R is so gorgeous and OMG her dress was to die for! I just love the warm glow in this first one:

We had a blast, it was so much fun exploring with you R!  And thanks to D for coming along, it was so nice to meet you!  And no, I still would not stay overnight by myself here unless you were well into the 6 figures

On another note…today is my oldest son’s 10th birthday!  I cannot believe that he has grown up so fast or that I have been a mom for so long!  Double digits!  And it’s crazy to think back 10 years ago I was in the hospital in Tualatin, Oregon on a warm sunny day with no idea I’d be moving back to Ohio soon and no idea how amazing motherhood would be.  I miss my tiny baby, but it’s been fun watching him lately, really getting into creating things with his lego mindstorms or starting to get into the Harry Potter books and getting through them faster that I probably did!   So tonight we’ll be celebrating and later after he goes to bed I will tackle my inbox, thanks for being patient!

I did take some night shots with some local Photographers:  Sarah, Echo, and Jaylene.  I’m not sure if the pictures will ever make it off my memory card to the blog, but it was so much fun!

Highlights of my trip to WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International):

Hanging out with my husband and his friends that he rarely gets to see

After he left, hanging out with neighbor and WPPI roomie Sarah J

Finally meeting six of my friends from a small, close-knit group that has been discussing business and more for about 3 years now.

Meeting favorite newborn photographers Carrie and Britt and being up front for their wonderful presentation.

Being front row and one of only 35 to see my absolute favorite wedding photographer, Jose Villa, teach his masterclass. He was so nervous, it was adorable…and he had the best stories…and his images, while amazing online are even better in print.

Watching the judging of prints, especially when Jesh de Rox was arguing for images that made him FEEL even when they weren’t technically correct. It was all so entertaining and taught me so much.

Other inspiring photographers I got to see talk or meet around the tradeshow: Jasmine Star (and later got a hug when I saw her out walking, she is so sweet), Nichole Van, Audrey Woulard, Millie Holoman, Dane Sanders, John Mireles…so many of my favorites willing to share so much.

Meeting my goal for the tradeshow part of finding new products, especially albums that blew me away…can’t wait to get some samples

Going out and having fun, the parties, piano bar, dancing…I don’t get a chance to get out much

And the not-so-great:

The smoke everywhere…I changed clothes twice a day most days, and went out and bought more…my closet at the hotel smelled…my eyes were red every time I walked through the casino to get to the conference…thank goodness for the Ohio ban!

Lines…the popular classes would have lines start 2-3 hours before…but some classes only had an hour in between, so often it was impossible to get in a class you wanted to see.  And I skipped lunch most days so I could sit in lines.

The time difference…it hurt to come home after staying up late and then taking a red eye.  I should go to bed now to get back to normal, but I am so used to being up until 3 or 4 or 5 Toledo time.

Internet connection…wifi was only free in a very small area that was always packed and the AT&T 3G access was really bad.  I didn’t have the time to take my lap top to the wifi spot or spend enough time in my room to pay for access and my iPhone rarely connected.  So I have a lot to catch up on now that I’m home.

So…over all I am so glad I went, and I can’t wait for next year!  I have so much inspiration and new ideas, new products and software, and I can’t wait to get going with it all.

I have emails and calls to return, but the kids are out of school tomorrow and I am without a sitter so it may be a little slow getting to everyone.

Hope you all enjoyed the warm weather, I am ready for Spring!

Next, I have to ask you all to keep the Seedorf family in your prayers.  I was shocked tonight as I was working with the news on as background noise…I heard a name I recognized and started to pay attention.  There was an accident in Wood County, Shannon went off the road into the Portage river and later died.  I took pictures of Shannon and her boys this past spring, her boys will be turning 4 and 2 soon.  It breaks my heart to think of them without their mother…I’ve been crying all night and thinking about how we had talked during her session, how she wanted to do a session for herself for Mother’s day every year and that she wanted to wait until the next one, when she lost weigh/felt better about herself to get a good family picture.  I told her I was waiting for the same thing… we laughed about it and I am so grateful that I got a few candid shots of her interacting with the boys anyway.  Shannon was a wonderful person and motherand my thoughts are with her family.

Now, I apologize to the S family for putting these up after writing about something so sad…but this is what I was working on when I saw the news and I want to get it up.  Your beautiful little girl puts such a smile on my face!  We started out in the field and I am so glad we did because once we got in the house and I got closer with my big camera she was scared!  Poor little doll!  Check out this adorable family:

I love this mirror shot, it was at the end of the session, at this point I was trying to hide and stay far away

It was great to meet you all!  Hopefully A won’t be so scared of the camera in the future

I LOVE their property, perfect for a session!

It was so great to see you again S and to hang out again!

I am almost to December for the blog!  Just two more November sessions!  This weekend was my middle son’s 6th birthday… he had his buddies out at Hero’s for a party, I love that place!  We did some family celebrating too… he is such a cutie, he was telling everyone “it’s my birthday you know”  He had to keep reminding me he wanted Marco’s for dinner…”not just any pizza, Marco’s pizza…because it’s my birthday you know”  So I have to include a few pictures of him, these were from the summer, we took a short trip up to Traverse City for the first time.  He was in heaven, he loves the beach.

Today I just want to say thank you to all that have served and are serving…I have two people, heros, that I have recently met and especially have on my mind.  As I posted before about getting images up from the retro boudoir quickly, my bride’s maid of honor, C will be deploying to Iraq tomorrow.  Please keep her in your thoughts.

She is second from the left, and I wish I could post one of her individual pictures, but they were all the ones that are off limits for the internet:

It wasn’t until their wedding day, when everyone was sharing stories about Chris and Julie, did I find out that Chris has served 3 tours in Iraq.   (please correct me if I have the number wrong, I believe I am right, but I have the worst memory!)  I was completely in awe.

Thank you both!!!

If you know anyone, add a comment!

So sweet, so stubborn, so funny, so adorable, so loving!  I love this age with her so much, I just want to bottle it up for when she’s 16.  I need to take more pictures of her and take the time to make an album for her soon… love you princess!!

But I had to post quick today, first…Tim brought home the Toledo Parent News last night.  I want to thank everyone for voting for me!  I was so excited to be included in the family favorites!

Second, I have been getting bugged to get some new pictures of my kids up.  My uncle Tom married a wonderful woman, Pam about a week ago.  I feel funny calling her my aunt, she is probably my age…Tom is just 3 years older than I am, but I don’t feel funny calling him uncle…he was “uncle Tommy” across the playground at grade school…drove him nuts    It was a perfect opportunity to get some new pictures of my kids while they were dressed nicely.  I didn’t want to get in the way of the wedding photographer and become what we call an “uncle Bob” so there aren’t any of the couple…can’t wait to see the official pictures.  And there are more of Lucy because she is a TOTAL ham lately and I love this age…and the boys were less than cooperative.  The reception where these were taken was at Brandywine Country Club

Check out Aidan GQ with his hands in his pockets:

Lucy with my dad, I just love this…she’s a Grandpa’s girl like I was a daddy’s girl, hard not to be with my wonderful dad:

She was stalking the cake table (that’s a top view of the cake:

And the light was so amazing later…of course they cooperate for me so well, photograper’s child syndrome (this middle one Lucy wants Aidan out of her shot):

They were doing the “Man, man, man, man, manly man, man, man” theme from Two and a Half Men here:

We had some feathered friends join in, and Eli found new uses for my props:

Rain rain go away… and I love when I get pure laughs like this:

I contacted most of my senior reps, I have just a few more schools to go through.  I am leaving the application up for these schools only please: Maumee, Ottawa Hills, Maumee Valley Country Day, St. Ursula, and St. Francis.  All other school have spokes models chosen, so watch for them on the blog and then ask them for a referral to get free things with your senior session!

My oldest, Duncan, turned 9 yesterday!  I can’t believe it and I feel old!  Thank you to the family that told me I look too young to have a 9 year old at their session yesterday!!    I had a busy day with work, getting gifts at the last minute, wrapping, dinner out…I will try to get caught up on emails today.

I hope you all had a very happy Valentine’s day!!  I spent most of mine at the studio, but my loves met me out there and we went to yummy Pisanello’s Pizza inbetween sessions.  Watch for some sneak peaks in the next few days…tonight I am going to try to catch up with my emails and editing.  This last week has been really tough.  I didn’t want to blog about it because I didn’t think it was too smart to tell the world my husband was gone, (come rob my house please…), but he had to go to Italy for this last week for work.  Poor guy, huh?  And he made it even better by telling me how much I would love it there every time he called.  He knows how much I love old architecture.  Oh well, maybe next time I will fit in his suitcase!  But I had a very great appreciation for single parents while he was gone, it was an exhausting week.  Adding to that Aidan was pretty sick and extremely whiny, Lucy was moderately sick, and I didn’t feel well for a little while in there too.  And Max was couped up more and so was more destructive, he’s gotten quite the appetite for legos and oven mitts.  And it was my last week at my engineering job so I got to teach the poor sucker taking over my work everything I know.  

But, the husband got home last night, the kids are feeling better, the dog has gotten long walks, and I only have one full time job doing what I love.  Life is good.

I don’t want to post without a picture, I sent out some Valentines of some love-filled pictures from some recent sessions… here are a couple too cute ones:

I have been trying to get all my receipts entered for my taxes since I got home, there is so much from the last couple months!  Luckily Tim is staying on top of it for this year for me…  I did get some proofs done for a very patient family and I have this weekend wide open to finish catching up on the other proofing, albums and paperwork I need to get done… I didn’t want to post without pictures, so here are a few more from Disney:

Boys with attitude: 

Aidan turned 5 the day before we left…I really think this is the perfect Disney age.  He was just so excited about all the little things.  Duncan was a little too old and Lucy a little too young for some things, but Aidan?  Just right for almost everything…I loved watching him.

Love the looks on their face in this one.  Our first character meal and they were so excited for Tigger, he was the first one to come around.

Little Princess Lucy.  I tried to get some pretty shots of her in this little nook we found, it was so pretty with the castle behind it and a wishing well and flowers…but look at the lovely faces she would give me when she wasn’t running away from the camera telling me no more.  Sigh.  I did manage to get some cute ones with the princesses at Downtown Disney the last day.

The boys on the tea cups, getting along!

I avoided my inbox tonight, trying to not get distracted, so I will get back to everyone tomorrow… happy Friday!