can you believe anoth­er year has come and gone?! life moves so quick­ly… some­times too quick­ly. I don’t know about you, but this fast paced life makes it easy for me to  men­tal­ly jump ahead into each new year with the prayers and hopes and dreams of what is to come. before I get too far ahead of myself though, I want to slow down… I want to remem­ber.  I don’t want lose sight of all that has hap­pened & I want to reflect back in grat­i­tude at the year of 2011.

to sum it up, this year has been ahhh-maaaz­ing. obvi­ous­ly as with any oth­er year, there have been days that have not been all bub­ble gum & but­ter­flies… there have been hard things too, of course. over­all though, I can say with con­fi­dence that God has been so extrav­a­gant­ly good and gra­cious to me. He has been abun­dant­ly faith­ful & 2011 has proven to be one of the great­est years of my life so far.

I am beyond words blown away with the gifts, the bless­ings, the expe­ri­ences, the joy & the growth that has been lav­ished upon me… both in my life & in my pho­tog­ra­phy busi­ness. I have so much to be thank­ful for.  I am hum­bled & amazed as I look at the ways my life has changed & transitioned…not seam­less­ly or per­fect­ly, but beau­ti­ful­ly all the same.

God is good. real­ly real­ly good.

oh yeah! & before I get into pho­tog­ra­phy, I guess I should start with THE great­est thing that’s hap­pened to me this year…

in april, my life was for­ev­er changed when I got to say “i do” to this guy:) he’s incred­i­ble. (& he’s kept me laugh­ing ever since!)

there are a mil­lion oth­er things to be thank­ful for in my per­son­al life & walk with the Lord, but if I share all of that with you today, I’m afraid this post may end up being 3000 words too long. SO, I’ll spare you and leave out those details for now and just stick to what this blog is devot­ed to:)

it’s so fun to get to look back on a full year of my pho­tog­ra­phy busi­ness and see all that has hap­pened. there are still days that I can’t believe I actu­al­ly get to do this…     some­thing that I love so much & would hon­est­ly do for free if my hus­band (aka self pro­claimed busi­ness man­ag­er) would let me  😉 I am thank­ful for my clients…those of you who’ve trust­ed me enough this year to let me, even just for a lit­tle while, enter into your life and cap­ture those pre­cious moments, days and sea­sons behind my cam­era lens. you are why I love doing this so much and how I am even able to do this. thanks for grow­ing with me as I was (and am!) learn­ing so much myself. your encour­age­ment & sup­port have meant the world to me!

I have much excite­ment & antic­i­pa­tion as I dream about what 2012 will hold for katie painter pho­tog­ra­phy. with wed­dings, fam­i­lies, kids, cou­ples & many maaany seniors (who I looove to pieces) on the books to shoot, I get gid­dy just think­ing about it!

so with open arms I wel­come 2012, but not before I look back just one more time on some of the love­li­ness of 2011…

so long 2011…

hel­looooooo 2012!