The Other Side Of The Lens

My fellow photographer friends from Glass Jar Photography and I arranged a photo swap. So exciting! We went first in December and caught an unusually warm winter day thank goodness! And I was actually 9 weeks pregnant in these photos. I'm so glad we were able to capture these memories before our new life starts. Now I can't wait to capture Whitney and Bethany on the other side of their lens!

If you're looking for a wedding photographer with a vintage twist be sure to check these guys out here.

So Over the Moon Excited!!

We're having a baby!!!!!!!

My husband and I are so excited!! We just can't wait to meet our sweet baby! As most of you know, this will be our first baby so we're a little nervous too. :) I'm due August 7th. Right now I'm 12 (almost 13) weeks along. I've been so blessed with no sickness and my exhaustion has faded some. We find out boy or girl in March! I tend to call it a "he" right now though.

Here's some ultrasound shots at 11 weeks. I was so excited with out clear these came out.

Look at that cute little pot belly!

And that sweet little hand!!! Oh I can't wait!

What does this mean for the business:
I will probably not book any sessions in advance for June/July. It all depends on how my pregnancy is going at the time.
I will take 2 months off from photography once our sweet baby is born so I should be back to taking a limited amount of sessions in October but we'll just have to see how things go.

And since we're talking about the business there will be a few changes for 2011 which will take place starting in March:
Limited Availability - I said this last year too but I really mean it this year! lol In order for me to provide each client the best possible photo experience and spend quality time with my family I can only accept a limited amount of sessions each month. This will probably be 3-4 per month while leaving room for newborns but this may change as needed.
Product Samples - I'm in the process of ordering samples of everything - storyboards, books, canvases, image boxes, and more.
Frames! What I would like to see is my clients walking away with a finished product. I want your prints ready to hang for you... and not sit in a closet for years waiting to be framed. I'm excited about some very unique whimsical frames I will be offering. And of course I will offer classic frames too.
Collections - I will now be offering gift print collections, wall collections, and digital collections.

New logo, new blog - In the works!
Session Premiere - What is this? Kinda like a movie premiere for your photos but without the red carpet, famous people, fancy dresses, and huge audience. Ok so it's not quite the same! haha! The session premiere would be a private viewing of your images where you would look through your images, view product samples, and place your order with special pricing. I don't feel like the online gallery is the best way to see your photos for the first time. And I think it's important to be able to touch and feel the products before buying them. I'm still not sure where this would take place - maybe my home or maybe yours. Online galleries will still be available. The details for this is still in the works. I'd love to hear your thoughts!


Booking for Spring 2011 - I will begin scheduling sessions for the Spring soon. I want all of my changes in place before I do that though so you as a client know exactly what to expect. I will announce when I will start accepting Spring sessions. Please book your sessions ahead of time to ensure that you get a session since my availability after May is unknown.

The Sock Mystery

Some days I have no choice but to wear mismatched socks. And I don't mean 2 mismatched white socks - I mean 2 different colors and patterns. In fact, I have a drawer full of loose socks with no match in sight. Is it just me or do socks just mysteriously disappear? Sometimes I think the dryer eats them. But I'm pretty sure I found the main culprits.

I'm gonna need some socks in my Christmas stocking this year... seriously!

Thankful

Dear God,

Thank You for the fact that I don't have to worry about when my next meal will be.
Thank You for a (more than sufficient) roof over my head.
Thank You for my health.
Thank You for my husband who makes me laugh everyday.
Thank You for my puppies who also make me laugh everyday.
Thank You for my wonderful photography opportunities.
Thank You for great friends and family.
Thank You for a church that I can call home.
Thank You for being able to see, hear, walk, and talk. I take these things for granted everyday.
Thank You for forgiving me when I do You and others wrong.
Thank You for loving me unconditionally.

Thank You for blessing me so much that I can not possibly list everything. You've blessed me much more than I will ever deserve.
Thank You for being such a forgiving, merciful, loving, and wonderful God.

Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for?

Happy Birthday Rolo

It was Christmas night last year when I first laid eyes on my puppy Rolo. We finished exchanging gifts with my family at out house and Brent said "OH!! I forgot about one of your gifts. I can't believe I forgot! It's at your parents' house." So he and my dad went to go get it. I had no idea what it was... I thought it had to be something too big to hide in our house... maybe a piece of furniture... yes definitely furniture... or so I thought. When they came back I had to close my eyes. When I heard "OPEN THEM!" I looked up to see what kind of furniture my husband could have possible got me for Christmas. I saw nothing. Then I looked down. I squealed, cried a little, then went goo goo ga ga over the cutest little puppy I've ever seen. Much better than furniture. Brent didn't "forget". He's just sneaky. He completely surprised me!

Now Rolo is ONE! My "baby" is growing up! :)

Rocky celebrates too!

Party's over!!

His birthday was Oct 29th... I'm just a tad late on the blog post :/

Ten On Tuesday

1. A quick calendar update if you haven't seen it already - I only have 2010 openings for the Holiday mini-sessions and newborn/baby sessions.

2. I saw my photos displayed on someone's wall for the first time last week! I can't even tell you how happy that made me!

3. Brent and I went on a road trip for Fall Break: We saw Montecello, Gettysburg, D.C., Williamsburg, and the Biltmore. It was so nice to get away!!

4. Oh and we saw Danny Devito at the Lincoln Memorial! Brent snapped a picture to prove it!


5. I believe that makes that my first celebrity spotting in public!

6. I get told a lot by strangers that I look like Chelsea Clinton but I just don't see it!

7. I am loving this October weather! I'm ready for trip to the corn maze!

8. Now that the weather is starting to change a little, I've realized that Christmas is only about 2 months away!

9. Dear Santa, I really really really really want a Kelly Moore camera bag for Christmas.

10. I've been staying up waaaay past my bedtime lately. So tonight I plan on being in bed before 10. Goodnight!

Ten on Tuesday

1. I know. I know. I missed 2 Tuesdays! Things got a little busy. :)

2. Over the weekend we had a little family get together and played hide and seek in the dark with my niece and nephew. And when I say dark... I mean DARK! I stumped my toe, fell down twice, and had someone jump out and scare me countless times... but had a TON of fun!!

3. I'm totally addicted to Etsy... just ordered more newborn stuff! :)

4. Also ordered a new macro lens for newborn details! Can't wait for it to come in!

5. I sure have been doing a lot of ordering lately...

6. I find myself using these three words a lot during photo shoots: Scooch, Shimmy, and Squish as in "Can you schooch over a little to the left" and "Let's shimmy a little bit this way." and "Everybody squish together!".

7. My parents have straight hair... my brothers have straight hair... so I always wonder where the heck I got my crazy curly hair!

8. I really need to get back into a workout routine. Every week I say "Next week I will start back up again!". So definitely next week... or maybe the week after...

9. If you haven't checked out this blog yet, you should: Mila's Daydreams Super cute!

10. My friend Holly makes cute little pillows and sells them on here on Etsy. She made me a moon. :)

Ten On Tuesday

1. I thought I would start doing "Ten on Tuesday" posts so anyone who reads my blog can get to know more about me than the photos I take... It will mostly be a bunch of randomness. You can also read some random things about me here on my website.

2. I must first introduce you to my hubby and 2 dogs... they will probably be mentioned a lot in these posts. :) Rolo was a Christmas gift from my hubby last year and we adopted Rocky in April because Rolo needed a buddy.

Please excuse the not-so-great photo quality. :)

3. Maybe I'll get a picture one day of my little family with me actually in it!

4. I brought out the ironing board this weekend and Rolo barked at it the ENTIRE TIME it was out! He has never seen one before... the whole 8 months he's been with us. LOL I usually replace ironing with 5 minutes in the dryer. It's the same right??!!

5. I've discovered my new favorite dessert - Strawberry Cake from Newks! SO GOOD!

6. I started using E-Mealz and I'm loving it. I get meals created from the sale items at my favorite grocery store and a detailed grocery list. No more thinking of meals! Even my husband likes the meals! (See #6)

7. I call my husband a "picky eater"... he calls it "simple and easy to please". Whatever! :)

8. Football season is almost here... Roll Tide!

9. Today is my Daddy's birthday! Happy Birthday Dad!!! And since my Mom didn't get an internet shout-out for her birthday last weekend - Happy Birthday Mom!!!

10. Photo related: I'm thinking about offering some Holiday mini-sessions. Let me know what you think.

2 years and counting...

Brent and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary this month. I am SO blessed to have him in my life. A little has changed since we first got married - We renovated a townhouse, sold it, bought our house, and got 2 dogs. Life is good!

So here's a little then and now preview. :)

Our wedding day:

These photos were taken by our wonderful wedding photographers Liss and Bill. Check them out at www.lissphotography.com.

NOW:

Enough

Someone said something last month that kinda stuck with me. They asked a pretty difficult question: If you were to lose everything - your friends, your home, your family, EVERYTHING like Job did in the Bible... would God still be enough?? And in my head that's just not one of those questions I can honestly say I answered right away with a "Well, of course!!". It was more like "You mean lose everything??" then "Well I would hope so".

Because really - if just my camera broke right now I would be devastated! So how would I act if I lost everything?

I know of many people who have gone or are going through tragedies in their life. I am blessed that I am not one of them.

But I pray that if I ever have to go through something horrible, that I would turn to Him and He would be enough. Because I know that I could never do it alone.

So now when just something small goes wrong, I have to remind myself that I should be so thankful that my "big" problems are things like the dog peeing on the bed... or that my hair never does what I want... or having "so much to do in so little time"... or when things just don't go the way I expect/want them to.

Words of Casting Crowns

My wonderful husband got us 7th row tickets to a Casting Crowns concert for Christmas. The concert was last night and it was amazing!! I can't wait to see them again. They have always been my favorite group. It seems that for everything you go through there's a Casting Crowns song for it. One of my favorites has always been "Who Am I":

Who am I?
That the Lord of all the earth,
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt.
Who am I?
That the bright and morning star,
Would choose to light the way,
For my ever wandering heart.

Not because of who I am, but because of what You've done.
Not because of what I've done, but because of who You are.

I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind.
Still You hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling,
And You've told me who I am.
I am Yours.

www.castingcrowns.com

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so no pictures. :(

Happy Friday!

Changing it up!

I finally got around to sprucing up my boring old blog! I've been wanting to change it so that I could fit larger photos and I finally figured out how.

Here is my first test to see if it works. These are pictures I took of my parents for their anniversary last year that I never posted. Aren't they cute?! :)

I did it again...

I'm sorry Blog. I've neglected you again. It's all Rolo's fault again. Walking him, playing with him, teaching him to go potty outside, sit, stay, down, leave it, off, NO, etc takes a lot of time. Whew! :) If a puppy takes up this much time, I can't imagine what it's like to have a baby!

Not too much happened in February --

I turned 25... We went to see Avatar which surprisingly I LOVED!!

It snowed...

And Rolo got a haircut. :)

2010

I have a list of resolutions for 2010 and obviously I'm not doing too well since one of my resolutions is to keep up with this blog that's been neglected... AND it's taken me a whole month to make the first post of the year mainly because Brent got us a puppy for Christmas! So here are my resolutions for the year. Maybe if I post them I will keep them all! :)

• Read the Bible more with Brent
• Keep up with my blog
• Make it to Baby Step 3 on the Dave Ramsey plan! (Goodbye debt!)
• Workout more (That means lots of 24/7's BodyCombat classes!)
• Work more on hobbies - photography and scrapbooking

Our new baby! :)