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Kayleigh’s near death experience.

Val — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:29:21 +0000

Enough said.

These pictures took all of 5 seconds yet seem to have taken 10 years off Kaleigh’s life.

a wedding.

Val — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 04:20:06 +0000

So what’s new? I totally suck at writing anything down these days. Not just here, but in the kids’ books, too. I really need to figure out how to manage my time better, I feel like I’m a total failure at it. In part, I blame it on children. Some days I am way productive, other days it seems all I do is clean up poop.

We shot another wedding this past weekend and, if I say so myself, we totally rocked it. I’m making pretty good progress on processing the images already, too. It was such a pretty day, though, and pretty darn near a wedding photographer’s dream. Beautiful weather, not hot, not cold. We didn’t have to do split shooting before the ceremony, I did a few of the bride getting dressed then we shot the ceremony and did family pictures at the church before getting our wedding party all by themselves at our session location. Beautiful lighting there, too. Then to the reception where it all went great, including our backdrop set-up. This is the second time we’ve done this now, having done it at a wedding we did in August. Last time we used our black and white damask backdrop which fit perfectly with that wedding’s theme and colors. This time we had a soft brownish backdrop with a sort-of damask pattern, though daintier, but as per the bride’s wishes, we set up a lot of things with it: straw bales, pumpkins, mums, corn stalks, etc. Actually, she just wanted a couple of straw bales, two pumpkins, and an extra centerpiece she’d done, but we kinda went whole hog. It was a lot of fun. My only complaint was a lighting issue with the backdrop that I just couldn’t figure out, but to think about it now, I think I know what went wrong and it was an issue out of our control. I also think I can fix the majority of the problems. However, Stacey keeps telling me I’m being too much of a perfectionist and it’s not a big deal so don’t worry about it. lol

Also speaking of the world of photography, we are very busy. Weddings are on a hold for us at the moment now, but we’re busy everywhere else. Newborns and children and families and seniors, oh my! Lots of fun! In between my kiddos and regular life stuff, it is all keeping me very busy. And with more photography has come a new addition to our website. We finally bit the bullet and bought a real shopping cart program geared towards photographers. It’s totally amazing. So many things you can do with it and it looks so much better than what I was using before.

I’ve also got some photos I’m totally itching to post… but I can’t… alas, and woe is me… they’re for a Christmas present for some people so I am forced to wait. 83 days!!!

Vanessa

Val — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:01:37 +0000

Ok, so to post about something good in my life… hmmm… ;-) Naw, really, lots of good these days, just seem to keep too busy with the good. Which means it’s been a few weeks since I became an aunt again! She was born August 28th and the newest love in my life is named Vanessa, the daughter of my sister and brother-in-law. Sweet little thing born with a lot of dark hair, only 9 days after my birthday. I was also able to grace them with some free photography, ha. A few more of my favorites:

Such a sweetie. We’ve only did a really quick session with her so far, and I need to design the birth announcements, maybe here in a minute. But soon there will be actual family pictures for them. We’d better get with it, I’m anxious to fill the three frames I got for them…

Patton

Val — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 03:54:22 +0000

So we’ve now got our little guy and he is, of course, so sweet. Heading to bed soon but here are some pics:

He’s gonna be a good boy. The 3 and a half hour drive went well for him and so far no accidents in the house, a bit of chewing, of course, but he’s already learned that one certain toy is his and he seems to like it. Has himself a little crate that we originally had for the ferret and cat many moons ago and he didn’t like it at first at all, but a bit ago when I put him in his little fenced area in the middle room of the house, he walked himself into the crate and laid down. He cried after that though, so not sure how the night is gonna go. We’ll see… But I am EXHAUSTED. Everyone else is in bed already and he’s passed out on top of his toy next to me on the couch. So bed time!

Skinit

Val — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:45:04 +0000

So, the new laptop, right? The lid of it is black and way shiny. Seriously, like a mirror. It was so shiny, it was a problem.

Kayleigh used to bang on my old laptop’s lid while it was open. I don’t think it suffered any problems because of this, and of course, the screen works fine, but I’m always paranoid. I was hoping she wouldn’t bang on this one, it didn’t have some pretty picture on it. (The old one.) But the mirror proved too much for her to resist. When she was out playing, she was always over here, looking at it, touching it, rubbing it, pulling the power cord out (ugh), etc. Already there’s a little tiny scratch. So I figured, ok, suck it up and buy a skin.

Took me a long time to get it done, or at least a long time by my scrapping standards. I had a different theme in mind but couldn’t find the right photos so I pushed Stacey to getting photos of the kids. It’s really hard to get good pictures of Kayleigh where she’s looking and smiling – really, that’s a major feat. I didn’t want to use the last good picture of them, mainly because it’s on canvas and I already see it several times a day. So I finally got a picture of the two of them, didn’t even have to do any face swaps. However, I did have to remove my arm and part of my foot from the photo! My kids for ya. Kayleigh was constantly on the move, as usual, you can’t keep her attention for more than a quarter of a second, I am not kidding. And Elijah, bless his heart, was trying so hard… too hard. He ends up trying to hold Kayleigh there then they end up looking so silly because he’s holding down her arms or legs or whatever and she’s screaming to be released.

Once I got the dimensions right of the file and figured out where they were going to cut the hole for the Dell logo, it was easy, it really all fell together. I love it. The only problem is that I got lots of bubbles in it this time. Been a while since I looked at the old one, but I don’t remember having but maybe one small bubble. This one has several and a few creases now where I tried to get the bubbles out but it would only go so far. Not sure why this one should have been harder to apply.

And the best part? Kayleigh hasn’t beat up my laptop at all since I got it. She has pulled out the cord once or twice but I think at least once of those times was an accident. Instead, she comes over, points at herself or lightly touches it, and does her little, “ah-ha-ha” talking thing. Or “ah-who-who.” Then she moves on her way… Score. This, however, does not solve the problem of if I leave it unattended while she’s out to play that she’ll pick up my mouse and throw it…

Farewell to an old chum

Val — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:50:13 +0000

Things did not turn out as I’d hoped. I talked to the vet this morning on the phone and he said he wanted me to come down to talk about Rimshot, that after further observation and research, prognosis did not look good. I started then trying to prepare myself and Elijah for losing him.

Have I ever mentioned that my in-laws are awesome? My mother and father-in-law came in and she stayed with Kayleigh (who hasn’t even noticed that the dog is missing) and my father-in-law, Elijah, and I went down to the vet’s. Steve was at work.

Well, the vet had said yesterday that it was strange that Rimshot’s front legs weren’t working but the back ones were ok. Apparently it usually is the back legs. The outter part of the spine controls the back legs and the inner does the front and he determined it was highly likely that Rimshot had some sort of lesion and clot in the spine already and that it had just been a matter of time before this happened. That maybe when he missed the couch the other day, it sort of activated it. Whatever happened, Rimshot was still paralyzed in the front. He said that it was possible that within 1-2 weeks he may recover but the chances of that are not good, and then there’s the chance of partial recovery with disability.

He brought Rimshot out to see us and BOY was he excited. He was especially excited to see my father-in-law, they were buddies. We spent some time with him and when the vet came back I signed off to have him put down. The boys went back to the waiting room while the vet took Rimshot back again. When he returned, he told me I was making the right decision. I’m glad we got to see the dog fully alive and say good-bye. I even took a pic with my phone of Elijah and Rimshot, told him he could have it to remember him by – I don’t think I have any other recent ones of the two of them. I had told Elijah that Rimshot was hurt really bad and “dying” though, he doesn’t know that the vet had to do the “dirty work” – I think it’s a bit easier that way. This is his first real experience with death, the people close to us who have died did so when he was too little to remember and we’ve had no other pets.

Elijah was just wailing and such, so they went back to the house while I waited and then my father-in-law came back for me and the body. He has since taken The Box home with him and is going to bury him and when Steve gets home from work, we’ll have a little doggie funeral.

Elijah wailed for a while more here at home but I’ve finally got him playing some Wii so he’s a bit distracted. Every so often he still says “I miss Rimshot” or “I wish Rimshot was here” or even just, “Oh, Rimshot.” He will be fine in time, I know. It’s really interesting, though, how this boy loves that dog because all he did was harass him and cause that poor dog grief and then yell something like, “UGH, I need a dog that respects me!”

I am not without tears. I’ve been crying off and on since I found out that he was hurt. When I realized that it wasn’t just a hurt paw that would go away in a few hours, I think I knew where this was headed.

So farewell, old friend, we’ve been allies in this house of crazy people for 10 years now and I’m really gonna miss you.