* Sari Bari – Provides a safe place of employment for women in India who have been exploited in the sex trade.  They make beautiful quilts, scarves, and purses out of gorgeous Indian sari’s.

* Krochet Kids -  Allows women in Uganda to break the cycle of poverty.  By crocheting hats, they are able to provide for their families.

* Sseko Designs – Sseko Designs hires young women in Uganda to create their beautiful sandals, live and work together, to earn money that will go directly towards their university education. I have a pair myself and can vouch for the quality and comfort! Love my Sseko’s! There are also several videos on YouTube demonstrating a ton of different ways to tie them to create different looks! They have straps for casual, dressy and even weddings!

* TOMS shoes -TOMS is a great company that matches your purchases to help children overseas. For every pair of shoes purchased, a pair of new shoes is given to a child in need. I bought a pair of TOMS for my brother a few years ago and he wore them all the time! So I’m pretty positive that they’re comfortable, and I love that a child benefits from each purchase!

* Night Light International – Night Light is an amazing jewelry company in Bangkok, Thailand, which provides hope, intervention, rescue and assistance to women and children exploited in the sex industry. They offer alternative employment, vocational opportunities, and life-skills training to women seeking freedom from trafficking and prostitution. I have several pieces and love the jewelry and the company’s amazing mission.

* 31 Bits – 31 Bits assists women in Uganda with a way to market and sell their beautiful paper bead jewelry. Now employed with 63 women, your purchases provide an income to these amazing, talented women.

* Stop Traffick Fashion , Not For Sale , Wonderfully Made Jewelry , Freeset Global , Made by Survivors-  These organizations provide opportunities and hope for survivors of human trafficking (slavery) by rebuilding their lives after rescue.  They provide sustainable income, education and help reintegrating back into society. Purses, jewelry, Christmas ornaments, clothing and lots more!

* Divine Chocolate – Fair trade chocolate company which invests its income in building schools, sinking wells for clean drinking water to villages, providing mobile medical clinics for farmers in remote growing regions, and fostering women’s income generation projects to help women earn additional income for their families when the cocoa season is over.

* Just Love Coffee – Fair trade coffee company which donates a portion of all proceeds to help families adopt precious children around the world

* Serrv , Trade as One , Repair the World Now , Light Give Heat ,   Amani Africa,   Global Goods Partners , Ten Thousand Villages , Feed Projects – These companies provides fair trade products, hand crafted from many different countries to support artisans all over the world to break the chain of poverty. You can seriously find a little bit of everything on these sites!

* Show Hope – Awesome clothing for men, women and kids which help support orphans around the world and gives financial grants to adopting families.

* Free Rice – Just discovered Free Rice. What an awesome idea! It’s a game, not a store. You sign up, join a group and play by answering trivia, vocab and various questions on different topics. It applies to all different skill levels, and for every answer you get right, they donate rice to hungry people all over the world!

* Falling Whistles – Amazing cause. PLEASE do not skip the intro video. This is extremely powerful, and it explains the cause of Falling Whistles better than I could. Through donations and selling their whistles and clothing, 100% of the proceeds is used to restore the lives of war-affected children in the Congo.

* Pamba Toto – By purchasing jewelry and African crafts, you can help support orphans in Kenya

If you know of any amazing organizations like these, please share and leave a comment!

For their family session, we specifically wanted to wait until the Fall, when Taylor would be 6 months old and able to sit up and interact more with big brother Payton.  Not only is Taylor sitting, but also starting to crawl, and able to stand while holding onto things!  They’re both growing so fast!  And Payton is just cute as can be and now calls me “Auntie Christmas.”  True, I can see where Christmas and Kristen can sound similar, but that’s definitely a new nickname for me!  I was thrilled with how their photos turned out and I can’t wait to show off their wall displays and Christmas cards that just arrived!

In 2008, Megan and Mike felt the urge to use adoption as the means for building their family.  After many prayers, they felt confident that their children were in Africa!  After mountains of paperwork and months of waiting, God blessed them with two precious little boys!  Joshua and Isaac came home from Jinja, Uganda in November 2010.  The family is having a great time learning how to be a family of four and they spend most of their time playing with sticks!

This session was so special to me.  I’ve known Megan and Mike for awhile and have been praying these little boys home!  It’s just so amazing to see the process of adoption come to completion when children get to come home into their forever families!  I absolutely adored watching the boys play and call out to “Mama” and “Papa.”  Just beyond precious!  And for the boys to run over towards the woods to go pick flowers for their Mama…  our hearts just melted!

Audrey, “Look mom!  I’m a reindeer!” 

With tears in his eyes, Patrick watched his gorgeous bride, Katy, gracefully walk down the aisle to her love, collecting her bouquet along the way.  Patrick & Katy‘s ceremony began as the pastors quoted in full accent,  “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam… And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva… So tweasure your wuv….”  Oh yes, they did!  The congregation was dying with laughter!  The ceremony continued as Katy & Patrick made their own unity candle — yes, I said, made.  They started off by pouring sand together in a vase and sealing it with melting wax, and returning later in the ceremony to light the candle.  Their vows were heartfelt, and the kiss…. well, the kiss was probably the best wedding kiss ever!   The reception at Oakwood Country Club was equally packed with amazing details including the cake made by the groom (they go together like Peas & Carrots), a killer bridal party dance-off introduction and some of the best toasts we’ve ever heard.  A-ma-zing!!!

**A huge thank you to Lori Moore and my hubby John for being wonderful second shooters! I couldn’t have captured the day without you!

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