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!

we’re out. vacation. family. friends. small town carnivals. big ol’ lakes. sand. nieces. nephews. laughing. crying. maid-rite. meijers. hugs. home cooking. eating out. piers. waves. sun. cool lake breezes. alex’s pizza.

we’re on our way out to visit friends & family in missouri. we’re stoked about seeing our family and we get to meet our new nephew, tristin whose only 3 months old and so stinkin’ cute. we get to eat maid rite. (notice that i prioritized and didn’t mention the food first) we’re lucky because mark’s family and my family live in the same town so we get to make our rounds and see everyone. and my aunt, uncle and my cousin’s family are coming in from georgia. brenda’s driving in from springfield and amy’s coming home from lake of the ozarks and we all get to hang. i can’t wait. i haven’ seen the girls since novemeber at carrie’s wedding so i can’t wait. amy’s husband russ is coming home and he & mark get along fabulously since they can talk politics and not hate each other by the end of the night. plus i get to see my little brady man. brady just turned two so i get to catch a glimpse of what my life will look like next year at this time w/ p-diddy parker man. who by the way is sick. poor dude. let’s hope he stays out of crank-ville while we spend 15 hours in the car tomorrow.

mark is smoking crack because he totally thinks we can make this trip in one day. did i mention 15 hours? last time we made this trip parker was only 3 months old and all he required was a boob and an occassional burp and diaper change. these days he’s got me wondering if 11am is too early for vodka. and that’s in our wide open spacious home with all of his toys and lots of places to crawl in and out of. imagine the joy of being restricted to a car seat for 15 hours. i can’t imagine how he wouldn’t like that.

regardless, i’m still excited. after 4 days in missouri we’re heading to grand haven, michigan to see my dad, sister and brother and all my nieces & nephews there. i’ll get to go home to oakley to see my grandma and aunts and uncles too. the kids are super excited about this part of the trip too….they not only get to play with their cousins but we get to spend some serious time on the beach at lake michigan.

i’ll be working a bit while i’m on vacation….i plan to do newborn shots of tristin while i’m home as well as my sister’s belly pics. she’s about 7 months pregnant now and i already told to prep herself for some rolling on the beach fun. she was appalled at the idea but she’ll be fine. i can totally take her so i doubt she’s going to put up a fight. i kicked her a&@ when we were kids so I have no doubt i can still take her down.

happy 4th everyone! enjoy!

it’s your best friend after an emergency root canal. i’ll spare you the details but here’s a basic break down of the past week.

*wednesday-school’s out for summer-woot! mommy is sleeping in people
*thursday-prep for friday and saturday weddings and rock out the first day of summer
*Friday-wake up, shower, ready to get out the door for last minute errands and preparation for the 2 weddings only to discover i’ve locked my keys in the car. yea, i rock like that.  wait around for 2 hours waiting for pop-a-lock dude to get here and then spend the a.m. frantically trying to shop for a couple new outfits for the weekend, pick up a couple lenses i needed, pick up a cake for brooklyn’s end of the year brownie party and pack my entire family for the weekend getaway to houston.
*get everything done with 1 hour to spare….enough time to shower for lindsay and logan’s wedding and head out to start the festivities.
*wedding was awesome. so fun. so emotional. promise to post pictures when i’m not high on vicodin…..getting to that in a minute.
*make it home sometime after 1am.
*sleep for a few hours.

*Saturday-wake up, finsih packing, dress 3 kids and one husband…ok he dressed himself but barely. piled in the car headed for houston. stop and grab breakfast, eat…..and FREAK OUT! my toothe suddenly feels like someone is grinding an icepick into it. 2 hours into the trip we stop for tylonal at a gas station where i almost beg a trucker to cut every one of my teeth out of my head so i never experience this pain again. instead, i pop the tylonal and grab some water. make it to houston w/ 2 hours until i have to be ready to shoot another wedding. check into the hotel, curl up into a ball on the bed and groan. that lasts 15 minutes until i have to shower and get ready to leave. kiss my family goodbye and directing mark to do nothing else before he goes and finds me something to take for this pain…..go downtown houston and find some crack for all i care. i want it to go away.
*put on a happy face, triple up on extra strength tylonal and meet david and ashley from barron and barron and get ready to shoot the sensational wedding of Chad Hedrick and Lynsey Adams.
*manage to make it through the day/night….the only thing that got me through was sweet ashley and a room full of beautiful people, one of the most touching and emotional ceremonies i’ve ever witnessed and one rockin’ party afterwards.
*stumble into the hotel room sometime after 1am.
*sleep for a few hours.

*Sunday-wake up feeling as if i’ve been hit by a truck. every inch of my body aches….and oh, yea that toothe. by this time i’ve not eaten since breakfast on saturday morning and i’m starving. i force my family out of bed so we can get to the nearest place that serves anything remotely ediable. i eat. and i regret it almost instantly. we quickly realize our nice family trip to the beach, nasa and the boardwalk are going to have to be postponed as we head back to san antonio so i can get into my rockstar dentist.

*Monday-1:30- root canal. nothing else matters at this point.

*Tuesday-vicodin, antibiotics, a trip to the pediatrician for hudson who is having problems w/ his asthma AGAIN, more vicodin, a nice leisurely couple hours by the pool, a nap, a husband that comes home and cooks and takes care of me while i groan some more. between him and the vicodin i’m lovin’ life…..

even with a root canal.

promise to post pictures tomorrow……hoping to make it through the day w/out meds and pain free!

Summer time! It’s our vacatioin! What time is it? Party time! School’s out! Scream & shout!

Just a little diddy from High School Musical 2.

I promised the kids I’d pick them up from school yesterday for the last day of school. Brooklyn was stressin’ big time that she’d have to ride the bus with a giant garbage bag full of stuff and since she’s not big on being the center of attention I said I’d pick them up.

As I sat in the carpool lane I got all emotional. I’ve mentioned before I’ve never been one to cry when the kids went off the kindergarden or anything like that. But I was so sad that the school year was over. Yea, partly because I’m thinkin’ what the heck am I going to do to occupy 3 kids for the next 12 weeks….but more so because my kids have had the most amazing teachers this year. Seriously, they rocked. So I was just totally bummed to be saying goodbye to them. I know, sappy.

Anyway, to snap myself out of the sappy funk I decided to key up the iPod to blast that catchy lil’ pop song …Track 1 on the H.S. Musical CD. Yes, my iPod is loaded with that, Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers for pain-free travel with kids.

As I began pulling through the carpool lane and I got about 20 feet from the kids I hit Play and rocked out. I thought Brooklyn would crawl into her backpack….but she surprised me and was jumping up and down and singing as she came up to the car.  They were both stoked to officially begin their summer! As we pulled off…I realized I was too.

Mark was out of town but we decided we wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate the beginning of summer and the end of an awesome school year. The kids wanted to eat at Johnny Carino’s. Aftewards we ran through Target to grab some stuff for ice cream sundaes. We got home, got P-diddy to bed and then made our sundae’s and rented Agent Cody Banks on On Demand and chilled for the night.

This a.m. we headed out for a couple errands then hit Starbucks real quick and then headed over to a newly constructed park to play a while. I love finding little gem parks nearby. This one was great since it had an area for Parker Man to play and a place for the older two to wander around.  There was a rockwall and plenty of running space.  It was a perfect morning since the wind was blowing and it was overcast. But then it started to RAIN…HARD! Just out of nowhere. We got a good 1.5 in though so it wasn’t too bad.

We’re heading to the pool around 5 to meet some friends from the neighborhood and Hudson’s little girlfriend from his class. (they are so stinkin’ cute) he totally wants to marry her. We’re going to get a few pizza’s and let the kids swim a bit up there.

So, it’s summer time! I’m embracing it….and all it’s humidity!

Happy summer people!

i’m pulling myself out of a cloud of lysol for a quick post. 

what started out as a great week last week…going back to the 19th….ended up as the beginning of an 8 day full out attack on my family. 

mark’s birthday was last monday. i was rather proud of myself for having gifts wrapped and ready by saturday. pat on the back for me. monday the spurs were playing so we had plans to have dinner at some friends to celebrate and then watch the game over there.  mark came home a little early from work, we did presents and started packing up to head out. as we were walking out the door brooklyn begins to vomit….EVERYWHERE.

change of plans.

mark headed to our friends’ w/ the boys to celebrate alone and i got brooklyn squared away in a shower and jammies and began the task that every mother loves …. vomit cleanup. i’ll spare you the ugly details however, I will say in the midst of it I broke my mop and then had to get on my hands and knees and scrub the floors by hand. always a great time.

i spent the next 6 hours holding brooklyn’s hair back and catching glimpses of the game from the bathroom. brooklyn felt awful and was crying at one point, apologizing for missing daddy’s birthday and vomitting on the floor.  i felt so awful for her. i reassured her we would celebrate with daddy the next night when she was feeling better.

and she was. and we did. i cooked some killer steaks and shrimp and we enjoyed tuesday evening ….sans vomit. and she headed back to school on wednesday.

wednesday evening hudson began complaining that his throat hurt. like any good mother i took a look, told him it was irritated by a popcorn kernal and called it a day. that night he woke up screaming and writhing in pain. his throat looked awful. upon our trip to the dr. on thursday we were told his tonsils were so swollen he would have to get a shot of penicillin because they didn’t think he’d even be able to swallow the antibiotics orally. ugh! it was a nightmare. i bribed him with a new xbox 360 game but even that didn’t help. i sat there and watched him lay pathetically on the table spitting in the trashcan because it hurt too much for him to swallow.  another great day. he missed school thursday and friday.

saturday we had plans to go w/ friends to the Blanco State Park. We spent the morning packing our picnic lunch and loading half of Parker’s belongings into the car. you never know what a 14 month old might need at the river. everyone was feeling great. happy. healthy. enjoying the day. it was a perfect day. parker was so well behaved at the river. i was so nervous about taking him but he did super. the kids loved it. we had a great time.

sunday.

i get up early to do an engagment session. knock it out. get home and we decided to take the older two kids to the witte museum. we made arrangements for a sitter for parker and got ready to head out. 30 minutes before the sitter was going to be here. parker started vomitting.

change of plans.

mark takes the older two out to the witte and i stayed home cleaning up baby vomit. which by the way isn’t nearly as bad as 7 year old vomit. oh, and in between i watched when a man loves a woman and cried uncontrollably.

it was a great day.

memorial day!

woohoo! we’re all happy and healthy again.

we decide to bbq with some friends. things are going along perfectly. (you know where this is going don’t you?)

mark was next on the list. our dinner was cut a little short and mark headed to bed early to sleep it off.

and finally…..i woke up this a.m. around 5:30….and I was next. exactly how i wanted to start my week. mark got the kids up and off to school and parker headed to the neighbors. i spent the next 7 hours waiting for it to be over and praying costco sold Lysol in bulk.

it’s done and over. i hope and pray this misses hudson. he’s the last on the list. but i’m hoping w/ that shot of penicillin he had for strep it might help him out a bit. we shall see. it’s a quick little virus. only lasting around 6 hours or so. i guess that’s the silver lining?

so now i hope to begin my week tomorrow. vomit free. and high on Lysol.

for your viewing pleasure.

FINALLY! I’ve updated. I’ve really updated.

I promise, promise, promise, promise I’m going to be posting more!

I’ve got a few more sessions to post. Some awesome wedding photos included!

did a lil’ mini session for my dear sweet friend ranae. she never purchased school photos of her youngest daughters so she asked me to meet her up at the church and fire off a couple shots of each of them. short and sweet.  they are so gorgeous and sweet.

when matt’s sweet mom called to schedule his senior session with me i was super stoked. he was going to my my first male senior session. as we got closer to his session i started to freak out a bit. girls are so easy to shoot. they totally want to be there. a million outfit changes, gorgeous makeup and hair, they’ve spent hours watching america’s next top model so they can nail the poses. um, guys? what the heck do i know about making an 18 year old guy feel comfortable while i’ve got a 10 foot lens hanging off my camera and i’m touting them around a busy hill country town while people gawk at them? i was a tad nervous as i headed to greune one saturday in december.

i was totally set at ease when i met matt’s family. his mom, dad and sister were all there to gawk….errrr, support him. and he was totally honest and told me he was suppose to take his SAT’s that morning, and he honestly was looking more forward to that than having me play deranged paparazzi girl.

it was one of my favorite sessions. honestly. so easy going. i loved talking to him and as we talked i could visually see him become more comfortable in front of the camera. after we were done he told me it "wasn’t as bad as i thought"

that completely rocked.

take a peek.

this is mara. another gorgeous senior from braken christian.  we did 1/2 of her senior session back in december and i’m stoked to do the other half in another couple weeks.  she told me she was nervous when we first got there….um, i wish this is what i looked like when i was nervous.

we have some friends that live outside of the neighborhood (i know this is very hard to beleive but i promise it’s true) and they find it so amusing that we do so much with our neighbors. at one point last summer sylvia just started coming straight over to our house when she got home from work since she knew the rest of her family would be here and dinner would be waiting for her. we are so lucky to have some amazing neighbors surrounding us. here are a few of my many favorites from syl & rob’s family session.