By the end of the appointment, poor little Trenton wasn’t too thrilled with being posed on this chair outside.  :)

The overflow from the spine caused the back cover image to be too far to the left.

Looks like the spine was broken, revealing the glue.

A shot of my logo almost on the edge of the back cover.

Either the book was put together horribly, or the inside somehow got really wet.

A full shot of the messed up back cover.

“John + Katie” should be centered on the spine.  Obviously, something is going wrong here!

Dec. 1st, 24 DAYS TO GO – A Gift for G’G'Ma

This project has taken me over a year, but it’s really started to take shape.  During Thanksgiving break, back in 2010, my Mom was working on my son Lincoln’s Christmas stocking.  I sat there, watching her stitch away, and I found myself dying to learn how to do it myself.

Long story short, Mom gave me a few (actually like a million) pointers, and I was off!  Sadly, I didn’t do too much work on it after that but picked it back up just a few weeks ago.  Below is a photo showing how far I’ve gotten, and this year, I WILL be giving it to my Grandma.

Dec. 2nd, 23 DAYS TO GO – Parade Prep

Tomorrow is the Marshfield Holiday Parade, and I’ll be walking in it!  To promote Jenny Minard Photography, I will be handing out candy canes with an invitation to participate in an awesome Christmas giveaway.  Tonight, Andrew and I watched “Psych” while attaching the labels to all the candy canes.  I hope the weather holds up and isn’t too cold tomorrow!

So, here we go:

Below, you will be able to see how much decking of the halls we did for this event, and, in case you missed out, all the other fun!

Our entry for the “Candy Cane Christmas” window display contest.  Our inspiration was the actual shape of the candy cane, and although you don’t normally think of rain during the Christmas season, we decided to make our door design funky with umbrellas!

One lucky person will be winning this AMAZING prize of $200 in portrait credit from JMP.  That blog post will be coming shortly!

Stephanie shows some visitors her totally rad Keurig, and all the flavors of coffee and cocoa they could choose!  I got to try the hot chocolate (with the addition of marshmallows) and it was delish!

We were fortunate to be visited by the big man himself – Santa!  He handed out candy canes, posed for some photos, and completely made our day.

Probably one of the most memorable moments of the evening was when this wicked-cool car (red Daytona) parked RIGHT in front of our steps.  We hoped they’d be coming in for portraits, but they had other plans.  Apparently, they were just looking for a convenient parking spot to do their trick-or-treating around the square.  However, we had a plan of our own, too.  Once they were gone, we put fliers on all the windshields of the cars parked on our street (as my assistant Janessa is doing below).

Now on to the best part – the contest results.  There were actually four contests to enter at Jenny Minard Photography:

(1) Count the candies – big candies in a large jar.  Total number of candy was 276.  The winner was Miss Brylee!

(2) Count the candies – candy corn in a small jar.  Total number was 718.  The winner was Mr. Rickie!

(3) Coloring contest.  We only had two contestants and they happened to be brother and sister.  The drawings were posted on Facebook and anyone was allowed to vote.  In the end, the most votes went to Mr. Brady (entry below)!

(4) Costume contest.  We had eight contestants in the end, and they were judged by four awesome individuals.  Judge #1 is Ms. Katie Ahern of West Burlington, Iowa.  She is currently in school, majoring in music education and will graduate in December of 2012.  She also happens to be my little sister.  Judge #2 is Mrs. Brittany Todd of Decorah, Iowa.  She is the owner of Photography by Brittany, and you can visit her Facebook page by clicking HERE.  Judge #3 is Mrs. Betsi Smith of Sperry, Iowa.  She is a ThirtyOne consultant (and an amazing one at that), and is my other little sister.  Judge #4 is Mrs. Jodie Gerling of Manhattan, Kansas.  She is the owner of JG Designs & Photography.  You can visit her blog HERE or visit her on Facebook HERE.

Now, the judges were to rank all the contestants’ costumes from ones they liked the best to the least.  In the end, the person with the most points would win.  Below are all the awesome costumes we saw this Halloween.  My son Lincoln, the giraffe, was included here but was not among the contestants.

Below, my good friend Stephanie and her two kids were nerds for Halloween and decided to do a “Photos by Deb” pose.  Hilarious!

Now, the winner of our costume contest will receive a gift card to Incredible Pizza, and all the fame and fortune associated with the title “Best Halloween Costume of 2011.”  I’d like to present Miss Okleigh as our winner!  And please note the amazing detail work in her costume, made by her mom, Jessica!  The cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  Congrats Okleigh!

However, I’m not THAT mean, so I will leave you with a little something to curb your appetite.  Currently, some web-related renovations are taking place, starting with the splash page of the main Jenny Minard Photography site.  Check out the new look!