Meet newborn, precious G. She is so sweet and easy-going. I love that little hand poking out!
A little 'behind-the-scenes' shot...mommy looking on.
Her mommy brought cute, girlie outfits for her, like this adorable little dress!
Though I think mom's & grandma's favorite shots were of their sweetie as bare as could be.
This beautiful family endured a life-changing event this year as G's daddy is now in heaven. Grandma and mommy are here to love on G doubly, and this little girl will grow up knowing she has an extra angel watching over her.
...my new, wonderful assistant! I am so excited to have her join the ranks! Yesterday we started working on fun, new things which we'll be introducing in just a couple of weeks! BP is going to get a new look, from top to bottom, just in time to ring in the beginning of our holiday season!
Our holiday sessions will officially start in September and run through mid-November. (Though the mommies of my "big kid" clients this summer have already efficiently noted that their summer session is going to double as their holiday session! I think it's so fun when instead of receiving a family in sweaters on a Christmas card, you get a family in bright tank tops! Changes things up!) Of course we have adorable, new holiday cards for all you cute families who need to show off your little ones! Our last weekend session date to have prints made in time for Christmas is November 15th, and we only have 8 Saturdays open between now & then! For our sessions during the month of August, we'll be giving out a gift to all you early birds who are on the ball and have your holiday session then! What might this awesome, one-time-only gift be? Since we love to make new friends, you'll just have to email us and ask. :)
On Saturday, before the wedding in NY, I had a mini-mini-shoot with my cousin's two children.
First up is 10-month-old, big-brown-eyed beauty Amelia:
Her big brother, Charlie, is 2 and on the move! (This was him pre-bubble-eating...)
Being just 18 months apart, little "Mia" is in for some brotherly teasing! Soon enough though, she'll be able to retaliate with the inevitable annoying little sisterly ways, which I may have perfected myself as a child.
Daddy looking on...
Daddy and his "mini me" are such good buddies. It's cute to watch them interact! From what I hear, Charlie is a great helper all around the house when his daddy works on projects and such. Charlie loves Bob the Builder, so working with hammers & tools + Daddy = a good day.
Hello All! Last night we got home from a great week with family in upstate New York - the land of greenery, mountains, clean air, and mosquitoes! I love going to visit up there. It's just so different than our beautiful, flat home state. Lush, lush, lush - the only word that keeps coming to mind!
We arrived late Wednesday evening after a day of traveling and rested that night with wood-fired pizza at my grandmother's home. She was actually in the hospital that day, and had been since the previous Monday. We went to visit her the next morning, and she was doing better and was released the next day, Friday. On Thursday, after spending the morning/afternoon with her, we visited my cousin who lives in Albany and stayed with him that evening.
Do you know what makes you feel like a kid again in .28 seconds?.... a TRAMPOLINE!
And oh.my.word. After about 2 mins. on the thing, my heart was pounding and I was a sweaty mess! We had a trampoline as a kid and we'd bounce and jump on it for hours and never stop. It was insane to me how worn out I got so quickly on it last week! Not how I remember at all! Things have changed since my childhood.... (my metabolism!)
Crack the egg...
I commented that we were getting pricked by little sticks that were falling on the trampoline, thinking my cousin would go get a broom or something...oh no, he comes back with a gas-powered leaf blower! He makes me laugh. Oh, and see his shirt, "Microbiology Lab - STAPH ONLY"....he's a pharmacist... :)
My cousin's little boy had his blocks out, but after he went to bed, somebody stole them... see his concentration!
So proud of his masterpiece!
Guitar Hero Challenge!
Friday morning we loaded up the car and went on our scenic journey to Cooperstown - The Baseball Hall of Fame! The husband's portion of the trip. He is a lifelong baseball fan, so being so close to the "mecca", of course we had to treat him, and it was a wonderful day!
My little brother looking at historical gear. That is my favorite in museums - when you actually get to see old artifacts. To look at them and think, 'somebody ___ years ago actually used this!'
We took a break after looking around the first floor of the museum and left for lunch. Cooperstown is SO quaint! It is such a cute little city, with tree and flower lined streets, and little cafes and shops....adorable! We ate at the Doubleday Cafe, named after Abner Doubleday who is credited with inventing baseball in 1839. (See what going to the HOF will teach you?!)
Just outside of a little shop - yes, everything there is pretty baseball-related!
When we re-visted the museum post-lunch, we walk up to the next floor and an elderly worker starts telling the crowd that 'in just a minute, there will be a speech about ballpark-goers' favorite foods at a ballpark, and how much a hot dog cost at different times during baseball's history', etc. So we walk over to see this kid dressed in a deli-looking outfit, and he stares at us. We 4 (myself, the hubby, my little bro & his wife), stare at him. I think the kid who was supposed to give the presentation wanted to talk about the history of hot dogs as much as we cared to listen to it! It so awkwardly funny...so he pulls out his sheet of facts and starts reading. After a couple minutes of listening to how certain foods became synonymous with baseball, and what odd foods are served at different ball parks around the country, there came a lull in the conversation, so I jump in, "well, thank you, it was good talking with you!", and he says " wait, I'm not through!" We were trapped! It was like he didn't really enjoy doing this part of his job, but he was told to do it, so once he got through his paper-o-facts, he was free to be finished with it for the day. So we stuck around and heard more about what hot dog toppings are most famous, then the kid said "you guys can go if you want", making us all feel bad! So then, to complete his job, we join in group participation! My little brother was told to (and did it!) yell right there in the museum "GET YOUR HOT DOGS!" Then my husband got to pick up a hot dog carrier and feel how heavy it really is....
...that was clearly Stuart's highlight... As soon as the kid finished our presentation, he took off his deli hat and jacket and left! He had done his requirement for that portion of his day! :) *When we walked out of the museum to leave at the end of the day, the same kid was then performing a different task of his job requirements and was a greeter at the door. We caught each other's eye, and stared for a minute - he looked different without his deli hat & jacket! - then we smiled knowing that we shared a funny (awkward!) time inside.
Next to his childhood hero's plaque - Nolan Ryan.
My little bro pointed this shot out - it's kind of hard to see the engraving on the wall of the HOF emblem, but I love how the lines/shadows turned out.
Making his best old-timey ball player face...
Resting in the kids area. I need a baseball glove chair in my house, it was comfy!
The entrance to the museum.
On Saturday, the main reason for our NY visit, one of my cousin's was married! In the church before the ceremony...
At the reception, I look over and see this - my husband was helping my cousin push his niece...I thought the three of them made a cute, little family.
The reception was on some family land. They put up a tent, and let the beautiful landscape decorate itself. Gorgeous.
They gave the kids bubbles, and my cousin's boy decided that the only way he could get the bubbles to come out is if he put his mouth RIGHT ON the bubble stick.
He made himself a bubble goatee from all of his bubble eating. It was funny to see the faces he made while tasting the soapy mess!
On Sunday, on the way to our family picnic, we stopped at my grandfather's grave site. This is my cousin with his boy, telling him of his namesake.
On Monday, we just relaxed at my grandmother's home, and my father and husband decided to play landscaper. My dad looks like a fierce hedge-trimmer here!
The family homestead. This home was built in the 1800s. My grandparents moved here in the 60's, when my dad was a kid. I think it's neat for him to get to visit the home he grew up in, and of course this home contains all of my memories with my grandparents.
They didn't have a ladder, so this is their effort to clip the top of the bush...
Just some of the scenery as we drove around Monday evening near my grandparent's home.
They live out in the country, about an hour south of the city-life in Albany.
Just a random, pretty home, but it sums up how their "neighborhoods" look around there. A house in the middle of tons of acreage!
Pulling up to my grandparents' farm...
Well, that's it! It was good to see our loved ones, but of course, it's also nice to return home to our puppies.
Thanks for looking through my trillions of pictures! It was a fun week, but man, it's overwhelming to return to work with a hundred emails and patient clients waiting for their pictures! I'm anxious to catch up. I'm working on it! :)
My best friend's little sister is getting married! I first met A when she was in the third grade, and because of the sweet big sister that she has, I remember A playing with us from time to time in their neighborhood growing up.
She has found her match! C is such a sweetie. He is a funny, outgoing guy, but also so cute with her, the way he cares for her, and makes sure that she is happy all the time.
This is their wedding color scheme: pink, orange, & green - Spring! (They're getting married 3.7.09)
They met while studying across from each other at the UNT library, so of course we had to include that locale in our shoot! I think the way they met is a neat story, and just meant to be: they had never seen each other on campus before, but after seeing each other in the library the first time, they ran into each other again that same night at a computer lab across campus from the library, and then bumped into each other a third time the very next day while passing each other on the campus sidewalks! (After seeing this girl for the third time in two days, C realized that he should probably get her number!) UNT has 35-40,000+ students... I'd say this match was orchestrated.
After realizing that working 7 days a week, and well into the evenings on a regular basis isn't normal.... I decided it was time to hire some help! I now have a new editing assistant, who started with me this morning, and oh, just knowing that she is here is SUCH a blessing! I am so excited to be able to have a faster turn-around time for my clients, and MORE BLOGGING! I know the blog has been scarce lately, and therefore looking like it has not been hectic, but ironic that it's just the opposite! Trying to get sessions out to clients is a little higher on the priority list than blogging, so that's where the time goes.
Anywho... I meant to take a picture of her this morning, but we were too busy working! I will introduce her when I return from my trip this week. I will be out of my office for the next week, but I am going to delay some blogs so they get posted while I'm gone, and then I'll post about my trip when I return!
Off to finish up work and pack, but I'll leave you with another picture of sweet K, from her Arboretum session last week... she needed mommy's help climbing the steps...
Today was an eventful family day for the 'ole Birdseye house.... a FAMILY FEUD day to be precise...
Yes! "Crazy" your thinking?! or "Who actually does that?!" I know! I still can't get over that we actually went through with this and auditioned! Let me tell ya, it was So.Much.Fun. Our team was: my mom, my sister-in-law, my little brother (behind John O'Hurley), my hubby, and myself. My sister-in-law saw that they were having Dallas auditions and got the ball rolling. Before-hand, I was a little reserved, thinking, 'it will probably end up as a nice family afternoon together - most likely won't make the show', but it ended up being a FANTASTIC experience, and to-boot, I think we stand a chance at making it!
Take a look at our enthusiasm, if you will, and be the judge...
We always cheered after everyone's answer and said "good answer, good answer!!!"
We gave high-5's and hugs to each other if someone got the answer right, and if they got it wrong, we still cheered them on...we gave so much energy that it wore us out when we were finished!
Look at us clasping our hands in support of her answer! (We always wanted to look active, we tried to not just stand there with our hands at our side. Oh yeah, we had a strategy!) :)
It was a room of about 30 families, or so, and two families took turns playing against each other in a mock-game, (you only played once as a family, they just paired you up with a random family.) We were asked two questions, so each family in the round had a chance to play, and our final question was "What is a bird that cannot fly?" It was the other team's turn to have all their players give an answer, which means our family had the chance to steal their points if they did not get all the answers. Well, they did not get all the answers, and so for our steal, my mom came up with "jailbird", and not only was that the correct answer, but the host said no one ever gets that part of the question! I'm tellin' ya, we did so well!
We were funny, clever, entertaining, and not a bad bunch to look at, if the American audience will have us! It was SO FUN! We find out in a couple weeks if we made it, and I certainly will let you know! *Oh, so my husband, wearing the Family Feud hat, was 1 of 2 people who got a hat! You only received the hat if you were a fun contestant, and had enthusiasm, and I think it bodes well for us that he was given one! The host of the show liked him because you know how, (if you're a Family Feud watcher), at the end of the round, when the host calls out the answers on the board that were left, as-in the contestants did not get all the answers, and after the host calls out the unnamed answers, the audience repeats what he says in a slow, monotone way. Well, my hubby had that down the whole time we were there, and we had a front row table, while the other families were competing, so we were in the view of the host and talent scout the whole time! It got to where, if there were a lot of unnamed answers at the end of the round, the host turned to my hubby, (we had name tags on), and said "Stuart, get ready, there's a lot to call out!"
AND.... since the Family Feud plays on channel 33 in Dallas, the news crew from that station was there! With us sitting in the front of the room, the cameraman taped us several times, and the camera was in my face, so it wasn't like I didn't know what was going on, so yes, we laid the cheering on THICK when the camera was in our face!
Turns out, we made the evening broadcast!
I am the one whooping my arm in the air yelling "let's go Keisha!" Do I know who Keisha is? No, but she was my co-auditioner, and the camera was in my face:
The screaming, cheering, clapping that is going on in the audience was done the whole two hours we were auditioning!
She was a joy to be around as we cruised through the gardens looking for fun spots to play.
Just say the word "water" and she is captivated! They have large pools around the greenery, and if her mommy wasn't there to hold on to her, she would have dived in!
While her Aunt J gives her kisses, A decided to give the "OK" symbol with her little hand! She just wanted to let us know that life is good with her family around.
It was a windy morning when we met, and A needed a little lovin' from mommy & grandma every now and then to remind her that the harsh, blowing wind was not a form of torture! The poor thing, it took her breath away!
Oh, you may have noticed that she has filled out quite a bit! Her mommy & daddy sure are doing a good job! She has so many adorable rolls, I just wanted to squish her precious thighs!
While I wish I was entertaining enough to be able to claim that my clients crack up at me this much - this hysteria is due to baby A's stroller rolling down the hill, gaining speed, then toppling over in to the Denton courthouse bushes! Perfect timing!
* (I woke up the morning of their session with the thought 'ottoman' in my mind - random! The ottoman that A's stylish grandma is sitting on is my very own from my living room! My husband gave me a funny look as I requested his help loading it into my trunk, but I'm so glad I did! It came out exactly like I had envisioned upon my awakening. Does that ever happen to you guys? Some mornings, when I'm still in a half asleep/awake mode, ideas about my business, or about anything I suppose, will come to me, and they're usually pretty successful! Weird... maybe I should sleep more. Or, in spurts, possibly, so I'd have more of those "waking up" moments more often....anyways, enough rambling!)
Oh. My. Goodness. Do you see that lip? 3 months old! She has me wrapped around her finger and I've met her twice! With pouty faces like that, mommy & daddy don't stand a chance.
We had a really fun morning together. They are a sweet family! I loved that they wanted to do all different sorts of groupings between the 6 of them. It allowed me to keep the locations spontaneous!
Precious! Rolls, rolls, rolls. *I played with a different coloring feature that I didn't know I even had! Sort of that vintage/fade/wash look. I like it!
So this is a zoomed-in crop of the original of the picture above. I have never had this happen before: I was looking at this picture, and saw a black mark on her shirt and thought it was a tear. When I zoomed in closer, I saw that it was a bug in flight! What are the timing odds?! Well, like I said, it has never happened to me before! Obviously I took it out of the edited picture, but I thought it was fun, so I wanted to share the original!
Last week, I was invited to play with 5-week-old Z!
His mommy and daddy consider him their little miracle. They tried several fertility options, and just when they thought they may start a different route, he came in to their lives. It was sweet to see his mommy's interaction with him. He's here, he's perfect, and she is in love!
*The Shot!!!* We tried so hard to capture this image and I'm so pleased with how it came out! I happened to arrive as he was waking up from a nap, so we got several awake pictures, but I knew I wanted to try and capture this part of his room, and his mom loved the idea as well, but doing this shot with an awake baby just doesn't quite work as well as when they are asleep and unaware that they are lying on an armoire! (We tried awake in this shot, didn't happen!) It had been a couple hours since my arrival, and we knew he was getting sleepy again, so after we were finished with the rest of his shoot, between Mom and Grandma, they fed him and rocked him off and on until he was finally out enough to make this shot happen! Not only did Mom want this captured because his room is so gosh darn cute, but because there are several heirlooms in this image. The armoire he is lying on is 60 years old, the little clown doll to the right was his grandfather's doll as a child, and the silver bowl and spoon to the left was also his grandfather's.
Congratulations on your healthy, handsome, baby boy!
If you'd like to get a closer view of the cuties on this blog, click on the pictures to make them larger! (Then back-arrow back to the blog once you're done with the larger view.)
graduate of UNT with a B.A. in Photojournalism, married her college sweetheart, Stuart, in May 2005, brought home two irreplaceable puppies from the SPCA, and now have settled happily into married life living north of Dallas-Ft. Worth.
