The Puz family.

As I promised, here are some of the good photos from their session last night. It was hard to choose only 3 to post! Enjoy!

Today we're hoping to go blueberry picking after Rob is done administering the final exam to one of his classes. We had hoped to go Wednesday afternoon; however, we had a couple of really tired and cranky boys. The 4-year-old was in an especially funky mood that day. Today is going to be better though. I just know it! :)

Freaking hilarious!

Yep--that's what this picture is. Matt and Tasha came over with their kiddos to have family portraits done last night. Maya was starting to become restless here and Evan was gold mining. This picture just totally makes me laugh. I'll post some of the good ones from their session soon. Just thought you all needed a good chuckle.

My 2nd Maternity Photo Shoot!

Yesterday, Cassandra came over to have her maternity photos taken. Tifini had actually highly recommended my services and talked her into contacting me to have her photos done. Oh my goodness, I have literally almost been in tears over how beautiful Cassandra's photos have been turning out! The highlights and shadows created by the lights have been amazing. We tried a lot of new poses and repeated some from my other maternity session--overall, we ended up with art! This is only one of the photographs that I have tweaked (I was actually attempting to create a watermark for my images in PhotoShop. I am so PhotoShop challenged--the things that should be so simple, seem to take me FOREVER.) Also...I'm exposure challenged. What my exposure meter indicates is the proper exposure (even reflected off my gray card) is always underexposed to my camera. If I slow down the shutter like I'm supposed to to get my camera to be happy, if my subject moves, even slightly, blur is created on the image. Ugh!!! Think I'm going to go and talk to the guy at the camera store this afternoon when we go to the farmer's market and see what I should do.

Photography is so amazing--and it's really starting to keep me busy!!! I had one session yesterday, one on Monday and have another one tomorrow and part two of yesterday's session will be done over the weekend--this time Cassandra's boyfriend will be photographed with her. I can hardly wait!!! But back to photography being amazing...it's a venue for me to be creative. For me to feel like a true artist.

In the next couple of weeks, I am going to be creating a separate blog for my studio to post different photos there. That way, my personal and professional stuff will be kept separate to some extent. As soon as that happens, I will post a link here so y'all can see my work.

Today I'm hoping to get out and do something fun. Since it has been rainy, the boys are getting a little stir crazy. And frankly, they're driving me bananas!!! Right now they're having a lightsaber battle in the studio--better get 'em outta here and try to channel that energy in a more productive manner (and away from my equipment).

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Meet Pierce (and his Mommy too)

My boys both adore Ms. Churyl and her baby Pierce. They came over today for a photo shoot (so I could practice on a baby), and I had so much fun (I hope that they had a lot of fun too!). Here are just a few of my favorites from our session.

How does our garden grow?

In pots, of course!!!

Sydney, on guard duty in front of Tomato Row--4 pots of cherry tomatoes and 1 pot of Red Zebra heirloom slicing tomatoes.

I love to grow stuff, and when the first signs of spring started to appear, it was no surprise that I started getting that itch. The Gardening Itch. Gardening is in my blood. Both of my grandmothers have HUGE gardens, and my dad is a gardening kind of guy too. There is just something about growing your own fruits and veggies, flowers and other plants. David (and Aidan too) totally got into the process of gardening this year. We started some tomato plants from seed as well a few flowers, some cilantro and chives (although I also bought chive and cilantro plants from the local Farmer's market since my plants took their time starting). The bigger tomatoes are ones that we bought as starts at the Farmer's market. David even saw packets of pumpkin seeds that I had in my gardening box and insisted that he plant 2, which he really did plant himself. Well, what should happen is that both of the seeds took off and are now even getting blossoms!!! We had to transplant them into bigger pots last week since they were outgrowing the ones we had transplanted them in before. Now, I have to purchase something even bigger to put them in (they are the plants in the 2 orange plastic pots on the top shelf of the baker's rack)! He also planted some sunflower seeds that I have (I had to find the shortest growing ones for him). It is so fun watching both boys get excited at watching the entire process. From the planting, to the sprouting and to noticing blossoms and fruit.

We have already enjoyed a few strawberries that we have grown and even have a cherry tomato that has started changing color! David and Rob have been eagerly anticipating its ripening. David told Rob that he was going to eat the first tomato because he likes them now. He wasn't going to let his daddy have it. What a nut!

Next year, when we have a bigger yard, we're going to grow more stuff. Until then, we'll just enjoy what we have in our many pots! :)

Today.

Today was a truly fun day. The boys and I went shopping--had to look for a few photography-related items and also got a few shirts. We had lunch after we got home. I straightened up the house a bit and then Tifini came over for her maternity photo shoot. The 3 pictures posted are probably my favorites from our session. She's such a beautiful pregnant woman. Taking her pictures was so fun. Granted, I was really nervous since it was my first-ever maternity session, but I learned a lot. That's what's important, right? Well...that, and having some great pictures as a result. :-)

After Tifini's photo session, Rob, the boys and I hopped into the car and drove down to Christiansburg to the ballroom dance studio to look at dancing shoes. I found a pair that Rob liked (and that were comfortable for me). We had to eat dinner fairly quickly, I straightened things up and then Autumn came to watch the boys for us while Rob and I went to our second dancing class. Rob signed us up for the Latin I class through Blacksburg Parks and Recreation. We are having so much fun!!! Hopefully we can take Latin II next.

Tomorrow we're off to the zoo with my MOPS group. David is really excited about getting to see some of his friends. They're both pretty excited about the zoo too. David told Rob tonight that he was going to ride the zoo-choo tomorrow and wanted to be the one to pay for our tickets. He's such a funny (and fun) boy.

What a day!

My day really didn't get off to the greatest start. I mean, getting myself and the boys ready went well, but when it came time to run out the door it hit me...where are my keys??? I looked frantically through the house, through the bag I used yesterday--anywhere I had been. Light comes on. Oh, I think they are locked in the car since Rob drove home yesterday. Thank goodness for Onstar (although I forgot the number and had to go search for it online). I called Onstar, the guy who answered was really helpful, and nice to boot. When I have had this happen before (like, over a year ago), I have had not-so-nice people answer the phone and treat me like I'm really dumb...like they really needed to do that since I was feeling pretty stupid when I called them anyways. OK...back to the present...the guy was nice. My car was unlocked within 30 seconds. What do you know? My keys were sitting in the console!

Well, I was late for our playdate already, so I ran by the camera store and after I paid my bill and was looking at the photos, I noticed that my $100 1GB CF card wasn't in the envelope. I'm trying to look and act calm, cool and collected. I didn't want to make a scene, but that is my ONLY CF card!!!!! The guy at the store called the developer at the sister store, they didn't have my card there. I got on the phone with him and described it in more detail (I think that the fact that my last name was written on the back in black permanent ink helped matters). But they wouldn't know until after noon where my card was, so I left and went to Starbucks. Meanwhile, my car tells me that I'm running low on fuel (like I wasn't personally at the time anyways). :-) I literally prayed that God would make sure that we made it to the gas station at the south end of Blacksburg so I could fill up and jump on the bypass to get down to Floyd County for our playdate with our friends. I also prayed for his protection because I knew that if I didn't, who knows what else might have happened with the way my day started out!

Our playdate was awesome though. My friend, Wendy, has a son who is almost exactly 1 year older than David, and her daughter is 6-7 months younger than Aidan. Everyone played so well together. My boys were in heaven having so much outside (and inside) space to run and play in. David is even dressing up with his cowboy hat now after playing with Benjamin (who really likes to play cowboys). We even walked down to the creek that is at the end of their driveway and played in that for awhile, the boys got to hang out with the chickens--Aidan even went in the pen with them and loved it! I had a lot of fun visiting with Wendy (and her husband too when he wasn't doing his own thing). The boys really didn't want to leave when it was time to go, but Aidan fell asleep as soon as I drove off, and David threw a fit half of the way home and told me that he didn't want me for a mom anymore. Oh well. I think he's over that now! :-)

Other than the shaky start to my morning, the day turned out to be a good one. I'm definitely thankful to the Father for that. He gave us the perfect weather for playing outside today (below 80 degrees for the most part with lower humidity--it had been really hot and pretty humid too, although I didn't notice the humidity too much until yesterday). My CF card was found and is now back in my possession (next time, I'll buy a cheap-o CF card to upload my photographs to so my stomach won't sink as far if it gets misplaced). I didn't have to water my plants today because God took care of that for me with the rain he sent later this afternoon/evening. I did notice, however, that almost all of my tomato plants have blossoms/fruit growing on them now! We're going to be swimming in them soon. One of David's pumpkin seeds bloomed too! He's really excited about that!

Well, I need to let my dog in, she's causing a ruckus outside--someone must be walking in the parking lot behind our place. I'm glad that she's so protective of the boys and of myself, but I don't think the neighbors like her barking much.

Yippee!

I will get my Unit 1 photo project mailed into New York Institute of Photography possibly late this afternoon!!! I'm definitely a perfectionist and hemmed and hawed over this part of my course. Finally, I just decided that, "Hey! This is good enough, I need to get the project sent in sometime in this century." Plus, Rob had been hounding me--"Do you have your project turned in? Did you get the pictures taken?" and so forth.

Yesterday, after we went to Farmer's Market and ran a few other errands, we stopped by the studio/camera store that is in the downtown area (the one I have driven past on numerous occasions but hadn't been able to go in to check it out). I talked to the owner/photographer for awhile and made a new contact/mentor person in the area. In the process of doing that, I placed an order to have all of my pictures printed off of my camera's CF card and will pick them up this afternoon (and will take the photos for my project directly to the post office). Yippee! I'm pretty excited about all of this.

But...I need to go downstairs and check out what my two troublemakers are doing. Aidan has already broken the magazine for the CD player and the morning is still young!