OneWed.com has officially started their own version of a social networking site.  With WeddingPreParty.com brides now have the ability to not only plan their wedding and create a wedding website, a very popular item, but now they can also socially interact with all part of their wedding!  Wedding party, guests, vendor and bride & groom can now all chat, plan, and hang out in Pre-Party style.  I’m actually very excited to see how this will work – it sounds very promising!!

 

Well it looks like I officially have all the maternity sessions booked that I should need.  I’m so excited about updating my portfolio again!  Check back in the next couple of weeks to see the new maternity section on my site!  Thanks to all the Moms-to-be who have volunteered to be my first few sessions!!

What have I done?  I’ve posted before about Emma growing up (check out OMG She’s SO High! ), but this one takes the cake.  Let’s rewind a few years.  My mother-in-law started Grandma Camp as a tradition for her daughter’s girls when Emma was just a baby.  She takes the girls for a few days to some age appropriate out of town location for a little mini- Grandma-vacation.  By the time Emma was only two she’s been asked, and asked…. and asked to go with her cousins (whom, I should mention, she adores) on the yearly Grandma Camp adventure.  And every year we’ve politely said no, Emma is just too young right now.  And then this year rolled around.  Oh, what was I thinking?!?!?  Emma has matured quite a bit this year and she’s expressed shall we say a LOT of interest in going on Grandma Camp.  So we did trials runs – she stayed the night at Grandma’s house quite a few times and she loved it everytime! 

So…. with much hesitation… I said yes. 

Logically I know that Emma is fine.  My mother-in-law is an accomplished pediatrition, raised 5 kids of her own and, best of all, she loves Emma to death.  But emotionally it’s a whole other story.  I come from a family that is close – extremely close.  The word camp itself didn’t exist in our house  – camping was really nothing more than a theory.  The closest we ever got to typical kids summer camp was with all my brothers and sister, Mom, Dad and Grandparents in the back of my Grandpa’s produce truck (which was, I have to admit, super exciting to hang out in)… parked in the backyard… with a TV… and it only lasted until the youngest kids started to fall asleep.  Sleepovers were practically nonexistent and actually going away longer than a night was very literally unheard of.  And now here I am – breaking all my Mother’s rules.  And it’s making me sick!

Good or bad, it’s done now.  Emma is officially away at Grandma Camp.  I can’t complain about it now- as much as it pains me, I’ve made my choice.  This is just one more adventure in the grand tale called Parenting that I’ve long ago chosen to live by.  So the best I can do is to take a big breath and analyze every little detail found in the pictures I’m sent every night.    Is that obsessive?  LoL – I certainly hope not!

 

 

My latest shoot was this past weekend with the Landsbaum family!  Little Ellen is such an adorable little girl, is she not?     We played around on the playground which turned out to be a great backdrop for some unique shots.  Especially when you have a fun-loving family willing to jump in and have a ball.

 

 

This weekend I had the privilege of shooting a baptism for the Lewis family.  This was no ordinary baptism as both daughter and mother were baptized on the same day!  How many families can have that memory?  This was a large and loving family whose internal paprazzi rivaled  my own!  Little Gia is certainly one very loved little girl.  Congratulations!

WeddingWire(d) that is! I’m officially wired into the wedding network now. And, thanks to my three absolutely amazingly, wonderful, can’t-thank-you-enough brides I’m in the top 10 out of 143 brides that can be found in the St. Louis area on MarthaStewart.com!! Search for St. Louis photographers and sort the results by rating. Yep, that’s me there. Now the challenge has been set to keep that 5 out of 5 star rating!!!