I’m so excited to have a weekly project to work on with Jana. It’s fun to be back on Flickr (and I need to update my profile over there as well) and seeing all sorts of great inspiration floating around. I’ve felt very excited the past few weeks and this little project is something that I think will get me back to the bones of my photography and why I love it so much. I love seeing all the creative ideas that everyone is coming up with!

If you’re interested in joining us check out Megan’s blog for the initial concept or check in over at our Flickr group!

On our first week we decided to stick with Melody & Megan’s theme of: BOOK

Top: Jana
Bottom: Me

This week has been rough. To say the least. We’ve spent the last two weeks warding off more illness. The latest…the flu. You know the one that’s been in the news? Yea, that one. blah.  Mark and the boys have had it already so Brooklyn and I are just bideing our time. Don’t you love my positive outlook?

Today I woke up with a slight headache which led me to beleive immediately that I was destined to be curled up in a ball with a fever of 103 by noon. It didn’t happen. However, I still didn’t feel great. By noon my head was pounding and my stomach was starting to hurt. To top it off our dog, ate another pair of flip flops and pulled the eyes out of the last Build A Bear the kids owned and ate a roll of toilet paper. It was early release today so all the kids were home 2 hours early. On most days 2 hours isn’t a big deal. Today 2 hours might as well of been the start of summer vacation.

Add all of this to the mountain of work I’m trying to get done and you can probably guess that I was starting to wonder if vodka martini’s at 10:30 a.m. could pass as a “preventative treatment” of sorts.

Then I remembered I needed to place a special order for some friends hanging out in Seattle this weekend. I was starting to get frantic when I realized that I needed a fairly large order of goodies placed and delivered in less than 24 hours! It was proving to be a challenge of sorts as everywhere I found didn’t offer what I was specifically looking for, couldn’t deliver or couldn’t deliver to the area I needed them to deliver too.

Then the ray of beautiful light beamed through my computer screen.

I had landed at Cupcake Royale. Everything fell in to place. Well, almost everything. Minus that the list of zipcodes to where they delivered didn’t include the zipcode I needed and there was a time indicator on when I needed to hae the order in by to ensure delivery the next day. I’d missed it by over 2 hours. I was going to give it a shot anyway.

I explained the situation to the lovely  on the other end of the phone and she immediately solved all my problems. She was completely accommodating. Totally took care of me and reassured me that everything would be handled. FINALLY, some one who understands customer service! Even when they had every right to tell me NO.  She totally made me feel like I could trust her within the first 15 seconds of our conversation.

In the midst of a totally crappy day with a screaming toddler, a headache, a 7 year old who totally should’ve went to school today since he was “bored” all day, the endless work and obligations that loomed ahead and fighting off the flu de pig this little specialty cupcake shop over 2200 miles away from me completely made my day.

And really, can you even doubt any place that has a blog called Legalize Frostitution.  Just one more reason I want to move to Seattle.

Today is just a quickie post also. I just got home from spending 5 hours in the ER with little man Parker. Poor guy.

He got a runny nose and a bad cough over the weekend and by last night he had a high temp and rapid breathing. We were up every 4 hours doing breathing treatments and this a.m. he was still breathing super fast. I called the pediatrician but they couldn’t see him til this afternoon. I decided not to wait and took him to ER.

5 hours, 1 rectal temp, 3 breathing treatments, 2 chest xrays, 1 dose of oral steroids, 5 hours of oxygen and 4 stickers later we are home and he is sleeping. They came close to admitting him but determined he was making progress with the breathing treatments so they discharged us to come home. We’ll have to continue the treatments at home (which we are pros at due to Hudson’s asthma) every 3 hours and then follow up with his pediatrician in the a.m.

I’m super bummed since he just started preschool last week. 4 days of school and already sick. I am praying this won’t be a repeat of last year. AGH. I don’t know if I can survive another season of that. Send up some prayers!

Hope to return to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. Had a fun senior session this weekend that I can’t wait to post about and still need to get up pics from Rebekah and Darren’s Labor Day wedding!

I’m not sure how long it rang  before I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Are you watching it?”

“What is this? I don’t understand. I don’t understand what they are doing? I don’t understand what this is?”

“Are you watching it? Is it on?”

I was sitting in my living room with my 9 month old daughter on my lap. I don’t remember any more of our conversation after that but I remember those first few exchanges between myself and my husband like I remember our wedding vows.  I remember the confusion. I remember staring blankly at my television. I remember I literally could not comprehend what I was watching.

In my exchange with Mark I remember vividly saying that I didn’t understand what they were doing but at that point I didn’t even know who they were.  Regardless of the “realness” of the situation I really still thought this was something……else. Something so far removed from what it actally was.

And I sat there. Just watching it all unfold. I witnessed the world that I lived in change. Forever.

The 2nd plane hadn’t hit yet so no one really did understand what they were doing or what they were going to do. No one knew that by the end of the day 2,993 people would lose their lives, over 6000 people would be injured in 3 different U.S. locations.

8 years later the pain of that day is still almost unbearable. The pain I feel as an American citizen. Nothing more. I didn’t know a single person who died on this day. I didn’t know a single child left without a parent.  I didn’t know a single fire fighter, port authority officer or police officer. It doesn’t matter.  It changed my life forever.

In May I made my first trip to NYC with Larissa, our exchnage student from Switzerland. We only had a few days to see the city so we had to make sure we prioritzed where we were going to spend our time.

#1 on my list was Ground Zero.

Larissa was obviously familiar with the events that had occurred.  I explained to her that as an American I felt being at  Ground Zero was ….just necessary.  As a photographer I wanted to document it.  I was afraid though. I remember worrying I would absolutely be too emotional to even shoot.

I was.

I remember when we got out of the taxi, like 3 or 4 blocks away seeing the buildings that were still under construction. The buildings that had been damaged and destroyed.

The whole expereince was almost surreal. We stood there amoungst tourist from all over the world.  All speaking different languages and talking to those we were with telling them our stories. The stories of where we were when we first heard the news and how we cried for days, weeks & years afterwards.

I will never forget that day or what it felt like to see it almost 8 years later. Today I remember those who suffered loss that day and those that will continue to suffer at the hands of those who forever changed America.

Here are a few images from my visit

FDNY Memorial Wall

A view of construction

FDNY Ladder Co. 10

The Sphere residing in it’s new home at Battery Park

In other breaking news let the record show that I watched about 15 hours of television this weekend. Yes, I am bragging about that. I never take the time to watch TV. I have about 2-3 shows that I really love and make it a point to watch but even then, the only show I will actually take the time to DVR is LOST.

Mark & I had the entire last season on DVR and hadn’t gotten a chance to watch any of them with the exception of the season premier. So, this lovely Labor Day weekend we completely played couch potatoes and watched the entire season in 3 days. OMG, it was amazing. I am so sad though that once again, I will be sitting here until Jan. when the premier airs to figure out what’s going to happen next. REALLY??? I won’t spoil it in case there is some sad soul out there reading who has for some unknown reason not watched it but WTH??? Is next season the last season for real???? What on earth am I going to do. Even 10 years worth of The Bachelor can not even come close to making up for one season of Jack or Sawyer. Oh, say it isn’t soooooo!!!!!!!

And in a final thought I will be posting the new Holiday Mini Session promo tomorrow so stay tuned. Spaces are LIMITED this year so be sure to book early!!! Can’t wait to knock out another great year of holiday sessions!

Alright, until tomorrow…..

Shine On!

We’re heading out tomorrow (possibly tonight) to our home town of Rolla (near St. Louis) in Missouri. We will visit family & friends while home. Mark will be with us for about 5 days and then he’ll be flying home to enjoy a peaceful house for 8 more days. We decided to stay behind for a while longer. It’s always insane when we go home to try to fit everything in so we figured we’d stay longer in order to spend more quality time with people.

I’m super excited to be hosting a baby shower for one of my best friends, Amy. She’s due with baby #2 in just a few weeks and since I live 800 miles away and never get to be around for things like this I told her I wanted to help host the shower. What are the odds that I’m actually in town during a time when it makes sense to have her shower. So looking forward to that and catching up with friends I haven’t seen in a while. Also get to shoot a family session for Amy.

I’ll also be shooting a family session for my other dear dear friend, Carrie. She had her first baby earlier in the year and I’m excited to get to meet baby Henry for the first time and get some sweet little shots of him. Carrie & I have been friends since elementary school and it’s crazy how close we still are.  Looking forward to spending some time with the girls while I’m home. I need it for sure.

We’ll be hanging out with our families and seeing our lil’ baby nephew, Tristen while we are home too. He & Parker are about a year apart exactly in age and it’s fun to see them play together.  Here’s a shot of them from their birthday party this past March when Tristen, Justin & Eva were down visiting.

Heading back to Texas on the 15th for one day and then Mark & I will be leaving with Jana & Steve to head out to San Francisco & Napa for  week. We’ll be celebrating our anniversaries.  Mark & I celebrated 10 years in June and Steve & Jana will be celebrating 20 years in September. I am sooo soo looking forward to this trip. We’ll be flying into San Fran but then renting a car and heading straight up to Napa for a couple days. Then we’ll make back down to SF for the remainder of the week. Can not wait! Looking forward to fun, sun, wine & a break for the 100+ temps around here!

Hope to do a little blogging while I’m gone but we’ll see.  Probably more short updates on Facebook and Twitter. Which by the way your welcome to come follow!

One of the best places to connect with other photogs is on flickr.  For me it’s been one of the best places to connect with other photogs both locally and internationally.  I have a few fave groups on flickr that I check out daily. I had to take a break for a while because it was sucking up all my time. I just started popping back in and as usual tons of great inspiration and topics happening.

This a.m. I popped on and ran across a thread  which lead me to the Mental Floss Blog where this post is up about Jamie Livingston’s Photo of the Day  project. This could possibly be one of  the coolest things I’ve ran across in a loong time. What I find so amazing about the entire project is that as photographer’s and artists alike it is so easy to get caught up in the art of it all…which we all know inevitably leads us down the path of perfection….and we all know perfection is quite simply a way to feed our inner need to be desireable, accepted and renowned for what we do.  Really, we all know what a bunch of crap that really is.

So during my time wandering through Jamie Livingston’s life in polaroids it’s obvious that by today’s technical photographic standards these photos fall short. The beauty lies in the fact that an emotional connection is made between the photographer and the viewer. That is inspiration for any photographer. Professional or not..that is what we should set out to acheive each and every time we pull out our camera.

Since first viewing these images I’ve thought about Jamie Livingston a number of times today. I don’t know this man. I don’t know a single thing about him other than what he let me see.

 Somehow that is enough.

The image is enough.

The message is enough.

His life was enough.

Inspiration at it’s finest.

And because every post is better with a photo here are a couple random snapshots of my life taken recently on Mother’s Day in Lockhart, Texas.

The first and last days of school always send me into a tail spin of chocolate eating, heavy moderate drinking and the uncontrolable ugly cry. Every year I am transported back to my childhood and I relive these days right along with my children and yes, my childhood was so traumatic that it then causes me to drive straight to the liquor store and hit Godiva on my way home. Of course not!

It’s the magic of these days that drums up the emotions in me. The anticipation of something new….the butterflies of walking into school on the first day and the sheer jubilation of walking out those doors and straight into summer on the last day.

Today is the last day of school for my kiddos. In less than 6 hours we will begin our summer adventure and 1st and 2nd grade will be left behind. We will also be saying goodbye to our exchange student in less than 2 weeks. Do you see why this is so emotional? I am old enough to have children in the 2nd & 3rd grade for the love of pete is that not enough to drive any woman to liquor and chocolate?

So today I will celebrate the last day of school and the first days of summer. I’m looking forward to sleeping in and living a little more foot loose and fancy free without the rigorous schedules and endless running around but I’m also sad to say good bye to another round of amazing amazing teachers.

Here’s one of my favorite shots of Brooklyn & Hudson from this year. “Crazy Hair Day” is always one of the best days of school!

Ok, now where’s the chocolate and vodka???

Brooklyn came rushing in tonight as I was giving Parker a bath and she is literally ripping open an envelope as if it contained tickets & back stage passes to the Jonas Brothers.

“Brooklyn! What are you doing?” (I’m a bit frantic because she totally better not be ripping MY backstage pass to meet Joe Jonas).

“I got a letter from Alex” ….I sit there confused …Joe, Kevin, Nick…um, no Alex.

“Alex who?”

“MOOOOOM!!!! Alex…ALEX!!!!”

“Oh, Alex Burton?”

“I don’t know her last name…Alex, from youth…my piano teacher!”

“Yea, her last name is Burton…she sent you a letter?”

“Well, it’s to our family but I opened it” As the last of the shredded envelope falls to the floor

“um, yea…I see that..what is it.”

“i don’t know..here…but I’m keeping these pictures.” and she BOLTS. Literally, leaves me in a pile of paper and tosses a card at me.

I picked up a Reagan High School graduation announcement and see where half of the inside is ripped out which I’m assuming is where a photo was onced adhered.

Alex is Brooklyn’s piano teacher and she is also a member of my youth group. She is such an amazing young lady and I’ve been so blessed to have spent the last few years watching her emerge as a strong leader in our youth program.

She’s a gifted pianist & she plays soccer for Reagan. Last year she started teaching Brooklyn piano. It’s been awesome to watch Brooklyn get so excited about something and Alex has become THE role model for her.

I have been trying to get Brooklyn back involved in soccer. She played a couple years ago and she liked it but she hasn’t wanted to play since. She just kept telling me that she wanted to play piano. I finally figured out she thought she had to do one or the other. It was either become a great pianist or become a great soccer player. And that was ok with me….but I still wanted her to play soccer.

After a couple weeks of piano she finally realized that Alex did BOTH..piano & soccer and she decided quickly she wanted to sign up for soccer again. We were so happy. She loves soccer and is having so much fun and working so hard at both her piano & her soccer skills.

I digress….

Once I finally managed to pick up the 82 million pieces of paper in the bathroom floor I asked Brooklyn if she would kindly share with me the contents of the envelope she had confiscated.

“Well, these are my pictures…but you can look at them”

“for the love of pete girl, I’ll give them back..just let me see them”

She handed me Alex’s senior picture…stunning of course.

Then she handed me a 4×6 print of a screen shot of  THIS!!!!!

When I saw it I forgot all about the backstage passes to the Jonas Brothers. I was so stinkin’ excited for Alex! So cool.

“Why are you so excited Mom?”

“Alex was named Soccer Player of the year!” ….followed by a 15 minute “look what you can do when you set your mind to it” lecture.

“Mom, I’m totally going to be Soccer Player of the Year when I play for Reagan!  And do you think they have Piano player of the year?” 

And because all blog posts are better with pictures I swipped some images from Alex’s facebook account to share with you. ( i didn’t take any of these nor am I claiming them as my work…simply sharing)

CONGRATS ALEX!!!!!!!!!! So so proud of you!!!!!

No big plans this year. Parker will be celebrating his 2nd birthday in just under 2 weeks which means travel and leisurely activities in a structured environment are not our friend right now. We are hoping to make it to the pottery place to finish a piece of pottery Brooklyn started a couple weeks ago. Probably hit Six Flags and Sea World at some point but otherwise we’re just hanging out.

My brother in law, his wife & my little nephew will be heading in at the end of the week and will help us celebrate Parker’s bday and spend a week with us. We’re looking forward to that time with them as well.

Hoping to get more changes and updates made to the new website(s) and continue working on the blog. Things are progressing and looking great.

Hope everyone enjoys their week off! I’m looking forward to refueling!