Lights at the Green Bay Botanical Gardens

I wanted to share some images I took while at the Green Bay Botanical Gardens. If you have never had the chance to visit the gardens its not only beautiful in the summer but also in the winter as well. The lights were amazing! I highly recommend it!

This a image I did of Zander and Carter (my cousin's little guys). They loved all the lights!

Image of my cousin Courtney and my aunt Pat.

Image of my cousin Jodi and her little guys.

Happy New Year

Last year at New Years we were 3 months pregnant. We imagined how different this year would be at New Years and how life as we knew it would see change.
What a great New Year it was...we enjoyed an evening home and enjoyed the company of some friends. Much to our surprise we all made it to mid-night but of course headed to bed shortly after. The nights of staying up past midnight are something of the past. Crazy what a year can bring and how a child can change life. We are so blessed with little Max and all the joy he has brought into our lives.

New Years day we were able to celebrate with some family that we were not able to see over Christmas. Here are a few images from the day...

Zander and Carter helping Max open his present from them. They were so excited for "baby Max" to open his gift!

Kelly and her cousins

The boys hanging out and goofing off for the camera.

I wanted to post some images of a session I did of Max and his big cousin Callen at Christmas but forgot, so here are a few photos from the session. They are so cute!

I promise, Callen is not trying to eat Max, he was just giving him a smooch!

A Very Merry Christmas indeed

Yes we know it is the end of January and we are finally posting from Christmas. Life just seems to get the best of us. For those of you who follow...we are very sorry for the late postings. However, we are firm believers in: "better late than never"!

What a wonderful December we had. Lots of family get-togethers, which we enjoyed two of them at our home. Kelly is thrilled to finally have a home large enough to have family gatherings. This Christmas was a truly blessed one as we were able to share it with Max. The feelings you get when you live Christmas through a child. Max's first Christmas was very memorable and one we will treasure for a life-time!

Here are a few memories we captured along the way...

Picking out our Christmas tree

The tree after it was decorated. We actually had two trees (Kelly went a little crazy with the decorating) one real and one fake. This is the real one, you will see the fake one in later pictures.

Max meets Santa...he was brave and didn't even fuss, despite the look in the image below.

Kelly kept busy with the studio, Christmas always is prime time for the photography business.

While photographing a session for Kelly's cousin's little guys she was able to capture a few images of Max as well as the boys.

The Tessen Family Christmas at our home

Kyle celebrating his birthday

Grandpa and Grandma Tessen with the grand babies, Callen and Max

Max's first attempt at opening Christmas presents, courtesy of the Mengert Family, thanks guys!

Christmas Morning was wonderful, lots of snow on the ground and a visit by Santa Claus. Here are images from that morning. Max loved the wrapping paper and we were quite amazed how well he did for opening presents, of course dad and mom helped out.

Even Jersey enjoyed her present from Santa

Here is Kelly opening the gift from Kyle, notice the great wrapping job he did on her gift! Believe it or not there were candles inside that duck tape mess!

Despite the crazy weather Christmas day we traveled down to Nekoosa to Kelly's mom's house to celebrate Christmas. This was her parents first Christmas in their new home and we enjoyed the weekend with them.

Max 4 Months...

We just wanted to blog some images from Max's 4 month session. This is the 5th of the series that Kelly is doing for Max. If you haven't seen the 4 previous ones just log back to the earlier blogs. We have said it before but we think this just might be our favorite. Kelly was able to capture some great shots even though Max was due for his morning nap. But as you can see, Max was able to fit in a little snooze during the shoot!





In making our Christmas card we realized that we didn't get a chance to photograph Max while we had some family shots done in October so we grabbed a few more of him during this session. We just can't get over how much Max has changed in the last month! He is definitely bigger and is starting to grow a little more hair on top. We think he is going to keep those blue eyes, at least he got one thing from mom, because the rest of him looks like all dad! He is a little man full of many expressions and mom just loves capturing all of them.

November...Come and Gone!

Yes, we know its been far too long since we have last posted! The title of this blog says it all...November was a "whirl-wind" of a month for us. Max got his first cold, which he was such a trooper. He had his 4-month check up, the pediatrician was thrilled with his progress(height, weight, blood work and motor skills). So happy with his progress that he gave us the go on trying solid foods with Max. We were so excited with the news! Much to our surprise Max did great with his first course of solids. He are a couple of images of Max trying cereal...

We have been just having so much fun with Max now that he loves to play and interact. He has found his toes and loves chewing on them along with anything else he can get into his mouth! He is definitely a mover and loves to bounce around.

We did unfortunately had a rough couple of weeks as well. Not only did Max get his first cold he also came down with a bacterial infection during the month of November. When we really think about it, Max was healthy for only one week in November, poor little guy! We were told that the bacterial infection is something we may have to deal with due to his kidney condition. So we will continue to keep Max on a preventative antibiotics to help. We are so thankful that he is so good at taking his medicine.

We headed down to Milwaukee at the end of November and met with Max's renal doctors. They updated us with Max' kidney progress, the news was bittersweet as they have not gotten worse but that they are still dilated and are only functioning at 50%. We may never see a 100% functionality but we are praying for a higher % than 50. Time will only tell. Overall though the Doctors are happy with Max's progress and just tell us to keep up with what we are doing. We will go back at the end of January to see them again, which will be a nice little break from doctor offices!

Despite not feeling the greatest Max did seem to enjoy his first Thanksgiving. He had sweet potatoes for the first time and loved them. Here he is modeling his Thanksgiving bib, thanks to the Bankes Family.

Travis kept himself quite busy with kicking off Winter Sports fundraising with his schools. Thanks to him we have been enjoying many samples of cookies, pastries, pies and popcorn. These are just a few of the products that is working with. He is looking forward to Christmas break so that he can enjoy some time off as well. Kelly has been keeping herself busy with her photography business as well. Just check out her photo blog (http://www.photographybykellyjean.blogspot.com/) that says it all!

Well, after a very long blog we just wanted to end with a few more shots of the little guy. We hope you enjoy...

Daddy and Max sporting the 80's flipped collar polo shirts, too funny

Playing and eating solids can be quite tiring,LOL!

Family Photos

We totally forgot to blog the beautiful family photos that we had taken back in October. Just looking at these images makes us long for warmer weather! Yes, the backgrounds are real, we were on-location and the colors were awesome!
A fellow photographer friend of Kelly's captured these wonderful images for us. We will have to admit Jersey definitely shines in front of the camera, she is just so darn photogenic!
Thanks once again Tricia for your time and talent, the images are priceless!