Capturing Joy with Kristen Duke
Capturing the Joy in Life
I’m so excited to announce that I’ve asked a handful of fabulous photographers to help me share photo tips on my blog! I have been slacking in that area, and it’s not that I don’t want to, but my efforts are into eating and decorating these days, and my mind is occupied with those thoughts. Please welcome my friend Jennifer! I am Jennifer…full time mom, wife, photographer, professional errand runner, and wanna be dance superstar!… Continue Reading
My baby turned 4, and we celebrated with a Pretty Purple Party! She loves purple, and it was so fun to plan a party around just one color! We have lots of purple for the girls, so I pulled out their purple kitchen and items from the girls fancy room to add to the fun! Enter our world of purple and at the end of this post, I’ll share where I found some of the… Continue Reading
Excited to share with you some Sisters with some amazing talent, whom I get to call friends. When I met them at SNAP last year, they shared their business card in a suitcase tag–how clever is that?!? I continue to be impressed by their creative talent on their site. Hi there! We are Nat & Holly: two sisters that love to create, and hate that we live so far apart. So we started a blog… Continue Reading
This year was my son’s Golden Birthday. He turned 10 on the 10th–gold. Growing up, my husband and his siblings got a golden gift on their golden birthday–he got a golden eagle on his 9th birthday. I didn’t hear about that for my oldest, who had his golden birthday on his first birthday, but I started it with #2. I spray painted a soccer ball gold, and it was the centerpiece at the soccer table,… Continue Reading
For the past 5 years or so, I’ve organized a Couples Halloween Party at my home, filled with spooky food, scary games, and great conversation. I have a love/hate relationship with this affair. I love it because it is SO fun to get together with our friends, see the crazy costumes people come up with, find out funny and new stories from said friends, and eat a bunch of festive Halloween food. Not so fun… Continue Reading
I loved the idea I saw a while ago on NieNie Dialogues to have a family back to school dinner with a theme. This year, I decided to get myself together and do just that. Most of the ideas are grabbed from resources on the web–not my own, but I just wanted to share our end result, and our family theme. (Many can be found on my back to school pinterest board). Even if you started… Continue Reading
I was so excited when Piper’s mom asked me to come photograph her first birthday party, an Alice in Wonderland theme! I love fun and whimsical parties, and joining with past clients (I photographed mom when she was expecting big sis’ maternity and newborn sessions a while back) makes it all the more fun! I had this vintage high chair sitting in my attic the past year–unfinished, and when I told Piper’s mom about it,… Continue Reading
My older daughter’s 7th birthday had a Rockstar theme. She is quite the rock star herself, so it was fitting. Pink & black with a touch of orange and purple.Above, the gorgeous and delicious cake my friend from I Crave Cake made, and below a close up of the candy mold microphones I whipped out (don’t look too close). Found those on Amazon.I got the idea from a friends party to double up the paper plates–I… Continue Reading
I decided I want to start hosting some dinner parties at my home. I like to socialize, and it just doesn’t seem to happen enough that my hubby and I get together with other couples, but when we do, it is SO much fun! So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and invite some couples over, and hope to be able to have different groups over each month. I assigned out certain… Continue Reading
This was such a special party to attend, as I was able to witness and photograph his birth last year. His momma, one of my dear friends, also a photographer. We met 2 years ago when we were both on location shooting a session and quickly exchanged biz cards and got together later. I just love the sweet details from this party–chalkboard signs & and brunch complete with stacks of pancakes instead of cupcakes and… Continue Reading
Today, my adorable youngest child turns 3, and I couldn’t be more bummed about her growing up older. I love every stage of my children, but the transition from baby to toddler is a tough one. She still says so many cute things like cha-lockit milk, but she corrects herself so much when she realizes she says something wrong. I have never been one to correct my children at this stage for saying butchering words… Continue Reading
My daughter loves Pinkalicious, and when we found the book, Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink, I suggested to her to have a Pink Lemonade birthday party. She got excited right away, so we made plans for the theme. I enlisted my hubby and his love for pvc pipes to build a little awning above our kitchen table to make the lemonade stand. The yellow is a tablecloth pinned to the ceiling and clipped to the… Continue Reading
Lets just say that I was a little excited to plan, prepare, and throw a party for my 2 year old. These pictures will remind her years down the road because I know she won’t actually remember;) When she was 20 months old, we noticed that her baby mumble was more like the tune of a song–Mary had a little lamb to be exact. We realized she had heard it over and over when her… Continue Reading
For those of you that haven’t been following my work too long, you should know that I’ve had the pleasure to photograph a set of quintuplets since they were about 6 weeks old. I’ve become dear friends with their mom, and our families simply adore each other (our older kids match up nicely). We try to do dinner every month and switch off hosting. They live on the other side of town from us (ok,… Continue Reading
I was at a really fun photo shoot tonight that I came home all excited about, yet I have no images to show for it. I didn’t even take my camera! Crazy, right? When I left, I told my kids I was doing a little service (not that I’m bragging to them, but my kids need to know that not everything I do has a return). I like to use that word, they need to… Continue Reading
