Why Do Friends Leave?

I recently had some great neighbors move. It has only been a week, but I miss them already.

Our daughters were such good friends. So Sad!!! But we are both military families and that is what we have to get used to. Moving and leaving good friends and making new ones. We went out for a photo shoot before they left and this is one of my favorite pics I have ever taken.

Anyone Who Hates The Rain, Has Never Danced In It

Or Has Never Had A Photo Session In It!!!

My friend Charisse wanted a photo session for her birthday. So her and her husband and very cute little man drove up from Richmond for their session. Rain had been predicted to start at 8pm that Saturday. I was excited because that meant GREAT overcast at our 4 o'clock session. But at about noon I saw the dark clouds rolling in. I got scared, so I called her and said lets go NOW! She hurried her family up and we tried to beat the rain, but no luck! It started raining on our drive to our location. They looked so great, and she had worked hard to make that great orange skirt she is wearing. I wanted to take something. So we found a porch that they could hide under. It was very hard to focus in the rain, but we got a few gems and plan to shoot again. Next time I am going down to them. They are such a great family.

We got more than just a photo shoot out of the weekend though. We got in two late nights playing our favorite game, Agricola. Don't know if I am more excited for our next session or our next game of Agricola. I love both!!!! Good friends make the world so much better!

Living Out Loud

I am trying to live my life out loud these days. I am tired of feeling like there are certain things I can't do in life, or shouldn't do because of what other people think. (Don't worry.....I am talking about simple things in life, I will still be a moral upstanding citizen!). I am trying to live a life full of art and creativity. This is how I am living out loud these days:

1. Quit my daycare

2. Opened Photography Business

3. Committed to Designing and Consulting for Heritage Makers (www.storybookingbyyou.com)

4. Living a Healthy Life

5. Buying clothes and shoes that I thought I was too old or too fat to buy....nothing revealing or trashy, just fun colors and styles.

6. Over accessorizing....big necklaces, bracelets, rings, big bows, big headbands, big flowers!

7. I CUT my hair off!!!



Pink was my inspiration for my hair cut....actually, Delana was my inspiration. She cut her hair yesterday and I started thinking of the funky things we would have to do to her hair to fix it. I came up with some clever haircuts that would look good on her, and thought "hey I want a haircut like that"



I wanted my hair much much much blonder but the hairdresser would not do it. So I asked her if next time I come in if we can go lighter, she said yes. Can't wait to go blonder!!! I love my hair! I can play with it in so many ways. Look for more pics of it. I can even make a rad mohawk with it. And how Pink has it styled above, I can do that exact thing!!! So many ways to play around with it! So happy and so free.

Delana got her haircut too. Her inspiration was Kate Gosselin.

Living My Dream

Two years ago this month I stood in front of a group of 11 other wonderful dreamers and a fearless leader named Doug. I stated my dreams out loud. My dream was to be able to get out of the daycare business. Today is the first day of living my dream. I am officially out of the daycare business as of today. I am living the life I want, a creative and colorful life. (grandma Cathy, if you are reading this, don't worry, I still have your girls. They are family, not daycare.) I have loved all the children I have watched over the years. I really mean ALL of them! Delana and I are missing Benjaroo, she keeps asking where is Roo. And she did not want to go to the bus stop this morning without ROO. I am grateful that I was able to run a daycare in the home and be able to stay home with my children. But it was never a career choice for me. Heritage Makers and Photography is my choice. I have a passion for pictures and most importantly the stories behind them. Thank you to everyone who supports me in my passion. Most importantly my husband, my mother, my clients, and my dream team #10.


This is my baby ben I used to watch. I sure like taking and editing pictures of him much more than changing his diapers. I love him and am looking forward to hugging on him at church and hanging out with his family and loving him. We are missing him, but like I said, I don't miss the diapers. I was starting to regret my decision of quitting last week until I went to change his messy diaper and it was every where!! It was a blow out and while changing that diaper he peed on me. So like I said, much funer to edit in pictures then to change! love and miss you ben, but sure am loving my life today!!!!

I Love Seniors!

One of my favorite things to do is to take pictures of Seniors. I LOVE them and would shoot them all day everyday if I could. I got a call from a friend of mine this last week. She said that she had just gotten the school pictures back for her senior. She said they were terrible!!! She wanted to know if I had time to take her daughters pictures. This Saturday happened to be one of my only open mornings. So I jumped at the chance. We went out into DC in hopes to find a mural one of my friends had put up at the National's Stadium. On our way to the stadium we came across this awesome mural, it was not my friends or any where near the stadium, but it caught both of our eyes and we knew we had to shoot it! It was perfect. We never found the mural at the stadium. It might be down by now, but we got so lucky to see this stadium.

Here is the pics from today:

SWATCH BOOKS........You can get one for free!

Look what I have been up to...



I have been creating these cute little books called swatch books. Imagine being able to scrapbook in a paint swatch book. They are so cute!! Been creating them for my friends and clients. Let me know if you want a free swatch book to create of your own!

Urban East Portraits

I have been trying my hand at photography more and more. I have some new toys, like a new camera and a new version of photoshop. I have my best friend to thank for most of this! My friend Maranda has been mentoring me and encouraging me for the past year or so in photography. She has welcomed me into her business. The name of her photography company is Urban Chic Portraits. The name of my company, which is a branch of hers, is called Urban East Portraits. To view some of my photography....much more to come in the future....you can visit www.urbanchicportraits.com and in the bottom right hand corner is a link called Urban East Portraits. Check it out and let me know what you think.

My Lens

I have a lens that I love. It is a Canon 50mm 1.4. I love it. It was a gift from a dear friend of mine, Maranda. I cherish the lens, but about 6 weeks ago it stopped working in auto focus mode. At first I thought my entire camera was broken. Then I figured out it was just the lens, but without the lens the camera might as well be broken. Then I figured out that it would work in manual focus but not auto focus. I have tried getting comfortable working in Manual Focus mode but this is really hard when you are trying to take pictures of kids on the go. Forget focus!!! I was getting comfortable shooting in manual focus, if I was taking pictures of leaves and stuff. Forget the kids. My friend Maranda did some research and come to find out that it is a common flaw in those lens. They will stop working for no reason out of the blue, but then it also starts working out of the blue. I have periodically checked it to see if it started working again, and it never would. So I drove down to Ritz and was about to just buy a different lens. I did not have the $$ at the time to replace the 1.4 so I was just going to get the 1.8. I had my camera with me and was sitting in my car in front of Ritz and checked it one more time and Wow....it started working. What a blessing. We all know where these blessings come from. So my camera lens works again and I celebrated by taking some pics of Delana...in tu tu's of coarse.

Homecoming

Homecoming was this weekend. My friend Michelle asked me come out and take some pics of her and her friends and her date. She was so beautiful. We had planned to take pics outside. My camera works best outside (I don't have the necessary flash for indoor). As you can see it was raining buckets outside that day. So I attempted to do my best on some indoor photos. A flash is next on my list once I get my lens fixed. She had the most beautiful dark silver dress on. She was most excited about her Michael Kors high high heels. Michelle is so beautiful. I teared up a little while I was looking at her through the lens. She will graduate this year. I have known her since she was a giggly little 13 year old in my youth group at church. She is a beautiful mature young lady now. She is beautiful in and out. Michi, I love you Mucho!!!

Click on Image to view in a larger window.

Tiny Dancers

So I spent time this week in the dance studio taking pictures of some really cute dancers. Last year I made a wonderful book for my daughters dance teacher. Some of the moms fell in love with the books and asked if I would help make books for their class. They also asked if I would come in and take some pictures of their class. So I had a fun time learning more about my new camera. I took a ton of pictures! I took too many of the class right before Maelee's class....by the time I got to Maelee's class my flash card was full and I was frantically trying to go through the card deleting pictures when my battery died. I wanted to cry!!! I did get about 10 pictures of Maelee's class. The lady next to me said, "well that should be enough"...she does not know me! I got 200 of the class on Monday. 300 pictures of the class before Maelee's and 10 pictures of my own daughters class......so sad! and Maelee is only in 3 of those 10 pictures. I am hoping to get pictures from other mothers so I can make the class book. Here are my dancers.

Tu Tu Cute!

I looked out the window and saw that it was overcast so I took the girls on a walk for some fun photo ops. I love overcast because that means that I can get some great photos..my girls are going to grow up hating overcast!

And TuTu's are my new obsession!!! Literally an obsession. It all started when I discovered an old high school friends photo blog and saw that she takes the cutest pics using these really fun pettiskirts. The little girls wearing them are so adorable. So I started hunting around for some cute pettiskirts. I discovered that they are really out of my budget but I found some great TuTus and I am currently saving up for some pettiskirts. So my hunt for pettiskirts lead me to Ebay, which lead me to an obsession with all things ebay. I hunt and shop now for pettiskirts, tutus, photo props and all things little girls. I even have my mother obsessed with tutus and pettiskirts. She has a few tutus she has purchased as well and she has them in Yuma. I am going out this summer and we have grand plans to get some great shots of the grandaughters on the beach in their tutus. So enjoy the photos. I had fun taking them!