As my sneak peek from Tuesday suggested, we just had our family photos done by the fabulously talented Gabriela Hansen. Unbeknownst to her, Gaby is the first photographer to take our family photos for us two years in a row. With many portrait photographers, once you’ve done one session with them, you’ve pretty much captured their aesthetic and there’s not really anywhere else to go with it. Gaby, on the other hand, just keeps growing and evolving and I knew she would do a brilliant job of capturing the essence of our family in a fresh new way again this year.

And I really think she nailed it. I mean, just look at these shots of Noah for starters!

Somebody call Kinfolk Magazine, because I think I just found their next photographer/model team. I know I’m biased, but is this kid not irresistible?
I’ve loved this man for almost half of my life, and I’m going to love him for the rest of it. He makes me laugh and supports me and loves me through thick and thin. I am truly blessed. 
I love how Gaby captures the feeling of family. One of my favourite things in life is holding hands with my boy. I didn’t tell her that, but she seemed to know it intuitively, and she captured it beautifully. In fact, I would say her editorial style captures moments and creates memories, even as you’re enjoying the shoot with her. Noah loved the afternoon just as much as the rest of us, despite the chilly temperatures. If you can make a 10 year old happy and get him laughing while taking his photo on a freezing cold day, you’ve succeeded in my book!
We actually laughed a LOT, and there may or may not have been some photobombing that took place. 
The truth is, there were so many great shots to choose from that we had a really hard time landing on just one to use for the front of our custom Christmas cards from Minted. Pretty great problem to have, right? And we had the same awesome problem when it came to choosing the card style! 

I was beyond thrilled when the creative team at Minted generously reached out to me and offered to provide us with our cards for this holiday season. Minted is a crowd-sourced design company based in San Francisco that draws upon design talent from all around the world with monthly competitions to find the most creative and refreshing designs and designers going. The winning designs are then printed in a variety of products, including totally customizable holiday cards.

Just take a look at some of the gorgeous options available:

And they can all be customized with seemingly endless options, from super thick paper to folded cards to laser-cut shapes and even Christmas ornaments like the first image above! I guess I’m a bit of a traditionalist, but I still like writing inside a folded card, so here’s what we chose:
And here’s how we customized it inside. I love that there’s still room for us to write a personal message while having our broader family holiday wishes captured for us ahead of time with the customization of this layout. Brilliant! 

If I’d been a tad more organized, I totally would have taken advantage of the free option to have them print all of the addresses on the envelopes as well. How awesome is that?! Even the liner of the envelopes and the Skinny Wrap return address stickers are adorably detailed:
In the spirit of generosity, Minted has offered my readers a 15% discount on all holiday card orders now until the 27th of November. That’s one whole week to make it happen, and then you can kick back and relax with a good cuppa knowing your gorgeous custom cards are on their way to you, lickety-split! {Shipping and turnaround times are super fast.}

Just use the discount code CURATED15 when you check out, and let me know how your cards turn out! This is probably the most excited I’ve been yet to send mine to family and friends. Thank you Gaby for the gorgeous photos, and thank you Minted for the incredible cards! 
I’m a grateful girl.
xo
s.