Miss Addison

I've been so bad lately about posting sneak peeks but I wanted to share a quick one of this little cutie. One thing I want to say - I feel truly blessed to be in this business and have the opportunity to meet so many beautiful families. This family is especially close to my heart as the mother of Addison (Athena) and her mom (Adrienne) run my daughter's preschool together in Lincoln. We often refer to their school as a second home because that's the feeling you get being there. There is a warmth and genuine love for the kids in everyone who works there. I am so extremely thankful to Athena and Adrienne and their wonderful crew (Miss Patty, Miss Elise, and Miss Amber). Thank you for all that you do! To see more of Addison, check out the Main homepage.

I'm Outta Here!

Today my honey and I are heading out for one of our bi-annual weekend getaways to - next to Nevada City - one of my favorite places in the world - Napa! It gets harder and harder to coordinate these 'escapes' - it's actually taking three people in rotating shifts to help us accomplish this task - my sister-n-law, my mom, and a sitter. As a parent, you may appreciate this: my sister-n-law will be arriving this morning to watch the kids until this afternoon when my mom arrives. My mom will be here with the kids until Sunday until which time the sitter arrives. The sitter will be here until Monday morning until which time my sister-n-law comes back (are you laughing yet?!) until we get home! Mission accomplished!! It's worth it though, these weekends are like little bits of bliss that sweeten our year. I love my kiddos but I love them even more when I get back! :) Have a great weekend everyone!

A field in Napa, 2007.

Path by our room, 2007.

Just Part of the Family

I want to be a part of your family history - no really, I do. Infact, if you don't mind, I just might even include myself in your pictures (see picture below). :) Seriously though, don't you just love it when you end up in a picture and you had no idea you were going to be in the picture? I'm sure if I dug through my archives, I could find a ton of really wonderful 'flattering' pictures - you know, the ones where you're standing at the edge of the frame and are in mid-sentence and your mouth is hanging open like a sagging pair of jeans? Or those great laughing ones where someone caught you mid-belly laugh with your face squished in Pug-style? My absolute favorites though are Christmas morning opening-of-the presents photos. I think I have at least a shoe box full reserved for these very special heirloom images - the ones where everyone looks like they've been without sleep and a hair brush for a good week - not to mention the house looking like someone dropped a box full of shredded paper on the floor! Ahhhh, the memories! :)
Okay, back to the image below! This is from a prom shoot this past weekend which was an absolute blast! So many fun images to release from this session but as I'm editing, just had to share this one in which I surprisingly found myself in the image as well! I have to admit, I didn't even notice this as I was shooting - probably because this couple was just too cute and fun to photograph!

There I am in the window!

And Voila! I'm gone! :)

Earth Hour 2008

I wanted to pass this along in case someone else missed out as I did! I didn 't know about Earth Hour until reading Marie Brown's blog on her Eco-Chic Design website tonight. I wish I had known, I would have participated. Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia last year and took place on March 31st. For one hour, everyone shut off their lights to help ease the pressure on global resources. These numbers are awe-inspiring to me - 2.2 million people turned off their lights which resulted in a 10.2% energy reduction in the city or the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road - all by shutting of their lights for one hour! It's so amazing and inspiring to me what we are capable of when we work together. To see the video on this, click here.
I just wrote Marie today that I am so thankful for having met her (in case you're new to the blog, see posts from last month to see session highlights of Eco-Chic Design). It is through her and people like my aunt that I'm becoming more aware of issues I have often shrugged off as "hype" or "not my problem." I have so far to go in truly reducing (and truly understanding how to reduce) my footstep on our earth but I continue to try to retrain myself to think in eco-friendly ways. I get frustrated with myself because so much of what we do is habit-based - often it isn't until I'm in the checkout aisle at the store that I realize I forgot my canvas bags in the trunk.
So, though these may seem like extremely small and simple things, these are three big things in my life that I hope to change my habits:

1. replace plastic and paper shopping bags with my canvas bags - if you run into me at the store and I'm carrying plastic, I expect to hear about it! :)
2. reduce - eventually eliminate - plastic water bottles from my life (note to Starbucks partners (or employees but Starbucks calls them 'partners' which I just love!) - if you see me in the drive thru do NOT sell me any bottled water - oh yeah, and please no sweets either - do me a favor, and just tell me you're sold out. :) ! I'm addicted to water bottles but in truth, it's just another one of those convenient, habit-based things.
3. recycle, recycle, recycle. Yes, I'm so late to get aboard doing this. I did try at one point and had a mound of recycled bags stacked in our garage much to the annoyance of my spouse since I was littering an area that is technically "not my territory" (that includes the backyard as well - supposedly I have all say over the house and so these areas are the places where I have NO say. The funny thing about that is, if I had all say over the house, for one, it'd be a lot more decorated than it is now (as in, budgeted money spent on the house, NOT the backyard), and secondly, you'd see a lot more colored walls and TONS OF RED! Where is that emotion icon with the little guy sticking his tongue out when you need it?? :)

Okay, so there are my goals. I hope if you see me and I'm not holding to them you holler at me...unless I have my kids and then you might freak them out and me too. But by all means, if I'm walking alone and have a bottle in my hand, go ahead - holler! Sometimes it takes a little noise to get the wake up call going!

Checkout Marie's cool site here!

Fibber!

Okay, so it seems when I made my post the other day I forgot about these images. As I was editing tonight I came across these and although they aren't the smiling ones, I have to say, in all honesty, they make me smile because - well, just look at that little face and those big expressions (needless to say, the faux fur was NOT a hit)!!! I had to post one of my favorites with mom as well.

Oh, Baby!

Just had to share a quick sneek peek at this cutie! This is Cooper, a 17 week old hottie on his way to being a heart breaker! There were no bad pictures to be had of this little guy who smiled and played his way through our session, providing many adorable expressions such as the 'tongue' smile below. :)

Squash the Smoke is here!

I am so unbelievably excited to announce that we have our first Squash the Smoke poster! If you've been following along, you know Jordan Brown was selected to be the first anti-smoking role model. I even featured a sneak peek last month which you can check out if you missed, below. Jordan had a lot of great input for this poster plus he was willing to donate his time and thoughts during the creation process for which I'm very grateful. Thank you Jordan!!
If you're a local business, work at an elementary or high school or know somewhere that would be willing to display one of our campaign posters, please contact us! We will be releasing a poster twice a year, in the Spring and Fall. As of right now, we have our next STS role model lined up and are preparing to start work on the next poster.