Things I want to remember about tonight:

1. Last year at this time, I was 8 mos pregnant, waddling around, only dreaming of what my little girl would be for Halloween this year…

2. The fact that my mom made Halloween cupcakes for us. And, the fact that she surprised us by wearing a costume. (She’s Megatron up there. Amry was not impressed.)

3. The fact that we *finally* got to spend Halloween with my mom and sis. Such a fun evening!

4. While prepping the boys for tonight, we asked Logi Bear (AKA "Wolverine"), "What do you say when someone gives you candy?"

"Thank you."

"And what do you say if someone gives you candy you don’t like?"

"No thank  you." 

Not her Halloween costume. But it could have been. If she left the glasses on that I kept trying to put on her.

P.S. Only ONE opening left (p.m.) for the Nov 22nd Xpressions!  BOOKED!

I’m going to *try* to just narrow it down to a few favs for the blog. But I’m not promising anything. Aren’t they a BEAUTIFUL family? And such a joy to work with them.  The kids had great personalities and everyone was game for whatever I threw at them. Truly couldn’t have asked for a better session!

Okay. This is just too difficult. I can’t help myself. Here’s their session in full: 

When we did her newborn session 4 months ago, she slept the entire time.  Never saw her eyes open once. So, it was quite a treat to get to interact with her this time and see more of her personality coming out. And it was so funny…about 1/2 way through the session I realized that we were ALL talking baby talk around her (even dad).  I mean, it was non-stop. We just couldn’t help it. I mean look at her.  Do you blame us?  And I know you wanna reach out and pinch an inch, especially when you see these:

And for fun, here’s baby girl at her newborn session vs 4 months:

Like with bluebonnets and holiday pics, we’ve done pumpkin patch pictures every year. It’s tradition. You have to do it. Sadly, this year, thanks to us being sick and the resulting schedule conflicts, I really did not think it was going to happen. Then, when we showed up at the pumpkin patch to find it FILLED with school kids on a field trip, I really thought it wasn’t going to happen. And when my middle child got bonked in the head with a pumpkin (???) and had total meltdown before I even snapped the first picture, I knew for sure it wasn’t going to happen. But it happened. And mama is very happy.

Wow, I just realized there can only be TWO more Pic of the Month winners before the year ends and you get to start voting. This year sure has flown by. Guess I ought to be thinking of how I’m going to put a fair voting poll up here, too, huh? Anyway, this was my choice for Pic of the Month for obvious reasons ;-). Congrats Miss A!

Here.

I sat down to edit this morning’s amazing session and found that I couldn’t stop. It’s finished. It was wonderful. Wish I could blog more, but I owe my kids a date.

1. We’ve added one more (and the FINAL) Xpressions Date for 2009! Yes! The Nov 4th Xpressions booked up so fast, I had to add a new date: Sunday, November 22nd.  Reserve your space NOW and don’t miss out on having family images ready in time for the holidays! Once again, I thought I’d showcase some images from the last round of sessions so you can see the variety and quality of these UN-retouched images.  Here’s what the families had to say:

• "I thought the session was a phenominal value!"
• "The 45 minute timeslot allows enough time to get some great shots, change location/background, and also enough time for the family to get comfortable with you. And it is not TOO long where everyone gets tired and just wants to get it over with.  And we still got AMAZING photos from it.  I really do like the fact that we got them so fast and you sent a CD of the pictures. It is getting harder and harder to find people willing to do that.  I give a big thumbs up on this."
• "I think getting the images so quickly is definitely a bonus and the editing is great. I would definitely do this again so I hope you’ll keep offering these!"

2. This is for any client who had or is getting ready to have a full, premium session with me this year: I have a very special offer available for CUSTOM 2010 photo calendars that are perfect for gift-giving.  Please e-mail me for details!

3. And finally, things are getting back to normal in this house. We actually scrubbed it from top to bottom today in hopes of ridding ourselves of the germiness.  Baby girl is still pretty fussy, but I think she’s doing better.  Thank you again for your patience and kind thoughts.

Isn’t it odd how beautiful children can be when they’re sick? My husband and I were commenting on this the other day while caring for the boys. Something about the flushed cheeks and lips…and the eyes tend to get darker, richer, glassier. Ugh, but I feel so bad for her.  Well, I felt bad for all of my kids. So incredibly frustrating to not be able to take away their discomfort.

Happier times just a week ago.

Hopefully we’re getting close to the light at the end of the tunnel. The only one left to get it is the hubs, but I think he’s faked himself out into being some sort of super human dad. Fine by me. We need him!  I’m back to shooting tomorrow, but terrified that I won’t be able to keep up (breathing has been tough).  More than that, I’m afraid I forgot how to use my camera.  Sigh. Let’s hope baby girl gets some good sleep tonight and the morning will look different.