Andy and Bonnie getting married!

Here's a cute couple getting married in late October. We did their engagment photos in Scottsdale at DC Ranch, a favorite shooting place I stole from Marnee (thanks!). Andy and Bonnie are laid back and so fun to work with, I'm really looking forward to their wedding. Here's some shots from our session...

From what I could gather, Andy is pretty in love...not just with Bonnie, but with his truck...we had to do a few shots to get his two favorite loves...

To see more images click here to view their slideshow

Thanks you guys! Can't wait for the wedding.

30 Years of Bliss

Meet Roger and Julie Snider...

I absolutely adore this couple, they are my sister in law, Amy's parents, and they just celebrated their 30th anniversary! I was very excited to photograph them briefly when I visited Texas and I'm so happy they eagerly cooperated! Their daughters really wanted them to do photos, so it worked out great that I was going out there to visit (cuz I'm sure there are no other photographers in Texas). I think they both look so good in this next photo...

I have a lot of respect for them, they seem to have such great balance and respect in their relationship, I only hope I can be as happy as them for 21 more years!! Look at this next photo...aren't they just so cute and in love??
Texas has such great fields...this is off the side of the road near a railroad, it's so green there!

Julie recently had a really horrible back surgery...I had good intentions of getting these photos online for her to view while she was down...I suppose now she hopefully can get up and look at a computer now, sorry Julie, HAPPY HEALING and RECOVERY!

Neglected family...

No not my kids, although they seem to be neglected often too...but my immediate and extended family is the neglect I am referring to! You see whenever I take a vacation with any family, there is this unwritten rule that with that comes a full blown photo session. I don't really mind, I love all the great photos I get of my nieces, nephews and extended family and I ALWAYS want shots of my kids on vacation too...I do however have a real dislike to the work it always adds to my plate when I get home and the time to edit through the images, retouch some and get them back to family to look at. So, my family has learned that my turn around time can be pretty long for their free sessions, in fact, sometimes they only get to see them because they come over and I open them on my screen! I am at fault...I'm a perfectionist and can't just show images or print anything that hasn't been retouched or corrected at least, but I don't put free family sessions in front of paying client sessions ever and this time that really backfired on me! So, without further ado...here's a handful of shots from a recent visit to see my brother and sister in law in Texas...back at the end of March, oops!

We took the photos at the Forth Worth Botanic Gardens where they normally charge over $100 to shoot there, we pulled some strings and got to shoot for free...yipee! Here's Jason and Amy...

This is my oldest nephew Austin, sporting his longer hairstyle, he's about to turn 10 yrs old next week!

The whole family...

Little Jared...I just LOVE this kid...and this picture! He and Brennan get along so well, it makes me super sad that they aren't growing up near each other anymore!
Brotherly love...

Steph and a happy smiley Aidan!

A cute moment of my parents cuddling...

Another cute shot of the boys together. These guys have grown up to be such good, responsible boys, I'm so proud of them.
Jared will be turning 8 this September and is going to be getting baptized, so we brought along some clothes to do some baptism photos of him, he was so proud and super cute!

Top Ten Highlights from our visit there
1. The secret, Amy was turning 30 so we had to surprise her! The planning, countless calls, emails and confirmations from Jason were funny...no one has ever been so excited for a visit...I'm so glad we pulled it off!

2. The look on the faces of Austin and Jared and the race to Grammy's arms when they saw us...seriously AWESOME!

3. Jared being the watchdog and totally missing Mom pulling up into the house, THEN yelling SURPRISE before she's even stepped inside to see anything, thankfully we still got her.

4. Gorgeous Fort worth botanical gardens and the photo shoot with Jason trying to be the photographer constantly telling me what and where to shoot...um...do you want to do this?

5. GIRL TIME! Pedicure and shopping at Sam Moon...seriously SUPER FUN place to get knock off purses, bags and all kinds of other fun garb! I want to go back, oh wait, not if Amy's driving!

6. Driving with AMY to Sam Moon. The freeway got stopped so lots of people took a dirt "path" that really is just a grassy hill up to the exit ramp AFTER you've passed the exit ramp to avoid waiting the mile to the next exit. it was completely illegal, but everyone was doing it! We were loaded down in the van and opted to wait the mile, but after being stopped awhile cutting into our shopping time...the girls talked Amy into getting off...so up we go, STRAIGHT UP we go trying to get to the top and the exit ramp, we had no angle to drive at so we were going straight up, spinning our wheels in dirt, barely crawling and looking like COMPLETE idiots to the fully stopped freeway below, we nearly had to get out and push...and most of us nearly peed our pants laughing!

7. Dinner with the Sniders...they have a beautiful home and are super fun company!

8. Hanging out with the family for movie night watching Dan in Real Life...great show I hadn't seen.

9. Visiting the worldwide headquarters of Family Care and Comfort...what a treat =)

10. Getting dropped off at the airport by someone who clearly doesn't know the place only to find out once she's gone that we are a MILE WALK OUT IN THE HEAT from our check in gate, no shuttles, no moving sidewalks...just us 4 ladies, 2 babies about 15 bags, purses, strollers, pack-n-plays, carseats on a super hot, humid day, with ONLY an hour til our plane leaves. Oh and then when we get to the check in station after a horrible brisk walk each of us loaded down with more bags than our body weight and a SCREAMING, HOT, HUNGRY Aidan...and the airline attendant rudely tells us we can't check in and we should have gotten there earlier, but at this point it was still 45 minutes til our flight left and it hadn't boarded!!!!!!!!! Them were some fighting words...could she not just look at a red, pouring sweat faces and know that we needed an angel not a beast to help us? We DID check in and we got on just fine, first to board actually you mean lady!

And by the way...in my own defense, I did shoot 3 weddings, 2 engagements, 2 maternity, 4 newborns, 2 families AND had a newborn baby plus two other kids, a house to run, no nanny and this business to keep going in the time I couldn't get to editing these photos...so now that makes me feel a little less bad about my lengthy turn around time =) Thanks guys for being patient, we miss you!

I'm in trouble...

Check out my newest passion...texture!! I can already tell, I'm going to want to play on the computer THAT MUCH MORE now...uh oh, I don't have time for this!

Here's a before and after shot of Dawson from this past weekend on our trip to the cabin, which I hope to blog about soon...

I actually didn't mind the "before" photo, I loved this old shed thing we had to take pictures in...but now I look at the "after" and I think the before is just SO boring. What do you think?

OUCH!

Here's the latest reason I'm not get a lot of work done...

You probably can't tell as good in the pic but I have 3 blistered fingers on my right hand and a blistered thumb on the left. That means typing and working with the mouse is a little less comfortable today!

I was getting pizza out of the oven last night. It'd been in there 15 minutes at 450 and apparently the hot pad that was on the counter had gotten damp. It was not wet to the touch, but I used it to take the pan out, I didn't feel the burning flesh until it was too late and the pan was in my hand, my automatic instinct was to grab the pad with my left hand to lift it off and alleviate the pain on my right fingers...I did that really fast before throwing the whole thing onto the stove. It was obviously too late and I burned fingers on BOTH my hands which made for an interesting night! I had immediate blisters and INTENSE burning pain unless they were soaking in ICE COLD water. The cold water took the edge off a little but I couldn't let my hands out of it at all. So I soaked my hands for 7 hours straight and then slept with an ice rag, I was actuazlly surprised I was able to sleep all night and the pain is so much better today! Next time I think I will just scrap the dinner and drop the whole thing on the floor, or maybe I will be more dilligent about checking the hot pad for moisture first!

Baby Elle

I had the privelege of photographing this sweet little girl a few weeks ago! She was fresh, only a week old and so so cute! Here's some of my favorite photos from our session! Of course the pink chair ALWAYS looks great with little girls =) Brian and Jessica were so cute with their first little baby! They both love her so much and of course were just in awe of everything about her! I love that feeling.Jessica is so sweet! Little Elle was working us pretty hard that day fussing and not sleeping much, but Jessica was just so gentle and patient and calmed her just like mommies do best! Doesn't she look AWESOME in the picture below? I mean she just had a baby a WEEK before and looked absolutely beautiful!

I love this shot of Elle holding Daddy's hand! If you look real close you can see the flakey skin on her hand too, I LOVE that, just shows how FRESH she is!

Brian is already such a good dad, super supportive and helpful, really attentive and into his baby girl! I loved it. This last photo makes me super sad, I never got a photo of Reuben holding my little Emery...that makes me sad cuz she's just not so little anymore! I love this last shot when she finally fell in a deep slumber in this basket! Too cute!

If you want to see more of my favorites from this session, click here!

Maybe in a few weeks when the announcements have been mailed to family and friends, I will post it on here for you to see! Thanks Brian and Jessica for letting me photograph this special time, I'm so glad we got some shots even with a not so sleepy baby!

Happy 4th!

I am so behind in posts right now...lots of things to catch up on, including blogging! Hopefully the 4th allowed you some family downtime and fun like it did us, and wow, I SO needed that! Here's the best I could do for a photo of my cuties...it was after dark by the time I got to it and uncle Preston's stairs was the best place to get it...I must confess, it was tempting to try and give Dawson blue hair so we could really get the "red, white and blue" effect in this shot, but I decided I didn't have time to figure that out, although I am sure it's possible!

I loved this shot too, this is just them...Brennan cute and charasmatic, Emery mellow and Dawson SO consumed by everything about his sister!

And a cute shot of my little monkey! That is the nickname I gave her cuz she kind of looks like a little monkey to me...I love her round little face and cute pokey ears! I have to confess though, I was so bugged that she didn't have a cute bow on her head for this shot that I actually added one in photoshop, but it looked too silly to keep it...i know I am SO DUMB! Bows just make the big bald head so much cuter though!

We spent our 4th like most everyone, with family. First we cleaned house which of course mostly made ME happy, then we swam with some of my family, then we joined Reuben's family out at Uncle Preston's house for some yummy food and visiting time. They wrapped up their "biggest loser" challenge and had some GREAT results! 6 months ago they all "weighed in" and put in $100 for a $1100 total pot. I tried to join the club but since I was pregnant and obviously had a small advantage...I wasn't allowed. In the end, Preston won losing a total of 17.7% of his previous weight. Others had high numbers as well though, just not as much percentage based on starting weights...Ben lost 47 pounds, Preston's Amanda lost 43, Ben's Amanda lost 25 and a few others lost between 10-20 pounds too! It was pretty cool to see such great results! Kind of makes me want to join a "biggest loser" group for the same fun and motivation. That night we headed over to Tempe Marketplace and watched the fireworks of Tempe Townlake from a GREAT distance...this was great as it was less crowded, not loud, and easier to get out of the crowd afterwards! Emery was unphased by the excitement, here she is sleeping on daddy...

Here's the boys on the shoulders of some very nice aunts and uncles watching the fireworks in the distance. Don't look at the desperate need for haircuts, we finally took care of that this weekend too!

A lot of people probably don't realize that Brennan has an extreme fear of most things loud! He's been taken to fireworks every year and last year was the first time he dared open his eyes and didn't need to be carried far away! Even then, he had ear plugs in. This year he insited he wouldn't go and I needed to get him a babysitter! This negotiation and stress started a WEEK before the 4th. I finally convinced him he could use Daddy's IPOD while he watched them and he was SOLD! Funny thing is when I took the earbuds out he initially FREAKED out even though we were like 2 miles away from them and you couldn't hear them hardly. Thankfully once he listened and wasn't scared that gave him more confidence, he watched the rest of the show without the IPOD...hopefully next year is even better!

Blog stalkers...

I love blog stalkers, even those of you that read my blog, who I may not know and have never met! What a privilege it is to have people come to my site and even care one bit about my photos or what I might have to say! If you are a blog stalker...leave me a comment, I'd love to get to know you! I've found many of blogs following them through links from their comments to my posts and I absoulutely love it!

Recently though, I had a negative experience with a blog stalker. After a generous comment posted on my site I followed links to a website of a fellow photographer in another state. I was flattered to see it wasn't someone I had met from a seminar or knew from anywhere, just a blog stalker...someone that found me and was reading my blog! I was flattered as I do this to many other photo blogs, mostly anonymously because I don't have time to comment all the time.

Fast forward as I browsed this website I was shocked to see this photographer have an almost word for word copy of my "about us" section. In it I list things like, My Philosophy about my work, My Passion about photography, and My Pride, my family! That in and of itself is slightly unique but not unheard of for someone to have come up with on their own (ironically listed in my same order though), but as I read on it was obvious to me that this person had copied almost the entire paragraph of two of those three categories! I was shocked, I couldn't decide if I should be flattered or mad, it seemed kind of misleading for someone to take your words and market themselves with your creative writing. Especially because right across the bottom of the site was the words "copyright and DO NOT COPY," plain as day!

I sat on this for a number of days and opted to handle it gently in hopes to motivate someone else, not hurt them. Rather than being dirty and posting the links to see for yourself on my blog, I sent an email and what I thought was a reasonable message saying, that as I have been taught in so many seminars etc that copying is not the way to get ahead, but rather money, time, education and effort put into your business. I mentioned the flattery in being followed and copied by someone and how I feel it is of UPMOST importance in this creative business of photography, to network and learn from each other! I encouraged this person to be unique and not use my words anymore on their site, but to come up with something on their own, or with the help of friends or hired professionals. At any rate, my message was not received well, I think this only further confirmed for me the guilt of the suspected party.

It's too bad really, this isn't a "cut throat" business like some businesses out there. In fact I view it as just the opposite, I think there are so many people and so many photography opportunities that ALL of us can be gainfully employed in our respective elements! And I for one know that I have spent countless hours networking, mentoring, encouraging and teaching other photographers to do what I do, cause it's seriously the best job ever!

So, if you are a blog stalker, WELCOME and hopefully I can mentor, teach or entertain you in some way, thanks for reading...um...and copying!

Love your brother time...

As a parent, there are certain goals and characteristics I want for my children. Most of these I try to instill in them through my example and in the direction we give them as parents. I want my children to love each other, to be compassionate, empathetic, friendly, accepting and most of all to be close to each other throughout their lives.

Thankfully, for the most part, my kids seem to really get along and love each other. However, my kids do fight as most kids do, and its those times I can attempt to teach them the things I hope for them! My sister tipped me off to this idea as she came up with it to do with her daughters, I have found it to be very effective. So, when my boys are having one of those days where they seem to be fighting often I give them "love your brother time" and they have to go in their room for any amount of time until they are happy and love each other. Brennan learned quickly that he could get out faster if he could just get his stubborn brother to laugh and is usually the reason this works so well. I love this because it's another way of disciplining, yet it doesn't have to be negative at the same time.

Instead of another useless time out, I just say, "oh, it's time to have love your brother time in your room." In come the groans, cries, whines and the refusal to go, especially from Dawson...but within a couple of minutes in their room I hear laughter! I'll go in to see them playing hide and seek, having a pillow fight or play wrestling on the floor. And then we talk about why they had to go in their room and they each say I'm sorry and I love you and then they hug and are allowed to get out of their room! Inevitably this "discipline" makes them play much better and happier once they come out...which is ultimately what I am wanting from them anyway! These are some photos from a session I attempted to do on my bed a month or so ago and when it wasn't going well I let them have a pillow fight to get out their energy! I couldn't pick a favorite so I thought I would put a few of them!

And I thought I would add this one too! It's kind of cute, them pouting in the background while I attempted to get Emery to cooperate! They appear a little jealous...but it's all good!