Celebrate the day....

I'm back in Chicago for Christmas and it's been just beautiful. Beautiful to see my family, snow, amazing friends, downtown shopping, hugs, back rubs, and laughing non stop. It's always an insane time in the Barlow home as EVERYONE is musically inclined and inclined to share at the SAME time. Constant noise ensues. But I love it. And it's probably the thing I miss the most about being here.
I was sitting here in my pj's thinking about this past year and the people in my life, how things have changed and how I've grown and what I've learned... while I was deep in thought this song came on which perfectly says my heart this year. Relient K was always one of my favorites when I was younger.... no wonder why!! Here is a cheesy little You Tube video that I found with the song and lyrics...I hope it makes your night and that you take some time to just get quiet during all this craziness to remember why you are here and WHO you are here for.
I love you all.

The Frosty.

While I was in Chicago at the beginning of this month I took my little four year old sister, Jules, out to her favorite place for dinner: Wendy's. She ordered a Frosty and told me before eating it that it was going to take her ALL night to eat. I promptly got out my iphone and documented the whole half hour process of the frosty eating. She is quiteeee the character. Gah I love her! Click HERE for the hilariousness!

Barlow Family Vacation

Vacations with my family always seem a little hard to come by... having 9 in one family with all age ranges under the sun, everyone owning a biz or in school, and running a church. This seems to limit our options a lot even just with a spare moment to get away!
Well back in the winter someone decided to bless our family with a week of their timeshare wherever we wanted to go! They all decided on Mrytle beach so this past week my family drove down here to Nashville to pick me up and we allll headed down 10 hours in the big BarlowMobile....an adventure in itself let me tell you! We spent the first two days with some friends down in Charleston actually unexpectadly! We just headed over for lunch and they invited our whole family to spend the night and tour Charleston with them! It was AMAZING! They own a home on a finger of the Atlantic and the view is just breathtaking! I could definitely live around there someday! And Charleston DON'T even get me started. Probably one of my favorite city's that I've ever been to! I felt like I had stepped into a southern version of Europe! AWEsome.
We then spent the next 5 days in Myrtle Beach at the time share and it was beautiful.... unfortunately it was pretty cold most of the week so we just chilled and sat in the hot tub... but that is my type of vacation anyways! :) The last day there we all rented beach bikes and road along the water for about an hour.... the fun sort of got dampened though when my phone fell out of my pocket along the beach and I couldn't find it ANYWHERE.... that being my business phone and all I was pretty worried! Thankfully my dad had the idea of calling it and someone had actually picked it up... rather than my fear of it being out in the ocean! THANK GOD! :)
We headed back to Nashville Friday night and got in early Saturday morning for a nice chill day of driving around some of my favorite places, Leipers Fork, Natchez Trace, and tons of other places! My family headed out Sunday afternoon after they got a chance to visit my church for the first time and hang out with some friends! ALL and all it was a beautiful, refreshing, HILARIOUS time!!! Hope you enjoy the slideshow! :)

The not so slow season...

Usually it being winter it's the slower season for a photographer but that's been everything but true this winter! It's been pretty much non-stop the whole time which I love...it's been nice in the transition down here for it to not be too crazy quiet as from what I'm used to(living with 9) that would be a crazy adjustment! ha! 

From traveling a ton, a bunch of house guests, and several photoshoots...it's kept me quite busy! Sooo right now to add to that...my cousins have been in town! I've missed them so much but right now they are down here to record so I get to hang out with them 2 months straight which is WONDERFUL cause they are seriously my best friends ever! The beginnning of their time here I was able to hop on their bus for a couple tour dates which I'll post photos from that soon! But right now onto the more fun stuff! BOWLING! It's pretty much the past time down here....lol...and even though I've played about 5 or 6 games in the past couple weeks I'm still horrible. Like h.o.r.r.i.b.l.e. to the max....this was actually a recent discovery as I had never bowled without bumpers before now. Ohhh yes...the benefits of being the oldest of 7;) So I had to learn all over again....of course shooting more pictures than anything...Here's from our fun night and a cool light area that we found afterwards!
-Here is my cousins little dog Penny that I dog sat a couple weeks ago...gosh I want a puppy sooooo bad!-

Beka Hardt the Bowler extraordinaire.


My cousin Alyssa and I...the only ones in the family "blessed" to still be the height of a 12 year old...lol.

Nathan Lee my cousins awesome friend and phenomenal artist!

Guess which one is my score???? ;)




SUCH fun times!!! Gosh I need to blog more...can someone please be my blog police or something...I sometimes forget about it;) lol!!

The not so downtime....

Whew! What a month! December and January went by and is going by waaaaay to fast! I guess it's so true about time flying when you are having fun! Here is a little recap of my past month and somewhat of an explanation of the lack of blogging...I've figured out what it is..I am a HUGE people person and when they are around I don't want to do anything except entertain or veg... I need to learn how to balance it so that my work-life/productiveness doesn't stop when I have people around...as my dad said right after I had moved out... that there was more oxygen at their house because I wasn't there...not that I personally was taking up so much oxygen... just that I always like to bring a TRIBE home with me! That hasn't really stopped since being down here... it's actually almost escalated I think.. It's been such INCREDIBLE times of laughing, talking, dressing up, photo-shooting, working out, eating really good food, shopping... plus getting some work done too of course;)
So as I said in a previous post the month started with my friend Victoria and Angela from Chicago coming to visit and go to a concert!
Then my friend/previous intern Jamie Delaine came in for a week in the middle of December to see my new place and just spend some quality time! She is from Vancouver, BC and I'm trying to get her to move here... cause we are definitely two peas in a pod it's ridiculous and we basically never slept the entire time she was here... with ugly sweater parties, crazy youtube video making, running what felt like 1000s of miles. Yeah. We lived it up!
Right after Jamie left I headed home for 8 days for Christmas! It was sooooo wonderful being back with my family and didn't realize how much I had missed them! I always get really refreshed and re-energized when I'm there...yes even through all the craziness I find it relaxing! ha! It was a beautiful Christmas and one of my favorite parts was being able to see my youngest sister JuliAnna really start to enjoy it... as the past years she's been to little to understand! It was a beautiful time!

I made sure that I stayed an extra day for my beautiful sister Natalie's 17th birthday...she's getting sooo crazy old and mature... has a million friends, her own business, a gorgeous model, plus such a heart to help and love people...what more could you want!? I love her so much!
I came home and enjoyed a couple days of quiet and rest to catch up on everything and get focused before the new year! It was perfect timing too before the next group of people showed up!
On New Years Eve I went to my church for a crazzzzzzy 80's celebration! Sometimes you might think with a church it might just end up cheesy or something like that...NOT even close! This was beyond incredible! Everyone being crazy decked out in hideous 80s outfits, learning thriller, and dancing the night away to a cover band! It was amazing!
The next morning I woke up super early.. yes I can be hardcore like that sometimes... to run Nashville's 5K Resolution Run with my running club from church! It was THE best way to start off the new year... plus then heading over to one of my friends house to celebrate and laugh the rest of the day away with fun games!
That night my beautiful friend Abby Smith arrived in town to spend a couple days here in Nashville! We had been trying to work out a time and finally found just the right time! Also in keeping with tradition as last year was the first time I had met her right at the same time when she came to my house in Chicago! Abby is from the brown state(that's what I relate it too...) of Oklahoma. haha!! She is SUCH a sweet spirit and we just get into some of the best conversations! She is a BRILLIANT photographer too and she actually did some pics for me that I'm going to post on my new website! I love her so much and am so blessed by her!
Finally...right after Abby left my friend Carolina came in town for a photoshoot! Carolina and I have been emailing the past 3 years or so as she is one of the moderators for my cousin's, BarlowGirl, forum and we hit is off SOOO well...she is a worship leader down in Miami and finally decided that she needed some photos for her new projects!! It was seriously one of the most amazing and fun shoots I've done...I'll post those very soon!
Lastly... my friend Heather texted me a couple weeks ago as she had 2 tickets to the Nashville Celine Dion Concert and she invite ME to go with her! I was so honored and boy was it an experience!! What an amazing show! I didn't think I would know a lot of her stuff...but I was happily surprised at how much I recognized...I guess being a wedding photographer that comes with the territory...it was one unreal night! :)
Well.....that my friends has been my last month and where I've been..I'm considering hiring a professional blogger for me just to follow me around like a paparazzi and document my life...what do you think? Yeah...I thought it was a pretty good idea myself! ;)
I love you all!!!

The Barlow Bunch!!

In the past our family has "sometimes" gotten out a Christmas picture and card relatively around Christmas or New Years...but I ALWAYS envied the families who had enough time to put together a Christmas letter...no matter how many times I would try to write one or get my parents to it NEVER seemed to happen...until somehow a miracle happened in our midst... more like... just rallying the whole family together to get this thing out instead of just one person! We thought...we are all on the computer most of the time anyways...so what better way for a Christmas/New Years letter than a website!! Thankfully my brother works for the INCREDIBLE company showit... that gives you a sweet tool, showit sites, to build these things so easily!! Soooo now...better late than never..I introduce....The Barlow Bunch!!!! ""CLICK HERE"" for more information on my family than you probably ever want to know! ;)
I love you all!!!
The picture below is the first version before JuliAnna was born back in 05!

Twas the....

....night(morning now) before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse(hopefully we got rid of all those!);

The stockings were hung by the chimney(how did they possibly build this house without a chimney?) with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there(I better head to bed...I might scare him away!).
Although it looks like he already arrived!!!
JUST finished last minute shopping, cleaning up, and wrapping all the presents!! Ready for a BEAUTIFUL day tomorrow(today...) of gifts, food, friends, and family! I flew home to Chicago on Sunday and am seriously loving being here!! I've missed the constant noise, back rubs and loving! It's a crazy place here but I love it with all my heart! Here is a perfect example of why....this was right after telling them a "story out of my hand" about when I was a little girl...that's their favorite thing right now!! I LOVE YOU ALL so very much! Have a verrrrry Merry, Happy, Joyful, Healthy, and Safe Christmas!!!

Warm and Cozy

After spending a couple days here in Nashville before Thanksgiving...my family and I road tripped to one of my favorite places, Chattanooga! My aunt and uncle live in a house right on the lake out there and it is seriously breathtaking! I never want to leave! We had about 25ish people all sleeping in one house for a couple nights and boy was it an adventure and a half! I was assigned the room with 10 kids.... surprisingly I even slept in! The days were spent cooking, playing apples to apples, everyone hanging out on their laptops, singing, and great conversations!! Ohhh how I love the holidays!!

The view from the kitchen, just part of the family praying, Natalie and I, my uncle and grandpa high fiving for the CUBS!! :)

Jules....ahh how I love her!!!

I hope you all slow down a little to just take in how wonderful this time truly is!! :)

Roller Skating for Dummies.

Over Thanksgiving my family came in... now for any normal person that would consist of a couple people coming over for some Turkey and to stay a couple nights.... well mine was a little different! My WHOLE, think 8, family got in around 2:30am to crash at my place!! You couldn't see the floor as it was all covered with air mattresses and blankets! One giant slumber party! It was SO hilarious and wonderful at the same time! I seriously missed my family so much and it was great to have our super frequent "family meetings" again(basically everyone happens to be in the same room so someone calls a family meeting....just to talk...or talk about cleaning...or just hang out)...lol! I love it! They were here for a full week but after the first night we spread out a little more between me and my grandparents house so my neighbors wouldn't call the cops;) lol!

We went roller skating one of the days and it was umm...an experience. I have NEVER been roller skating..only roller blading....and I most definitely won't quit my day job...it's not really going to work out for me..especially since I had to hold onto someone most of the time! ha! So we reverted back to taking pictures most of the time...OF COURSE! 

I seriously needed this time with my family as I hadn't seen them in 2 months! And the comfort of family is something I can't even explain! I loved it! Tomorrow I'll post a little more about the time!:)

2 going on 27 (year old comedian).

My ADORABLE sister JuliAnna is getting so old! It's crazy! I can't believe she's already 2 and a half now...I remember right when she was born and looked exactly like my brother John! Thankfully she's gotten a lot cuter since then! haha! She is one funny little girl though and we are constantly laughing at all that she says and does! Here is a little series from a trip to target....the whole store is her playland apparently! Who ever heard of toys?? This was after a nice little dose of sugar which we have found makes her act and walk like a drunk.....maybe we should back off on the sugar a little??;) I just love how random she is and this she did all on her own....also yesterday she helped me pull up the car in the parking lot at church and thought she was just queen of the world turning the windshield wipers on, changing the radio and turning the steering wheel hand over hand....I love her so incredibly much she's tooo fun!

Here is my FAVORITE video of her and I right after waking up a couple months ago....she is just tooo hilarious!

Proud....and getting VERY old...

Well it was bound to happen....I am now not the only child in my family cross over the finish line of high school! My brother, Andrew, just last week graduated from high school! I'm so very proud of him....while starting to feel really old all of a sudden! This is pretty weird! He was home schooled his whole life like I was....but somehow had the magic touch and my parents sent him and my sister to a SUPER private school for his last year! (I begged my parents all 3 years of highschool to go to "regular" school...to no avail[but I consider myself VERY lucky now seeing all the homework he had to go through!!])
Anyways, Andrew was part of the first graduating class of the school ever! So there was a HUGE group of 5. lol! I'm sure it worked out nice in the training aspect during the year being focused more on than just one in 500 students! :)
I definitely started getting teary eyed a couple times during the graduation....and at the end....I looked UP to Andrew and said, "Congratulations on becoming a big boy now!" It's weird being a little but big sister!
Here are some pics from the night!




We did a fun shoot a couple weeks ago with Andrew that I'll post about soon!:) Congratulations Andrew!! I'm so proud of you and CAN'T WAIT to see what God has planned for your BRIGHT future! :)

I love you all!!! The interns and I are having SUCH a blast! I'll post about it soon! Hopefully I'll get caught up SOMETIME soon!

A Dominican Easter

Well this past weekend has been amazing!! I've determined that when I have a family I want to take them down here every year for Easter! It's such a wonderful and cultural time!
We started off Friday by heading down to the outdoor cafeteria for lunch, then I joined a bunch of students in watching the movie the Passion which was my 3rd time watching it yet everytime it's like I'm watching it for the first time! It's soooo real! Afterwards we did the annual cross walk up the mountain. Basically they have this big cross that everyone takes turns carrying up the mountain to the top of the campus and we stop along the way to sing songs and read about what all happened then! Really eye opening especially after just watching the movie! :)
Saturday was sooo fun and that will have a whole post on it's own!;)
And then this morning we all woke up at 5:30am to head down to one of the student houses that looks out over the whole valley to have a sunrise service! It was GORGEOUS and a great service at that too! :)
After the service we all headed down the hill to have an easter egg hunt while the guys on staff made breakfast for everyone! YUM YUM! Right before breakfast once everyone gathered together they had a contest on who decorated the best egg and boy were there some AMAZING ones!! You'll see some of them in the slideshow here!! I really love the community down here! We all do so many things together and when were not doing that we are just relaxing and doing nothing! What a life! This is really how it should be lived! Check out the slideshow here!!
Can't wait to post about yesterday!!
Super funny!
I love you all!!

Time flies like Santa Claus.

Ahh! What an amazing Christmas! I can't believe I'm just posting about it now...but everything of course seems to speed up even more than you ever thought possible AFTER the fact!
We had a wonderful little Christmas eve party with a couple families and did one of my favorite pastimes ever...singing together with the guitars. I don't think I've ever heard more beautiful Christmas Carols! :) *unfortunately I don't have any pics from that...but here are some of Olivia and JuliAnna modeling their Christmas gifts from me:)
Christmas morning we woke up far to early...but of course you can't fall back asleep once you've woken up...especially on this morning! We always crowd at the top of the stairs waiting for the ok to run and get our stockings(which usually ends up being our *VERY unhealthy* breakfast. lol!
The older I get the more that presents really aren't as HUGE of a deal as when I was little and I really didn't want more stuff, so I told people not to get me anything;) lol...but of course they had to...so..I got stuff to re-do my room and my favorite new pair of shoes Uggs(pure heaven I might add).
After all the gift exchanging and watching one of the gifts(Bourne Ultimatum; AMAZINGNESS!!) we headed up to my cousins house for our first Christmas at their new house! It was WONDERFUL and we didn't end up leaving until 2am - entertained by playing the wii, watching Mission Impossible and playing a crazy new game called "would you rather?" so it proved to be a Christmas WELL spent!! I hope you all had an amazing holiday and took some time to remember the true meaning of it;)
Love you all!

Family Time

Ahh! I finally got some time to put together the different video and pics from our trip to the Wisconsin Dells! It was SO much fun and it was wonderful just chilling! I do have to say though...we are already talking about family reunions because trying to get 9 people anywhere at a decent time in pretty much a miracle in itself...we have been doing smaller vacations at different times rather than the whole clan because there are soooo many different interests and places to go to! But I'm glad we were all able to go out and have fun together for a little bit...even though the scene may look like a scene from Survivor most of the time..haha!
One of the nights we were there my mom had us make children's books because they are SO stinking easy...it could just be a word on each page and a colorful picture and the kid would think it is a NY times bestseller! lol! You'll see my book(in which I was trying to give my mom a subliminal message with;) in this slideshow as well some other highlights!


We also got a lot of fun video like last time so here are some of the highlights from that too!


I hope you are all having a WONDERFUL Christmas Eve! I finally finished my Christmas shopping yesterday(which is a miracle because I only started on Saturday!) and now for some MAJOR wrapping presents time! :)
I'll post more tomorrow about my thoughts on Christmas...but until then...ciao!:)

My little pilot.

My not so little brother John just turned double digits today...the big 10! I remember when I was little it was SO cool to turn ten because then when people asked you how old you were you could just hold up both hands and not hold any fingers down! HA! The small things in life that were exciting!:)
John has always been my little buddy and I remember I watched him being born and even cut the cord which I thought was just so cool! lol.
I know he has such an amazing call on his life and I seriously can't wait to see it all take place. He has such a tender heart but is VERY strong at the same time. He also wants to be a pilot soooo that we'll be convenient when I want to travel to fun places;) LOL!
We went out tonight to Red Lobster for a fun birthday dinner for him which is always fun...especially since the family doesn't all eat together as much as we used because we've been SO busy to so this was extra special!:)
I love you John!
PS...The picture is actually from a year ago...but I haven't gotten around to do a family shoot in a LONG time:( I'll have to do one soon!

Beauty sleep...

Ahh! The joys of being 4 again! :)