Kinda. Being in a house full of sickies bites. Sometimes, I just gotta escape to my photos and my puter. (I can’t even believe she’s one month old already!)

[ETA: Pj's are from Old Navy for those of you that asked. I'm sure you can find a pair on clearance right now, too.]

Ah, the joys of Photographer Child Syndrome. The cute Christmas PJ’s turned out to be too tight and they absolutely did not want to wear them. I had such great visions of the three of them in their coordinating PJ’s, but the image on the right is the only one I could manage to commemorate our first Christmas. Oh dear.

So yeah, as shown above, we set out cookies for Santa.

Thankfully, Santa wasn’t terribly offended.

In other unimportant news, thanks to two sick kiddos and a newborn, I’ve come down with *severe* mommy brain and my ability to concentrate (and spell) is pretty much non-existent. Come to think of it, this post may not make any sense at all and if you happen to catch me on the phone, I’m probably going to sound like a total space cadet. And if you’re one of the many who are waiting patiently for me to return an e-mail, hang in there. I hope to stumble upon a cure (ie. one night of sleep) sometime soon.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are enjoying time with friends and family! I’m going to hang out with my brood for a bit as well and will be back in the new year. I CANNOT wait to show you my new product line…I am incredibly excited about all my samples that finally came in. Oh so beautiful!!!

See you in 2009!!!

[Thank you all for you your kind comments regarding Amry's birth slideshow. I'm glad that many of you were able to share in such a personal experience with us and I hope it spoke to you in some way.

But now I think it's time to take this memory and tuck it away for our family. I'll leave my post below about my thoughts on birth photography, but just know that if you're reading this for the first time, some of it refers to the slideshow itself and may no longer make sense. Thanks so much!]

I wanted to wait until Lyndsay had finished up the birth images before I posted the birth story. And then I saw the slideshow and well…it speaks for itself. It was beautifully done and captures the day even better than I remember it.

Birth photography has always tugged at my heart. In fact, it was watching a slideshow of a homebirth that inspired me to try it my 2nd son. I so desperately wanted to hire a photographer, but at the time, we were living off a teacher’s salary, so it wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t until seeing my own daughter’s birth through the eyes of a professional photographer artist that I realized just how invaluable it is. I would have paid a million dollars to anyone who could’ve done this for all of my children.

The night after Amry was born, I watched the video footage, and while I’m thankful to have it, it’s so raw, so impersonal, and the frightening sounds I was making (and the swear words) distracted terribly. What a relief to know that Lyndsay was there to capture it all and in such a way that wouldn’t make me feel self-conscious.

It was such an interesting experience having been on both sides of the camera, too. I wondered how it would be having “a stranger” present. But Lyndsay is not a stranger anymore…she’s a dear friend and she was wonderful! She was my fly on the wall…non-intrusive, totally quiet, I hardly knew she was there. I learned a lot from her about how I should be the next time I’m honored with the opportunity to photograph another birth.

There were many people at the birth and I’m sure I could have given someone a camera to take pictures. But there’s just no way a family member can step outside of the emotions of the event and be a “fly on the wall.” Ultimately, my family was there to witness the moments and it wouldn’t have been fair to ask any one of them to stay stuck behind a camera the whole time.

All I have from the births of my first two are a few shots of my babies from immediately after. Nothing to commemorate the labor process, nothing to show the emotions that my husband and I went through, nothing to document what was going on in the rest of the world while I was lost in the fog of labor. When I found out I was expecting #3, I knew immediately that I wanted a professional birth photographer there. A professional photographer/artist “sees” emotions that someone else might ordinarily miss. I loved my husband’s arms wrapped around me in image 19. There’s number 41 of my hands clasped around Virgil’s neck, pulling strength from his confidence in me. The genuine care and concern in 44. In image 89, all of a sudden, there is an extra person in the room with us ;-). Oh, the look on my boys’ faces in 91 and 92 and the absolute euphoria shown in 96. 99…that’s my beautiful, snuggly, sleepy daughter. 106…she’s mine. I love image 115 of Tristan running out of the room…that’s him…he flies…you can see the joy in his leap from the doorway. 120…I’ll always remember seeing Virgil holding his baby girl for the first time. And Logan playing peek-a-boo with his new baby sister in 122. And of course, our first family portrait #149.

I’m so glad Lyndsay came my way.

Oh, I could go on and on and on. But the beautiful part is that I don’t have to. I don’t have to struggle to try to remember every little detail about that day because I can relive it any time I want to. I didn’t cry when she was born. I didn’t cry when I watched the video. But when I saw Lyndsay’s amazing interpretation of the birth, my husband and I both watched through tears of joy, our hearts bursting with pure, overwhelming emotion.

Thank you so much, Lyndsay. This is a priceless treasure and I am forever in your debt.

I’ve been dying to share some of the cards I put together this year (especially the holiday cards), but I wanted to wait until I was sure my clients had already sent them out. Well, I’m not sure everyone is quite ready yet, but I know mine have been sent, so we’ll go ahead and do part one.

So, if you want to flip through Amry’s birth announcement, click here. Oh, I had so much fun doing this!

And, here’s a look at our holiday cards this year:

Thank you so much to all my wonderful friends/clients who’ve sent their holiday cards to me this year. I just LOVE seeing how much your families have changed…especially my clients who I wasn’t able to take a session with this year. I used to be such a scrooge about doing holiday cards, but wow, it’s well worth it the busier we all get. In this day of e-mail and blogs, there’s nothing like good old fashioned snail mail to “warm your heart and capture your spirit” (as my eldest would say ;-).

Happy Holidays to you all!!!!

I’ve been so wrapped up in the elf drama, that I feel like I’m behind on my other bloggin’. Of course, with Virge back to work, I feel like I’m getting a taste of what’s to come. My little photo/blogging spree is about to come to an end.

Anyway, the story behind the pics. Lyndsay came by the other day and so generously offered to take some pics of me with Amry. Unfortunately, her son happens to be so flippin’ adorable that I attacked him with my camera first. Oh, but I am so thankful to have these pics by L! She’s even letting me borrow that adorable knitted pink hat in pic 5. (The last one CRACKS me up. Lyndsay’s little guy just wasn’t going to have any part of Amry snuggling with her mama while his mama was occupied with her camera.)

And, I have to send a big THANKS to Margaret! Check out the pics she took last week. How wonderful it is to have a family portrait where I didn’t have to be Photoshopped into it! Gosh, I’m totally overwhelmed to have all of these pictures. I don’t have anything like this with my first two kiddos.

For those of you following Bob’s story:

Looks like the rumors are true:

We’re proud of you, Bob! Hang in there, buddy.

As we’ve seen too many times in the celebrity world, sometimes the pressures that come with fame are too much for some to bear. I learned this evening that our elven friend Bob has fallen off the wagon. It is heartbreaking to watch someone so respected in the elf world and with so much promise spiral like this. Perhaps the hardest part is seeing how this has affected Twink:

Not that it matters now, but ironically enough, Twink was fishing this morning as well:

The connection among the elves runs deeper than we could ever imagine. Why, Bob? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? UPDATED!!!!!

Twink picked a baaaaaad place to hang out this morning. The freezer???? I don’t believe the scarf is doing much for him either. (For those that asked…this is Twink)

My mom drove in today to help out for a bit. She brought my baby picture with her. No doubt this child is my daughter:

I bought this knitted diaper cover months ago, but it just arrived last week. I’ve needed something like this for my newborn sessions anyway, but you know I was dying to try it out on the little miss. Unfortunately, I could *barely* get it on her today! I can’t believe how quickly she’s growing. I was literally stuffing her into it. So this is her one and only shot in it. ;-)