Hello Blog! I have missed you!

ok, now on to the good stuff!

Michelle & Jon! woot! What an INCREDIBLE wedding. I was so happy when Michelle & Jon asked me to photograph their wedding. Not only was it going to all out ROCK….It was extra meaningful since Michelle is such an amazing woman and I have felt honored to be able to work with her on some spectacular Bleu Print events that she & Stacy have put together.

As expected no detail was overlooked. The location was amazing at the Southwest School of Arts & Crafts. This was my first of two weddings there and it was incredible. The Bleu girls completely rocked it.The RK Group catered and this was one of the few weddings were I actually wanted to sit down and eat. People, all I’m gonna say is Mashed Potato Bar. Seriously…life doesn’t get any better than mashed potatos in martini glasses. The flowers were amazing, the guest book, the favors, the cake…the game table for the kids. It was an incredible night. The best part…..

Michelle & Jon. Completely just all about everyone else. They went above and beyond to make sure everyone was taken care of and having a great time and in the midst of it all you would see them and they were radiant and beaming and just HAPPY! It really was all kinds of goodness!

So….here are some of my faves from the night.

Thanks to both Jon & Michelle for inviting me to be a part of their incredible day.

VENDOR LIST:

Bleu Print Events
Southwest School of Art & Craft
Botanika
Page Bartow
RK Group

So last night was the fabulous Bleu Print Shoe Soiree held at All About Shoes. (there’s no listing of a website or I would totally link because this place was fab.)

The concept was genius….as if I expected anything less from Stacy & Michelle, and of course perfectly executed. I was so thrilled to be a guest at the party…and pull double duty shooting a few shots here and there for their website (be sure to check them out and bookmark them…lots of new and exciting things coming up over there, including a new blog! woot!….and you can find them on facebook too!)

Of course everything was incredible. The food, the blue margaritas, the SHOES! If you are here locally…or even if you’re just passing through you need to totally go see LaTonya at All About Shoes. The shoes are amazingly cute and fabulous.  My favorite part is that she gets a limited number of each style in so not every person in San Antonio is walking around with your shoes. You an also host a shoe party….kinda like the whole home party gig but a ga-trillion times better. You get to host the party in the store and shop for shoes….or just drink. I did both…cuz really shoe shopping is far more fun when you’ve downed a couple blue margaritas!

Here are my hot shoes….ahhhhh….

everything looked so amazing……

i had a hard time deciding what i loved more….

the shoes…..

or the blue candy……of which i managed to eat for breakfast this a.m. while sipping my coffee, wearing my hot new shoes and sitting in my pj’s….life is good!

or the people…..

i’ll leave you with my favorite shot from the entire night….it pretty much sums up everything about Bleu in one little cute margarita glass.

I had the most fun on Saturday. I got to go hang out with Jenny, Margaret and Ryan….and yea, I totally still hang out with kids 1/2 my age….ok, not quite half. it still feels good that i’m not quite old enough to be their mother yet.  of course, by today’s standards who knows.

i digress….

jenniy was referred to me by my little rockstar heather, whom i love and adore beyond words. (thanks girl…i totally owe you a coffee….or something…then again, doesn’t matter if i owe you one or not cuz if i show up anywhere with one you just take it…so really, i think you owe me one)

i digress….again…..

jenny called me to get the hook up on the senior rep gig. she also mentioned that she had an adorable little hottie cousin that wanted in on the action too. awesome! we headed out on saturday to see what we could come up with. i love shooting down on broadway and we got so lucky. we basically walked in a giant circle behind some buildings and hung out in the parking lot but we got some awesome shots. jenny brought along her boyfriend, ryan….who, poor guy was injured the night before in the reagan v. churchill football game…and yet, he managed to show up and cooperate when i threw him in a few shots. he also helped carry my bag and kept the girls laughing the entire time.  i won’t even hold it against him that he has plans to go to A&M….um, jenny either.

so without further ado…because i know they are stalking the blog for their sneak peeks (hi guys!) here are some of my faves.

 here’s miss jenny…when did highschool seniors start looking like runway models???

this is margaret…apparently the model gene runs in their family

ryan & Jenny….young and in love….ya gotta love that

Thanks guys! I had so much fun and you are all so amazing! Best wishes on your senior year!

even though i have nothing prepared to write about or any of my CF cards near by to unload and even post a photo.  i know, i’m lame like that, i’ve got no problems admitting that to anyone.

so i figured before my head actually exploded from acute sinus distress i should post an update of all of the happenings and going-ons around here.

after a nice summer spent with the family I am already feeling the grips of fall and winter as the senior sessions roll in and families prep for the “oh, crap it’s november and we need a family portrait for our holiday card”  Let me just tell everyone…NOW is the time to book! Do not wait until November…or even late October. I refuse to repeat last year and say, “i’m not working in December” yet continue to live in the depth of editing darkness and the hell that comes with the holidays anyway……oh, and Happy Birthday Jesus! Yes, I would actually like to say, “I’m not going to work in December” and then actually NOT work, brillant concept…and actually celebrate the birth of Jesus….as well as the countless other family birthdays we have in December…mine is the 2nd if anyone wants to send wine, chapstick (i’m an addict) starbucks or swiss chocolate (hee hee…that is for Larissa’s family in Switzerland). Brooklyn’s is the 21st and she’s also fond of wine, chapstick, starbucks and swiss chocolate (ok, those are for me…just stick a webkinz in the package and I’ll be sure she gets that).

i digress….how did i get on the DON’T WAIT TO BOOK YOUR HOLIDAY SESSION soapbox?

The last week has been crazy busy. I’m beginning to realize and accept and embrace the fact that never again will i be able to pee alone or shower without a screaming child in the room. Nor will i ever make it a full 2 weeks without filling up with gas or going to walgreens for refills on medication or for milk or bread AGAIN.

Life with FOUR kids is pretty crazy. I will say however, that this is the best start of the school year thus far in our short career with “big” school. We’ve gotten into quite a nice routine and i’ve only found myself on a couple occassions having to threaten selling the children to the gypsies and hopping the next flight to cancun.

parker is adjusting well to “big boy school” too! he’s up at the church dayschool four days a week now and suzy q-t-pie is still with us on Mondays. Today was the first day that he reached for his aMAYzing teachers w/out any tears and even managed only a slight wimper when i said goodbye.  he has already added a new word to his vocabulary….”CHEESE” and today “OK” so now we are moving along in his speech. He now says “dada” and then will turn and point to me and say “dada” yea, mark thinks that’s hysterical. he says “mama” but not very often. he also says “uh, oh”  “shoes”  “this” and “agua”.  we’re working on supercalifragilisticexbealidocious…..it should be right around the corner.

brooklyn and hudson are settling in beautifully as well. we are going on our 3rd week of school and NOT ONE TIME have I had to throw objects at them to get them out of bed and we’ve only had one encounter of “go! go! go! Here comes the bus!”  my little laundry room organization / paper manager/ back back area has worked nicely. things are for the most part running smoothly. they both have incredible teachers again this year. i’ll be volunteering as a guest reader in their rooms once or twice a month so they’re totally stoked about that which totally stokes me.

larissa is doing so well. i am so proud of her. the sheer amount of courage she has to have to be here and try to cope with this “american” way of life is just astounding to me. she has totally embraced the kids and mark and i and is connecting well. we’re having alot of fun with her and she is opening up and really starting to blend right in with our family. i even had a friend tell me today that when she saw us all together at church that she thought larissa even looked like mark and i.  mark’s been helping her with her homework and i’ve continued taking her to school each day. we went grocery shopping on sunday and she was so fun to watch. she thought the 3 liter bottles of pop were incredible and she had her camera and was taking pictures like a mad woman. i thought it was so cute. she finds it interesting that we have “drive in” everything here…referring to fast food and drive thru starbucks. she really thought it was crazy when i told her you could drive through and get your alcohol, prescriptions and dry cleaning. it’s cool to watch her experience things and take it all in. she’s been really great about everything and the kids love her. she is singing in the choir and she had her first performance last night. mark and i felt awful because both of us had events for work that we could not get out of. she said it was just a small performance for the choir booster club so i felt a little better but still wished we could’ve been there.  at any rate, she is adjusting nicely and we are so excited at what the year holds for us.

AND the biggest news from the past week is that i became an auntie again. On Friday my amazing, incredible beautiful sister gave birth to her 2nd child, a little boy, Graysen Dean. I am beyond happy for her, Ronnie & Fayth and I am DYING to get up to Michigan and see her (so any of you photogs who have weddings up there where you might need someone to 2nd shoot for you….let me know!!! Please!!!!) Here are a few photos of Graysen that Melissa sent me (clearly she needs me to come up and take some professional photos of this child…nonetheless, isn’t he the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?) congrats M, Ronnie & Fayth-ie-roonie…I love you all soooo much!

ok, i’m off to sleep and forget about how crappy i feel and how much  i hate south texas cedar and the hell of allergies.

…..on a side note: say some prayers for us as we brace ourselves for Hurrican Ike…….

I want to try to get this all down but am limited on time.

The past 24 hours has been a whirlwind. I’ve got two sick kids now. Hudson=strep. Parker=ear infection. Hudsons perfect attendance dream went right down the toilet after just the 2nd day of school. He came home w/ strep and had to miss school today.

Parker was up all night and after virtually no sleep and a loooong day he was diagnosed w/ yet another ear infection.

BUT the most exciting part of the last 24 hours is that Larissa, our new “daughter” and exchange student from Prattlen, Switzerland arrived today!  With so little sleep last night I woke up with a giant headache and a million things to get done in just 2 hours…because that’s how I roll people. Procrastination.

I popped some Tylonal and after Suzy got her to stay w/ Parker and little strep dude I bolted out the door to pick up a couple final gifts for Larissa before her arrival. I swung by Acadamy to make sure she had a Longhorns tshirt waiting for her. Next stop was James Avery. I wanted to get her something really true to Texas and I loved the idea of starting her a charm bracelet knowing we could add charms to it over the course of the year and when she leaves here next summer she will hopefully have a bracelet full of charms that signify some really outstanding memories here. I picked this Deep in the Heart of Texas charm as her very first.

I rushed home to grab Hudson before we needed to head out to the airport to pick her up. On a whim I decided I should check the status of her flight. Yea, good thing I had that whim….um, her plane was delayed 3 hours. I was so bummed. It had already seemed like I had to wait an eternity for this DAY to get here. 3 hours was going to kill me.

However, it did give me a little time to actually EAT and get a bit of work done while I waited.

I decided since it was practically the end of the school day anyway I would go ahead and get Brooklyn out of school to go along. She was already about to string Hudson up in the middle of the neighborhood and stone him since he was “lucky” enough to get strep throat which consequentially allowed him to be home from school and available to tag along to the airport to pick Larissa up. Brooklyn was thrilled and surprised when we showed up to get her.

Like big giant dorks we totally made a sign for Larissa. the kids fought over who was going to carry it into the airport and hold it the entire drive to the airport. I was about ready to chuck them  the sign out the window before we even got there.

So we made it to the airport. I called Mark to remind him to bring his little point and shoot w/him and the video camera since he was meeting us there and I did NOT even want to lug my giant camera w/ me.  We were about 15 minutes early…again…a freakin’ lifetime when you’ve already waitied forever. More fighting over the sign.

Finally, her flight arrived and we went to wait near the bottom of the escalators entering the baggage claim area.  More waiting…….anothe lifetime…..

Brooklyn started screaming “there she is! there she is! I seeeeeeeee her!” At which point everyone in the airport also saw her…I’m sure she felt not at all self concious.

She was just as beautiful in person as in her photos. She looked so releived when she saw us and realized she’d finally made it.  Her two day travel journey/nightmare was over. She had arrived in Washington DC yesterday and had to stay overnight there….only to get up and head back early this a.m……only to be delayed 3 hours. Welcome to the U.S.

We all drove home.  We chatted a bit but mostly just let her take in the scenary around her. I kept imagining how she must feel and my heart would ache because I knew she was probably so nervous and scared and just didn’t know what the heck to think. I can’t even imagine. At this point I realized we didn’t get a single photo of her arrival. We did get video so I hope to figure out how to post that here soon to share.

At home we unloaded her 3 pieces of luggage, which although seemed to weigh alot, really didn’t when you think she’ll be here for 11 months. We took her upstairs to show her her room. She seemed very happy….totally a releif to me since I have been consumed with preparing it for her for the past week. This is where I should insert a nice lovely photo of how her room looked. You’ll have to wait for that one…and maybea while.

She wanted to shower and unpack so we left her to settle in a bit. i thought brooklyn would climb the walls before she came out of her room again.

We had a nice afternoon. She let us look through her photo album and we talked and tried to get to know each other the best we could w/ 3 screaming kids flocking around. She brought everyone gifts which was so incredibly sweet of her. The kids were so excited.  I finally realized I needed to get my camera out and get a few shots. And I will totally say that normally I wouldn’t even post these here. I have them up on Facebook which seemed to be good enough….but based on this post by Maile yesterday (thanks girl) I knew I wanted this suckers up here.

So w/out more random babbling leading up to the crap-o-la but significant photos……here ya go peeps.

As I sit here on a thursday night i wonder how we got to thursday? the last week and a half has been a blur.

On August 9th some of our best friends returned home from a two week vacation to Greece. We dreaded their return home. Yea, you read that right. We hated to see them come home because we knew it meant in only 10 days they’d be leaving again….and this time for good. They were being relocated to Dallas. And although Dallas is only 5 short hours away, when you see people every single day and spend nearly every single weekend together……dallas might as well be Greece.

In an effort to spend as much time as possible together over the next 10 days we’ve pretty much threw out any sort of “rules” we might usually adhere to in regards to the kids and the amount of time they spent together and what they spent that time doing.  For example, I’m pretty sure all of the kids went close to 4 days without bathing. There simply was not enough time in the day to spend in the shower.  There were several days I’m sure the boys were in their pj’s until dinner.  Running in and out between houses was tolerated and video games and super hero kung foo kicks were encouraged. The girls managed to keep the drama to a minimun too…..nearly unheard of around here. We had more sleepovers in the last 10 days than we did the entire summer. We built “forts” in the living room and a couple in the theater room….yea, even I got in on that action…I am like a serious fort builder now….errr, well according to mark i have no skillz at all but i managed to construct one that made it the entire night so i’m going pro.

We have a total of 4 families we regularly spend time with in the neighborhood. Between the four of us…there are 10 children. So 10 children pretty much ran wild on the street between 4 houses for 10 days, grabbing a handful of chips or an occssional pop tart along the way.  yea, i’m pretty sure child protective services would’ve had a hay day with us.

the adults have had some good fun too. double doses of BBQ fun, lots of laughs, lots of drinks. the girls managed to sneak in a girls night at the melting pot on sunday. the husbands decided we needed to get out more since we were gone for almost 6 hours for dinner.  we were the very last group to leave the restaurant at almost midnight. 

we spent the last four days in denial as we would see the big giant moving truck pull up each day. we just went about the day as if it wasn’t there…..until today…when we could deny it no longer.

today was the day. they rolled out around 3:30 and the tears flowed freely. it was hard, maybe harder than i even expected and i’m not sure that it really has fully set in yet. but tomorrow when we wake up and the house has 4 fewer little feet running in and out of it and this weekend there are 2 more open chairs around the patio fire where the adults usually sit………well, maybe then.

here’s to future roadtrips to dallas and friends that can never be replaced.

here are some favorite shots from the last year.

smooches to kristina, tasos, sofia & christos!

here’s a shot of the four of us on new year’s eve…..pardon mark’s inability to focus…i think it’s probably a good indication that this shot was probably taken WELL after midnight.

Kristina & Tasos…notice the difference in photographic quality cuz mama had the camera!

the kids after our christmas party. little p-diddy isn’t pictured…he must’ve missed out on all the fun.

hudson’s bday party

kids’ at the ranch

the big kids at the ranch.

just a typical saturday afternoon.

the boys w/ Michael Finley.

the kids in mama’s fort.

one last BBQ night

drams queens best friends

Apparently great family sessions are in abundance these days because last weekend I got to spend time with another spectacular family. It never ceases to amaze me how mother’s can manage to walk, talk and breathe when they have more than 2 children. I have 3….I don’t know how to do it.  Ethel made it look easy. She has four rock star children and her youngest, Grace, is actually just a month older than Parker but her attention span is LIGHT YEARS ahead of his.  It’s such a hard thing to get a family portrait done but once again, I got a family that made it look pretty effortless. I should also mention that Ehtel was referred in to me from Carrie, who has her own rockstar family! Thanks Carrie and Thanks Ethel, Jim, Jimmy, Ryan, Ty & Grace! It was a true blessing to spend time with you!

Last weekend I had another great family session.  Stacy owns the AMAZING event planning company, Bleu Print Events by Design and I’ll be working with her and her supa star partner Michelle on some events and weddings in the coming months and I am beyond excited about that.  I’m even more excited about these two amazing women and what they are doing in San Antonio.  If you are a bride looking for an event planner, get off of your computer right now..( but come back soon!) and call Stacy & Michelle. Seriously, spend about 10 minutes with them and I promise you will be begging them to help coordinate your wedding.

After I had met Michelle but before I actually had a chance to meet Stacy in person she contacted me about doing a family session for her husband’s birthday gift.  We ended up having two different sessions since, as many of you know, children sometimes have their own agenda that doesn’t always conincide with what we have in mind. I know *gasp* can you even imagine? I can’t even get my 7 and 6 year olds to dress before noon, I don’t dare ask them to cooperate when I whip out my camera. Two sessions only meant that I had twice as many favorites to choose from. Here’s a sampling of some of my very favorites.

Thanks Stacy! I am thrilled to have the chance to work w/ Bleu Print and it was a true pleasure to spend time with your beautiful little family!

super quick post tonight. i’m in the middle of throwing some stuff in a bag to head out for a few days of camping with my youth group. last year at this time i was freaking out that i had volunteered as a small group leader for this same camp with the youth. yea, i’m not a camping girl. my “camping” expereience is nil and the camping i do involves the carribean ocean, a hammock, a cababna boy, seafood, $5 coffee and some serious hard core shopping…um, otherwise find another chica. but, because i love the youth at my church so much and because the next best thing to the carribean ocean is Leaky, TX ;) I headed up last year. I was pleasantly surprised. Once i got over the centipede in the shower, the paralyzing fear of scorpions crawling into my bunk, the obvious lack of air conditioning and cabana boys and the HOT FREAKIN’ TX SUN….I was fine. So this year…..I’m going back. I know. I’m a rockstar. I’ll be gone until Sunday afternoon with no cell phone or internet service and my $5 heroine coffee will be downgraded to Folgers crack so I’ll be cranky but I should be over it by Wednesday so if you need me…wait until then.

In other unplifting news I was in Austin last night for the Free to Succeed Tour with David Jay & Jasmine Star. I feel like I’ve lived in Austin the past 3 weeks….not that I’m complaining…because let’s face it…Austin rocks. 

If I had time I would seriously talk about this in great length. I was SOOOO pleased that this was totally not an informercial plugging all of DJ’s fabulous (and completely above informercial-ism-nes-stuff-yea) but I really thought it was going to be alot of “buy my product and you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams and then will retire at the ripe age of 33 and get to go camping in the carribean all the time” 

Yea, so not like that. This 4 short hours was packed full of nothing short of inspirational goodness and just two genuine people that happen to be very successful at what they do. It was totally based on their enthusiasm to first and foremost, be good people…..and because of that it naturally overflows into their business and into their photography.  DJ was adorable and humble and happy and quite funny. Jasmine was a little photo fashionista who was fired up about her career and her life and where she’s been and where she’s going.  It was just good stuff. I was so happy when I left and even 24 hours later my mind is still reeling with ideas, inspirationan and techniques that I will be implementing into my life and projecting into my business.  The last couple months have been really transitional for me, there’s a new wedding website in the works and so much on the horizon and now I feel like I can dig in and get stuff done.  Things will be changing and baby…change is GOOD. K.I.R to my girl Jas.

Awesome.

I’m off to hunt for a cabana boy to pack in my bag.