Here he is today (hello, Blue Eyes!):

I’m so lovin’ the 1 year olds with the drool-y chins.  Please tell me I’m not the only one!

We also did a little cake smashing while we were together:

mmm… Frosting is tasty!

One last one… just love it!

B Family – it’s been delightful working with you this year – I can’t wait to watch your boys grow year after year.  I don’t think it’s possible, but they seem to get more adorable every time I see them!

BTW – Mr. Ryan’s session marks the end of my client sessions before Miss A arrives… which could be any day now!  Eeek!  The next baby you’ll see on this blog is mine!

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Here’s a little random fact list about me and Miss A (the next segment of Wacky Wednesday isn’t about her, so if you want to skip down past the baby stuff, skip to the next division line):

• I am very proud to say that the official weight gain for this pregnancy is only 8 pounds.    That’s a “net” figure… I lost a lot of weight during the first trimester (well over 10 pounds) due to nausea / lack of appetite, so I’ve gained that all back plus 8 pounds.  But if you look at my starting weight and my current weight, the official number is 8 pounds.  I’m pretty proud of that and it gives me hope for getting back in shape after she comes.
• Miss A is still cooking… although we weren’t sure she would be at this point.  Mikel and I thought there might be a possibility they might induce today after my check up.  They’ve been watching me for sporadic signs of pre-eclampsia (I even spent an afternoon in L&D 2 weeks ago being monitored for blood pressure, contractions, and the baby’s heart rate), and thought that since I will officially hit “full term” – 37 weeks – this week, they might go ahead and decide it’s time to induce just in case.  Luckily, it seems that most of the symptoms I’ve been having have calmed down and they’re just watching me closely for the time being.  They did mention today that there’s a chance they may move my scheduled induction up to August 3 from August 10 just because she’s measuring ahead, so that’s exciting.  We may be less than 2 weeks from baby!  Ack!  Luckily, our bags are packed as of this morning (we were wanting to be as prepared as possible if they decided to spring an induction on us at the appointment).  We’ll find out next week when the official eviction date is.
• At last check, Miss A was weighing in at 6+ pounds, according to the sonogram – take that with a grain of salt because they’re known to be off.
• I had a major cooking day on Monday to get some meals in the fridge so I wouldn’t have to cook too much after Miss A makes her appearance.  I split several recipes into 2 smaller disposable pans so we’d have less leftovers and more meals ready to go.  I ended up with 2 pans of Chicken Taco (my family’s version of King Ranch Chicken), 2 pans of Chicken Spaghetti/Tetrazzini (whatever you like to call it), 2 pans of lasagna, and a batch of the Pioneer Woman’s “Comfort Meatballs” – they’re in a homemade BBQ sauce instead of a marinara sauce and promise to be good as sandwich material.
• Mikel went to “Daddy Boot Camp” last night at the hospital.  It seems he got a lot of good information, but it kinda cracked me up.  We’ve gone to a bunch of classes at the hospital (childbirth, nursing, baby care, car seat…), and most all of them ended on time and we were out of there at a reasonable hour.  It seems the men were eager to talk without their wives around last night because they went an hour and a half past the advertised end time!  I didn’t mind at all (I had Cake Boss episodes on DVR that I hadn’t watched), but I just found it funny that they decided to be chatty when at every class I went to, it was the wives asking questions!

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Sunday night, Mikel and I went to the Michael Buble concert at the AAC.  It was amazing!  Michael’s voice is just as incredible in person as it is on recordings and he’s so charmingly personable during the show.  You felt like he was your friend (your foul-mouthed friend, by the way… it wasn’t like he dropped the f-bomb every other word, but he definitely didn’t censor himself – I’d call it a show for the 12 and over crowd, if you know what I mean).  What Mikel and I are were most surprised about was the opening act.  We’d never heard of them before and actually weren’t concerned about showing up for the concert on time (we had dinner reservations beforehand).  We figured if we get there to see them, great!  If not, oh well!  I am so glad we go there on time because they were simply amazing – they’re a group called Naturally 7 and they’re out of NYC.  They are AMAZING – every. single. thing. about their show is a cappella voices.  Absolutely zero instruments, but they sound like they have a full orchestra going on at times.  Here’s one of my favorites (and how they opened the show we saw… long, but worth it!):

They were so much fun to watch and Mikel & I were both continually amazed by what they were able to do!  I must remember to go hit iTunes to get a few of their songs before long…

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My favorite commercial right now:

Is it wrong that I want to find a way to work the phrase “Jack Wagon” into normal, everyday conversation these days?  It probably is, but I think it might be my new favorite phrase.  I love R. Lee Ermey.

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Ok, I know this hasn’t been the longest of Wacky Wednesdays, but I feel like I’ve been talking your ear off!  Ha!  So, I’m going to leave it on that note.  That’s right.  The note I want to leave you on is “Jack Wagon!”  Don’t hate me.    I should be back tomorrow with more riveting posts… now to dream up something to post about!

Can you tell that we’re sitting in an alley without me telling you?  I hope not!  I hope it just looks like we found a really cool red background somewhere and Kelsey rocked it model-style!

Does this work for every single shot?  No.  But it definitely adds something, don’t you think?  I think it creates a sense of intimacy with the subject – you feel like you’re practically having a conversation with them because they are right there.  Here’s another one:

Again, Brandon is my senior sitting in a doorway.  Getting close allows me to create an image that focuses on him and still have some cool texture in the background without it overwhelming the image.  It brings the attention all on him and gives an almost “conversational” feel to the image – it’s like you’re there with him.

The good news is, it doesn’t just work for seniors… it works for little ones too!

I know a lot of moms are scared to get too close when taking photos of little ones that are on the move because they’re liable to crawl right out of the shot.  That’s ok!  Let ‘em go!  You’ll be able to capture that movement in a cool way – promise!  It may take a little practice with your camera to accomplish this, especially if you’re rocking a point-and-shoot and not a DSLR.  Point-and-shoots usually have a little bit of drag time between when you push the shutter button and the camera actually takes the photograph, so you’ll have to play with your own camera to see what works best for you.  You may have a bunch of blurry images of a little diapered booty crawling away from you at first, but as you get to know your camera better, you’ll be able to time things *just* right!  Don’t get discouraged!

This also brings me to another point about getting close, though.  You are going to chop off the tops of heads, parts of limbs, etc. when you do it – and that’s ok.  Do you want to have every single photo in your collection be chopped in some way?  Probably not – that’s up to you and your taste.  However, if you do it from time to time to create a certain look, mood, or sense of movement in a photograph, that’s perfectly acceptable.  In fact, I highly encourage it because it will make life just a little more interesting.  Here’s another movement shot where I’ve cut off the back of Paola’s (mama’s) head:

Could I have taken one step back to get all of Paola’s head/hair in the frame?  Sure!  But then you lose a little of the emphasis on the mommy-daughter interaction because I would have essentially shrunk them in the image to make them fit.  I’d much rather have the moment of interaction between the two of them front and center rather than worrying about a few strands of hair not making it into the frame.

So, go out there, be brave, and GET CLOSE!  Will it freak out a few of your subjects at first?  Probably.  But in the end, I think everyone will love the results!

Before we get started, I have a map for you.  Yes, a map of her room.  You see, her room is smallish… we live in a 2000 sq ft house that has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, an office, a living area, a dining room, etc…  So, while we have a lot of unique areas in the house, none of them are HUGE to say the least.  It’s hard to get a good shot of the layout of her room due  to the cramped spaces without just drawing it out for you.  Plus, Mikel’s still in bed recovering from our epic last-date-as-just-a-table-of-2 that we went on last night (Melting Pot + Michael Buble Concert!  We’ve been going to bed around 9 PM just because I’m exhausted by then, so this was an epically late night for us!), so I need to entertain myself while I let him sleep.  So, here’s the map:

Nothing is to scale, so to speak, but it’s good enough for government work.  You get the idea… now, on with photos!  Please excuse photo quality… I was going for speed in there.  I had a dog and and a cat who were way too curious about what was in the crib, closet, bookcase, etc. to really stop and mess with camera settings!

We’ll start with her door.  Crown hanger from Hobby Lobby, wreath made by me using remnants from her bedding fabric! 

Instructions on how to make the wreath found here:  Little Birdie Secrets

OK, upon opening the door, you see the this (For the record, we ended up painting her room a mocha-y shade.  We had told everyone we were going to paint it yellow, but it just seemed like it was going to be too overpowering with all the color in the bedding and accessories!) :

Before you safety mavens get on my case… yes, I know there shouldn’t be all that stuff in her crib when she’s actually sleeping in there.  I just have her “bed made” for show if you know what I mean.    Details:  Crib (and dresser, which you will see in a moment) from JC Penney, custom bedding designed by me using fabrics in the Oz collection by Sanae for Moda and made by the fabulous people at Be-Dazzled, letter forms bought at Hobby Lobby and covered in fabric from the same collection by Mikel and me (he was the engineering brain behind cutting the fabric just right, I was the freak with the modge podge ), and yellow afghan made by one of my co-worker’s wives especially for Miss A.  The little gizmo in the upper right is our super cool night vision baby monitor, purchased for us by my mama.  Hehe!

Now, to the left you see her bookcase / changing table:

Book case from Ikea, green and pink bins from Target.  The bins hold all kinds of goodies she received at her showers – extra diaper changing supplies, bath supplies, toys, etc.  You can see she’s also begun her very own book collection.  The ladybug at the bottom left is a super cool night light that projects star patterns on the ceiling given to us by our fabulous friend, Jen. (Mikel had tons of fun playing with that the other night, by the way!)

To the right of the crib, you’ll see her dresser:

Dresser from JC Penney, diaper cake from our shower thrown (and made by) our fabulous friend, Jessica, as yet empty frame from her Auntie-Cousin Carey (my cousin Michael’s wife), and butterflies found in the French Quarter from our New Orleans Trip last year.  True story about the butterflies:  I was expecting Miss A at the time we bought the butterflies, but didn’t find out about her until a week later.  I had said something to Mikel about “If we ever have a little girl, wouldn’t these be cool for her room?  I’ll find somewhere to put them until then…”  They sat on a counter for months until we finally started putting her room together. 

Just to the right of the dresser is her window:

Again, curtain made by Be-Dazzled using fabrics from the Oz Collection.

Close up of the curtain hangers:

Those are clear drawer pulls in the shape of roses found at Hobby Lobby and MacGyver-ed to work as curtain hooks by Mikel. 

Finally, her closet:

She just has a few clothes (few of which were actually purchased by me… we have very generous friends and family!).  Hehe  You can’t really tell in the photo, but I have little organizer tags on the bar and the clothes are arranged by size (they’re green and white – you can see them if you look closely).  Her little white hamper is from Ikea as well.  The stuffed animals are a combination of my favorites from childhood, Mikel’s favorites from childhood, and some that Mikel has given me throughout our relationship.  We figured we’ll see which ones she enjoys and then cull the herd later.
That’s it!  That’s my very long winded tour of her nursery!  It took forever to get the room cleaned out (we’re talking months here… we started in March and didn’t really finish until June), but once we did, things came together quite nicely I think!  If you’re ever over for a session in the studio, feel free to ask for the nickle tour – we’ll show you the real thing in person (as long as it’s clean!).

This is Nayan now:

The little dude wanted a closer look at my camera:

This may be my favorite crawling photo.  EVER.  I LOVE everything about it – especially the drool!

I couldn’t decide which family shot I liked better, so you get to see both:

Some Mommy-Love:

And some Daddy-Love:

Watch out, Colorado – you’re getting some awesome new neighbors!  Best wishes, Sumeet, with your new job!  I know you’re going to be amazing.  And Ms. Molly – I know you’re going to rock the photography world up there (that’s right, Colorado, you’re getting a fab new photographer out of the deal!).  Give Nayan lots and lots of hugs for me!

• I *am* available on week days/nights through the month of July.  I’m not shooting a “full” schedule just because I need to take it a little easy as I am 33+ weeks pregnant, but I am taking sessions.
• Here’s the biggie:  I WILL NOT BE SHOOTING AT ALL IN AUGUST DUE TO ARABELLA’S IMPENDING ARRIVAL! She is due August 14, but my doc has scheduled an induction for me on August 10.  So, unless she’s early, the 10th will be the big day!  Therefore I am not going to take any chances with scheduling a shoot in August.  I will handle any orders as needed – I may not be quite as quick as I usually am, though.
  

That last bullet brings me to my next topic… holiday sessions!  August is traditionally when the holiday sessions begin to trickle on to my calendar.  So, yup, it’s only July and I’m already planning holiday sessions.  Last year, our holiday season was SOLD OUT+ (in other words, we were fitting people in at weird and random times trying to accommodate everyone we possibly could).  Every available space starting in mid-September going through the first week in December was booked!  This year, our schedule won’t be quite so flexible… you know, with an infant in the house.  I’ve already had several inquiries about the season, so I *know* we’ll hit sold out status again!

So, to give everyone a chance to get on the books with DRP for their holiday sessions (and for me to be a little more organized before the baby comes!), we’re offering a Christmas in July discount!  Please note:  a la carte sessions and products will be available for the holiday season – however, the holiday collections are designed to offer a discount to my fabulous customers on the most frequently ordered holiday products!  Collection details below:

**For groups larger than 4, add $50 to your selected package price.

Payment in full for your a la carte session ($125 for groups up to 4, $175 for larger groups) OR half of the total collection price will be REQUIRED to secure your day and time.  I will invoice you once we figure out when your session will be and you will have 48 hours to submit payment to secure your spot.  Otherwise, that calendar date/time will be reopened to the general public.

There will only be 2 spots available on Saturdays ( am / pm) and 1 spot available on Sundays ( pm only), so please have a couple of possible dates in mind in case we’re already booked!

I look forward to seeing all of you this fall – I know it’s going to be an exciting season for all of us!

Nah… I’m just right.    Beautimous!

Playing peek-a-boo:

I think this one is my favorite…

Lanie did her fair share of running…

…and dancing!

Love you, Lanie & Katie!