

The End…another great end to another great shoot.  Thanks Ongman crew, we love you!  Cheers!

It seriously can’t be true…not yet…has another year passed me by?  Really!?? It feels like we just welcomed 2009, didn’t we?  Who said that when you get older, the years pass you by faster?   When I look back through 2009, I find myself smiling…well, if you really knew me, it would look more like a doofy grin, but you know what I mean!  2009 was a year of success…in business, in my first year of marriage, and in life!  Life only gets better and better!  We not only learn from our mistakes but we make good choices along the way.  So for 2010, some of the 2009 mistakes and good choices are making the new year look good so far… some travel…some adventures…and a lot of photos to be taken! So, be sure to stay tuned for more photos on the blog, the website and even the Facebook page – geez, I’m tired just blogging about it…AND more Lempert adventures.

So, with that said, I leave you with our 2009 seasons greetings…enjoy it now because it’s just going to get worse as the years go on.  Here’s a short little history to the greeting cards ala Lempert.  Mom and Dad Lempert have an awesome newsletter that comes tucked into the Christmas card, which is their little year-in-review to keep all the friends and relatives in the know.  My sister-in-law also has a little letter (this year, from the kiddos) tucked into her cards as well.  To be honest, I love getting these newsletters and so does the hubby.  We secretly hope to make top billing on the Mom & Dad Lempert newsletter, but this year, it was only about them!  So, to compete with the rest of the Lempert clan, the hubby and I have decided we’re going to give a piece of ourselves in our greeting cards…so here it is, loud and proud…SEASONS GREETINGS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Cheers and love,  Eva

Kelley and John are very familiar with my blog…they were one of the first weddings I ever blogged and have been faithful readers and supporters since!  They are great friends and without them, fun wouldn’t exist!!  HA!  They had an awesome idea for their Christmas photo and I was so excited to be a part of it – it’s not every day you get a stroke of creative genius so when it does strike, you’ve got to strike when the iron is hot!!

Speaking of hot, California is just unbelievable with it’s 360 days of pure sunshine!  Take it from me, an East Coast girl…once you move here, you kind of forget why you would ever want to leave!  Last weekend, it was beautiful…a good 70ish degrees, I mean really…who gets to go to the beach in shorts in DECEMBER??  Which is the perfect reason why Kelley and John’s holiday card worked out so well…check it out…a very Merry Christmas from the Moore’s ala sunny California!

Meet Brooke…she’s 5 months old and is one of the most adorable little girls that I’ve met this year.  And what a great session to end 2009 with!!  Brooke lives in Newport Beach, with her mom and dad, whom I met through a few friends of mine.  Brooke needed to have some photos taken for the holidays and she was ready to rock and roll.  Brooke was a good sport and lasted almost two entire hours, which is pretty spectacular for a 5 month old baby, who lives and breathes to play and sleep.  Trust me, I know – if I lived and breathed to play and sleep, I sure wouldn’t want a camera lens in my face for more than 5 seconds!  Brooke and the fam did an amazing and fabulous job…oh, and I got some great photos to boot!!  Check out some of the fun I had with Brooke and her family…

I call it a bird’s nest, it’s the best description I can give to anyone when discussing my hair in its current state.  It’s the one thing in my life that fails me over and over again.  It is no one’s  fault but my own and I take full responsibility for my appearance, from the neck up.  This is why I put all of my trust into my hair stylist, who has been putting up with my nest for 12 years and counting.  She makes me feel wonderful and not so anxious about setting out in this fashion-forward society.  Walking into her salon makes me nervous and insecure…as I pass by all of these stylish stylists with awesome hair…while seeing my hair stylist again to tame the crazy birds nest.

And this is how I came to meet Stacy.  Stacy is also a hip and stylish hair stylist and she always had the chair next to my hair guru.  So, when I ran out of things to say (I know, crazy talk, isn’t it?), I would listen to Stacy’s conversation with her clients.  I love the hair salon – it’s where you catch up on all the latest celebrity gossip and you get to hear everyone else’s gossip as well – it’s a girl thing and I love every single minute of it…and what’s better than knowing that when you leave this place, you are caught up on all the juicy tidbits but you look fabulous to boot!!

So, this time, Stacy got to sit in “my chair” when she asked that I shoot a few head shots of her for work and for her own personal use.  I was game on and so was she.  She openly admitted when we first met up that she was nervous and I told her that I felt the same way when walking into her salon – we laughed, we hung out and shot some awesome looking photos (in my own opinion, of course), and when we were finished, she looked amazing on camera!!

Stacy, thank you for the awesome time and thanks for not saying a thing about my hot mess bird’s nest when we met up!  HA!  Check out the beautiful and fabulous Stacy!!

I met twins, Jack and Samantha, at the cover shoot for January’s Parenting Orange County Magazine – we met up at Katie Wheeler Library, in Irvine and had a blast running around the grounds.  It was a pleasure to work with the kiddos and to also work with Cindy, their mom, a writer at the magazine too. Jack and Samantha are 8 years old and they are at that fun age where sitting close to each other is an “ewwwwww” followed by tons of laughter and elbow-jabbing.  So, after hanging out for about an hour, I was exhausted!!  Who knew they would tire me out like that??!!  They were packed full of energy and their laughter was infectious.  Looking forward to watching these two grow up reading Cindy’s monthly “2 Kids & a 20.”  Check out all the fun and stay tuned for the January 2010 issue of the magazine!