i am blessed. i am blessed with a beautiful family. i am blessed with a love and deep connection in my faith…and i am blessed with a circle of friends where an outpouring of love and graciousness abounds.  many friends that i have today are people with whom i’ve spent years knowing, growing and connecting with.  cultivating and nurturing these friendships which will continue to impact my life for years to come.  the beauty of photography is that i can look through a lens and capture the essence of a family and the relationships within it.  when the people i photograph are my friends i am blown away by the sheer magnitude of this.  on sunday i spent some time doing just this with my friends, tami, shawn and their two gorgeous children, konnar & kaleigh.  we did a session at the mcnay art museum.  it was awesome and amazing and life changing (ok, so maybe not life changing….but close) no, seriously, we had fun.  the kids were hysterical.  little kaleigh who is 4 was cracking me up because she kept picking up rocks and pecans and holding them up to show me as i was snapping a picture.  so here are a few of my faves from the day

case in point…

Thanks for your friendship guys!! much love!

on sunday i had the amazing honor to photograph my dear friend emily’s parents who were in town visiting from washington d.c.  they have visited in the past and just recently moved from dallas to d.c but i had not gotten the opportunity to meet them until this weekend.  what an amazing couple.  not only were they beautiful….it was so apparent that even after 26 years of marriage they were still incredibly connected and in love.  i loved watching them through my lens interacting with each other. the way they would look at each other….very sweetly and tenderly.  the way their hands would gently touch, lingering for a moment before interlacing their fingers.  they were so fun and at ease with one another. comfortable and familiar.  it was awesome to be there to capture that for them. emily said they had never had a professional picture taken of them (other than one on a cruise…you know the ones…with the cheesy backdrops?) so i was so excited to be able to do this for them.  here are a few of my faves.

you throw a bag of popcorn into the microwave and sit down at your laptop to check your email.  after about 10 minutes or so you get up to get your tastey lil’ treat only to open the microwave and discover……

nothing.

yea, there’s no bag of deliciously warm popcorn waiting for yout there.  what the???? you realize you didn’t hear the annoying little beep, beep, beep….or did you? so you think, "man…you are a total bonehead! you didn’t even put a bag in there!"

before grabbing another bag you open the refridgerator to grab a dr. pepper and there….right next to the eggs and an empty gallon of milk sits your popcorn…..patiently waiting for a drastic increase in temperature.

definately a long day.

i must still be experiencing the lingering effects of my 1 day of "real" work.

today i realized how incredibly spoiled i am. today i realized how big of a pansy i am.  today i realized that hanging at starbucks and blog stalking doesn’t prepare you to go out into the big bad world of reality. the one where people actually have JOBS. one’s that they have to set their alarms for and shower for. ones that require them to dress in something other than their least dirty pair of jeans and random vintage tshirts. ones where they can’t pull their hair back into a half ass pony tail and walk around until noon without brushing their teeth (ok, i only do that on monday, wednesday & friday).  yes, today i realized that never again will i be able to work somewhere that requires me to "clock in" or where i only have 1hr to eat my lunch.  today i realized that even a mere 8 hours is too long to go w/out seeing this

yes, today i realized i am living a very big dream…….and i’m spoiled! did i mention that already?

so, because i have the inability to say no to anyone….and well, i had nothing else going on…i decided to help a friend whose cousin is opening a new Talbots right up the road. the grand opening is on wednesday and she just needed help getting things ready. setting out clothes, shoes, purses, accessories….uh, yea! i can totally go play w/ a bunch of women and surround myself w/ pretty things…and pick up some extra cash in the process.  yea, well that’s when the whole reality check happened. i woke up this a.m. w/ yet another headache, totally did not want to go but forced myself to shower and yes, brush my teeth even though it’s friday. i put on clean jeans too! my big motivator was that FALL had arrived overnight and the temps were FAB! anyway, i showed up and MAN! it was hard freakin’ work. seriously, hundreds of boxes to unpack. hundreds of shirts, sweaters, jeans, slacks…do people still say slacks?….skirts, purses, belts, sunglasses, pj’s, omygosh it was never ending! i’ve never seen so much plastic wrap and tissue paper. i broke 3 nails and within an hour i was searching for the starbucks and donuts just to get me through til lunch!  after lunch i broke another nail, my headache was back, my ass was numb and my back felt like i had a machete stuck between my shoulder blades.  yea, i busted out of there at 4 on the dot and felt like i could’ve came home and slept for days…..uh, only i had 3 kids to come home to and a full day ahead tomorrow.  luckily, i got a little break because everyone was playing at a neighbors….woohoo! let me tell ya people, i have a whole new appreciation for retail….and for anyone who has a "real job".  how quickly i have adapted to my life as a starbucks junkie, blog stalkin’, stay at home mom turned photographer…..my life is GOOD!

btw-i go back on monday……………………………….
what can i say???? the purses were WAAAY cute!

monday’s shoot was awesome! and how could it not be with a family that looks like this

i met the family of rockstars about four years ago when i was mason’s (cute little blonde dude on the left) preK teacher and then again last year when i was Tanner’s (cute littlest blonde dude) teacher.  when tracy emailed me to book a session i knew we were going to have a great shoot when she said she was up for anything.   they all made me laugh and were totally relaxed which makes my job easy schmeezy.

these boys are adorable and considering it was over 90 degrees and they are BOYS (how many do you know that actually want to have their picture taken?) they were such troopers and amazingly patient and cooperative and totally making me laugh and just being boys!

so here are a few of my faves

i love these of billy & tracy……aren’t they gorgeous???

i’m thinkin’ tracy had fun? eh?   

tracy had emailed me a couple days before the shoot telling me she was having her tiara shined…..i was afraid she might forget hers so i picked her up one on my way to the shoot.  we had to do something to balance out all that testosterone.

gettting 3 boys to look at the camera at the same time was more challenging than i thought but those are my favorite ones anyway! i love to see their personalities come out and this could be my fave from the entire shoot.

thanks so much for hangin’ with me and for a great shoot! can’t wait to see ya’ll again!

ok, so i’ve failed miserably at trying to keep up w/ posting everyday and i promise i will TRY to get better.  i have been trying to determine if i will continue with my personal blog that i’ve had for almost 3 years or if i will just move over here to make things a bit easier so i only have to update one blog…..which i think will be the end result.  i’ll just link my old blog in the sidebar somewhere so there is access to archives there. 

the week has been crazy hectic but the kids had some serious fun arrive on the doorstep one day right after school.  a little package from their "sissy" which is what they call their auntie kathleen who lives in seattle.  she had promised them a package before school started (ok, she’s about as good at getting to the post office as i am) they were stoked when they got off the bus and saw the package waiting for them.  they knew immediately what it was.  hudson had asked her to send him "webs" which in 5 year old boy lingo is silly string that inserts into a spiderman glove.  you guessed it. you push the little lever and out shoots spidey’s "webs".  it’s the best 60 seconds of entertainment a boy could hope for.  hudson tore into that package and in about one minute flat he had the entire box open and was hurdling the stairs to find his spiderman gloves. i had no idea the child could move this fast considering it takes him about 10 minutes to put a line of toothpaste on his toothbrush in the a.m. he quickly found his gloves and was back downstairs trying to insert the can of "webs" into them before brooklyn even found her gift in the sea of styrofoam peanuts that had spilled onto the living room floor. he immediately became frustrated when he couldn’t figure out how to get the whole contraption to work. with a little help from mom (i took spidey-glove-web-construction 101 in college) we had it ready to go before long.  before handing the precious commodities back to the little dude i gave the lecture…."outside ONLY" and repeated it at least 25 times.  about 10 seconds later this is what happened.

before i could even say a word he burst into tears terrified that i was going to take his new toy away before he even made it out the door.  i felt so bad because he totally did not mean to shoot blue silly string all over my lamp & walls.  he was trying to put the glove on and inadvertently hit the lever.  i felt so awful that i had lectured him so badly that he was now terrified he was going to be beaten and sent to his room never to see his little gloves again.  so of course, i quickly reassured him it was no big deal….all the while praying that this crap came off the wall before his dad got home and realized his upcoming weekend would consist of repainting and shopping for new lamps.  and it did….for the most part.  i mean, you can’t tell unless you look really hard…….

so a big shout out to "sissy"……hudson would like a new can of webs for christmas and i would like these

let me preface this entire post with ….*i can’t believe i’m going to admit this on the www.*

i *heart* hannah montana.  it’s true.  the little blonde supa star just grows on you.  i mean, i don’t hold her in the same regard as say, nirvana…..or inxs, but she’s got a couple lil’ catchy tunes dontcha think?  that’s what happens when you have a 6 year old daughter. heck, even hudson’s a fan…and he’s way too young to think she’s just another hottie…he genuinely likes her. 

yes, hannah is in heavy rotation around here! that being said,

last weekend myself, along with a couple of my dear friends decided to take our daughters to Libby Lu’s here for a Hannah Montana makeover.  oh, what would the night hold for us? 

Immediately the girls were in pure high school musical heaven when we walked in the door and they saw this

yea, they pretty much were out of their minds. it was actually rather disturbing to see my 6 year old have this reaction about someone who isn’t her father…..besides, he’s much closer to my age!   ok, that is probably all sorts of wrong eh?

so the girls got an entire makeover…complete w/ hannah wig & microphone and they were not at all shy about breakin’ out their best hannah moves in the middle of the store.  it was friday night so the store was fairly vacant as far as parties and what not. we’ve been on a saturday afternoon and it’s a whole different ballgame then.  insane-madness.  there were still plenty of on lookers as the girls strutted their stuff though.

here’s brooklyn all diva like with her golden straw like wig.  quite the little rock star dontcha think?

we were at The Shops at La Cantera here in town which is an open air mall.  after the ‘makeover’ we took the girls to marble slab for ice cream. they stayed in character of course and they basically rocked the mall.  everyone was stopping to talk to them and asking them to sing and showering them with attention and once again, they were not at all shy about it!  while we were eating our ice cream outside the girls decided to stand in the center of the mall and put on a little show.  they busted out their best hannah songs and had a nice little crowd gathering. i was totally searching for an empty can to put out for tips.  they rocked!

it was so much fun to watch them. brooklyn surprised me because she’s not typically someone who really likes to be the center of attention. i think because she had her friends there she was much more comfortable.  it was a fun girls night out…..and now…..

i think i have to go fight ninjas with hudson and his buddies one night.  that’s another post, another day.

peace out!