Happy New Year! Enjoy some of my favorite images from 2008. ??Click "View Slideshow" under the mosaic to see these images in full screen.

With the recent holidays, this past month has included a lot of family time for me. ??On a recent trip to Virginia to visit extended family, I shot this image of me and my son at my great-aunt's house. ??There are some photographic treasures in these older homes and I'm glad I was able to capture this image. ??I remember playing in this bedroom as a child and now my child has had that experience too. ??I am loving my son's continued interest in my camera. ??Despite whether it's just for the sake of play, I do hope he will show some interest in photography some day. ??This is quite possibly my favorite photo currently.

In order to challenge myself creatively, I have set up a new daily photoblog where I intend to post a single image [nearly] each day. Because I live with three "JJ's" who are the center of my world, they will be the subject of most of these photos. "Isn't it called JJ squared?", you might ask. Well, my intention is to capture at least 1 to 2 of my JJ's, Jonathan (my husband), Jonas (our toddler), or Jack (our black lab), and I highly doubt I could get all three to hold still long enough to achieve anything more than just a snapshot.So check out JJ squared DAILY and don't forget to subscribe to the feed!

Back in September, I joined a group on Flickr called a day in the life of, or??DILO. ??The idea is that you capture your life in a single day through photography. ??Since I enjoy learning about people through photography, I found this group to be especially interesting. ??So I participated in the September DILO and had a great time carrying my camera around with me all day! ??Here are my September DILO submissions. ??The next DILO was this past weekend, just before Christmas. ??The optional theme of the DILO was "ground level", and most of my shots adhere to that theme.So, about my day: ??My mom, son, and I made a trip to southwestern Virginia to visit with family. ??Most of my life now is spent chasing after my toddler son, so the first set of photographs include him exploring my grandmother's house and playing in his first snow. ??The 21st was also the day that we travelled home. ??I was somewhat bummed that I would be on the road for most of DILO day, so my mom suggested we go exploring to some places she remembered from her youth. ??We ventured up a mountain near the highway looking for "Hidden Valley Lake". ??Once we found it, we were both very excited... the lake was beautiful and pristine. ??Though I was not quite prepared clothing-wise to trek into the woods in 30 degree temps, I did anyway to capture the beautiful scenery and blue sky. ??Afterwards my hands were so cold I could barely move them, but it was so worth it. ??Further down the road, we stopped in Historic Abingdon, VA. ??I only got a couple shots there since it was lunchtime for my little guy who was previously napping during our mountain trek. ??Our last detour was Shot Tower State Park, which much to my disappointment was closed for the season. ??There were several old barns nearby, so it wasn't a complete loss. ??Here are some select images from my December DILO. ??The complete set can be found here.

When Carly was 3 months old, I took her first portraits. ??Now Carly is 6 months old and her parents wanted me to capture their sweet little girl again; I was so excited! ??I am always in awe of the rapid development of babies... before you know it they are sitting, crawling, walking, talking, all within a single year! ??I've found the only way to stop time and all that development is to capture each stage through photography. ??Here are a couple shots of sweet Carly.

This was my first attempt at panning. ??I had a great subject to try it out on and my Nikon D300 handled it very well. ??This shot was taken hand-held, so I am quite pleased with how it turned out. ??This is Richard Armstrong, a professional triathlete and proud daddy-to-be of Mack.