Happy Birthday Miss T

I had the pleasure of being invited back for the second year to photograph a birthday party for this family. This time it was T's sweet 16. This was an amazing party!!! I would say it rivaled a MTV "My super sweet 16" but I think T is too sweet to even compare to some of the girls I have seen on there!
The guests were all dressed in black and white and the lovely birthday girl was stunning in her red dress.
This is a wonderful family, so full of life and love and happiness that they are contagious to be around! Enjoy these sneak peeks of some of the amazing details that were put into this party!

Life's just a fairytale

Well it is for a day when you are 8! I had so much fun with all these 8 year olds (100+) on their special fairytale day at school. So many awesome costumes and silly kids, they kept me laughing in the heat. The school was able to get this fun Cinderella Carriage from a local theater and the kids had a blast in it!
Here are just a few and check out the 2 little red riding hoods, are you sure thats 2 girls?!!?

Miss Peeps

Its not often that I get to spend time photographing my own kids, let alone get any decent expressions out of them. We refer to this as "Photographer's Kid Syndrom" but my baby was sweet enough to let me capture some photos of her last week, and they are some new favorites so I have to share! I love when my kids are good to me this way because I get to play and try new things on them before sharing them with you :)

Blue Sky Reserve

I had the opportunity to go with my daughters class last week on their field trip to Blue Sky Reserve. For those unfamiliar with the Poway area it is a large wild life preserve that was basically wiped out by the Witch Creek fire last October. There are still signs all around that a fire went through there but the amazing thing to me were that there were even more signs of life and regrowth. It was a beautiful day and there were tons of wild flowers blooming and the trees are all starting to regrow. If you have never been out there and like to hike there are some great trails, just be sure to watch out for the poison oak!!
If you are lucky enough to run into one of the wonderful Docent's that are sometimes around to answer questions or give tours be sure to ask them about the Trap Door spider that lives there. It was one of the most amazing insects I have ever seen and remember that because this is a reserve nothing is to be taken from the land :)

Showering a Bride to be

On Sunday I got to spend the afternoon at Ms. K's bridal shower. It was so much fun to spend time with the bride and her sisters and I am really looking forward to shooting her wedding in July. The location sounds amazing! I will be heading out to Arizona for this wedding.
Thanks for having me yesterday and I can't wait to see you all in July!!

Beautiful works of art

One of the fun things I got to do in this awesome thing I call a job was photograph the beautiful pieces of art that the children at a local elementary school were auctioning off as a fundraiser. I was blown away by the talent of these kids, with a little help from their teachers! The kids were in grades k-5 and here are some of my favorite pieces!! They were all beautiful I wish I could post them all!!

Surprise!!

No I don't have a surprise :) but I was looking for something on-line today and came across this cool website called Surprise this site has gifts for everything. Chic baby, funny baby, always cold, loves to cook, hates to clean, traveling with kids, midlife crisis etc etc etc the list goes on and on! You can even have dinner delivered from Saks Fifth Avenue!!
So of course I had to share it with all of you! Here are a few of the fun things I found.

Every baby should have their own sushi set complete with chopsticks!


Who doesn't need a hot mom handbook!


A bucket of lollipops, yum!!

I miss having a collection of diaper bags, but have happily graduated to a collection of real handbags.

Meet Linda Sargent

A very talented local recording artist! You can find her music here
Beauty and talent she has it all, we hope to see big things for her in the future!!

A crazy week

Three kids, eight years and this was our first trip with any one of them to the ER so I think we are doing pretty good!
On Wednesday afternoon we let the kittens come out of the master bedroom where they have been living to adjust to us and our house and the chaos and to have a safe place from the chaos.
Anyway along with letting them out we also purchased them a 5+ foot high kitty condo to play on. They wanted nothing to do with the condo, but Ethan and Natalie thought it was awesome and were climbing all over it. Ethan got himself into a hanging crawl through that is about halfway up the condo and while I was putting Nati in a timeout for pulling his hair because she wanted a turn, Ethan tried to wiggle himself out head first rather than backing out the way he went in and the whole thing Ethan and all came tumbling down. We thought he was just scared and a little bruised but after further assessment decided that yes a trip to the ER was warranted. David took him in, where they spent 3 hours getting checked out, x-rays and a splint put on until the specialist could take a look at it the following day. He did make a new friend in the ER who was getting 6 stitches in his chin after a fall off his bike.
On thursday after another 3 hours at the hospital, more x-rays and lots of waiting Ethan was put in a hand to shoulder green cast! It was pretty scary for him and he did not like having the cast put on at all, but he was a trooper.
It was heartbreaking for me to have to watch my little guy go through this, I get teary just thinking about him laying on the table having to put his arm into a position that was so painful for him so that the cast could be put on. He had me up to 5 things from Target by the time we were out of there!
Last night was the first night since the kitties came home and the broken arm happened that anyone got a fairly decent nights sleep! So I am back to feeling a little more human today.

I have to apologize to my friends and clients who are waiting to hear from me, emails and calls are coming I promise!

Here is E right after getting home from getting his cast on. It took him a little while to figure out how to play trains with only his left hand, but he is a pro now :)

Meet Charlie and Lola

We have a couple new additions to our family! Charlie and Lola are just 8 weeks old and the sweetest little kittens. The kids adore them and they are adjusting well to their new surroundings! Emerald on the other hand, our 12 year old 25 pound lazy cat, is not too happy to have a couple of babies around and so far won't get within 5 feet of them. Not sure how he is going to react when he realizes there is not just one but 2 playful energetic kittens now to mess up his nap schedule! oh and yes they are named after the show, as some of you know Ethan learned how to speak with an English accent after watching that show and Claire and Ethan like to pretend play that they are Charlie and Lola so it was only fitting that we name the kittens that, well that and the kids did not think Luke and Leah were good names :)
They just came home last night!