5,4,3,2,1...

finally. :) The moon, the sun, and the stars all aligned (just for this, I am sure) and ta-da, I have a new website. I hope you love it as much as I do. Use the arrows under the images to go forward and backward. Use the buttons on top to move to a different menu. Use the contact page if you want to tell me just how rockin' it is. Kidding. Sort of. :)

There is a session coupon floating out there in the world. If you have one, it's still good until it's expiration date, despite the price changes. All sessions booked before the price change, were booked under the previous prices.

Standard sessions and printing are no longer offered. I think that owning your own files is just a much better deal for everyone. So, on that note, if you had a standard session in the past, you may purchase a CD of your digital negatives for the sale price of $100 through July 15th. All sessions older than 3 months will be purged. I need to clear some room!

Also, thank you so much for your interest, but I am no longer taking wedding commissions (for this or next year).

HUGE thank you to my clients how have been so supportive and kept me busy, addicted to Ambien, and loving what I do. You refer me to your friends and you come back to me for seconds and I am truly, truly thankful.

There is a new slideshow on the new site. Hope you enjoy it. :)

If the stars align and the moon is not void of course…

then sometime late, late tonight, I may have a fancy pants new website up. We shall see. But if it does work out, then maybe tomorrow at this time, I won’t feel so upside down. :) Love these guys......

Happy Birthday, Little Man...

This is exactly how I eat birthday cake too. Naked down to my underwear, sitting outside in a wagon, eating it by the fistful. I guess I don't usually feed other people though.

I don't usually photograph birthday parties--not even my own kids as I let my husband take care of that, but mom is a dear friend who would never ever make my invitation conditional upon bringing my camera, but was so appreciative when I offered to catch this little moment so she and dad could be fed cake from the grubby hands of a just turned 1 year old, instead of being stuck to their camera. :)

de-boarding this crazy train

Okay, so I thought that I would have my June OPAM done by now with no problem. Seriously, how hard could putting two pictures in frames really be? I even had a mat custom cut and the whole shebang--this is big time for me, but it just didn’t quite work out the way I had thought. I don’t have the images back from my own May family shoot yet (though if you are super interested in seeing these, shoot me an email and I’ll get you the link and password to the proofing slideshow…….really?? You’re that bored???) and I am rethinking what I really want on those walls I stare at every single day. I still have hope in my heart though that one day my living room will have more on the walls then cardboard in frames. A girl can dream (and shoot for the moon!!!). But, I am thinking this One Project A Month Thing and I are parting ways, right here, right now. If you enjoyed any success though, I would love to see. I have a dozen before pictures that people sent, but no one has sent me an after. Maybe this is your way of telling me that you are in the same place I am. :) And I love you anyway.

So, a tiny little peek from last weekend’s wedding instead. And, yes, my voice has now returned. Ah, the ability to speak---highly underrated. :)

AWOL

Never got my voice back. Big thanks to a few of the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, and the personal attendants who translated for me and allowed me to whisper in their ear all day Saturday and then yelled my instructions out with class and gusto and bravado and everything else I would like to think that I myself use when I am instructing people.

I am also pretty thrilled with the medical services available to people traveling through Nebraska, and the good people who work at the drive-thru Starbucks who try their hardest to understand your whispered order and just let you pull around instead of yelling at you to come inside. But that’s neither here nor there.

I have a sinus infection and continue to be riding the NyQuil roller coaster. Hope to be off the sauce soon.

My friend Jen finished the Avon Walk this past weekend. So, huge thanks to my blog readers that donated. Also, I guess that means that we don't get a refund since she did it. :) In all seriousness, I am so proud of her and I am so thrilled to have not only people who read this blog, but also people who threw some money this way. Thank you.

I bought a new vacuum yesterday. Oh yeah……we’re living the high life over here. Somehow I thought maybe this would fix my inability to breath currently, but so far, I am just tired from no longer having an excuse to not vacuum and have yet to notice a direct effect. So, I gave-up on the whole “clean air” idea and instead took more NyQuil at 8pm yesterday and cashed out before the sun went down. Which leads me to…….

I’ll have some pictures posted from the wedding last weekend soon, but I am still trying to wrap-up Jimmy and Heathers beautiful wedding and a couple of sessions before I unleash the next dragon.

eggs over easy, everything's peachy..

In about week, that title will make sense. Or you could go here if the suspense is killing you.

If you’re newish car starts making enough noise to sound like it’s about to blow-up just outside of Julesburg (read: middle of nowhere), and you panic and spend 114 miles totally freaked out about it, because there is nothing else you can do (because, see, you are in the middle of nowhere), and you make it to the North Platte Toyota dealership, it’s possible they will tell you that this entire about-to-blow-up-sound was caused by a 1 inch x 1 inch piece of plastic that had fallen off of the bottom of your car. They will refer to this life or death part as a “clip” and replace it for $5.71 and 4 minutes of your time. They will also think it’s pretty weird that you were worried about it, and tell you, I kid you not, “Honey, you could drive 100,000 more miles with that piece missing and it ain’t gonna make a lick of difference—if the noise bothers you, just turn up the radio”. This little lick of difference will keep your car from sounding like the engine is about to seize up and drop out, leaving you completely stranded and left for dead on the side of I-80. Hypothetically.

286 songs is not a long enough playlist to get you 400 miles.

I have lost my voice, but I am not going to panic. I shot this and these without a voice and I am okay with how they turned out, so worse things have happened, right? RIGHT??? Perhaps it’s actually a good thing—the world telling me that I am just a little too obnoxious when I have the ability to speak. (Insert your own singing in the car joke here.) However, cup-half-full-aside, I would really like to have the ability to talk tomorrow, so if someone is willing to sacrifice some good karma and send it my way in hopes of me getting it back tomorrow, I would really appreciate it. I am willing to offer up a months worth of my own good karma in trade starting Monday. Gotta make sure I get home with my new plastic clip in tact before I start giving all my good karma away. :)

mini session sneak peek

Serious cutie who was seriously cute.





I will be leaving early tomorrow for the land of Kool-Aid (originally called Fruit Smack...seriously doesn't that just sound cool?), corn, and the wedding of Matt & Tina. When I return, I will open up my fall schedule and get my new and improved site (and blog....shhh--don't tell) ready to go.

I will be on I-80 for about 300 miles tomorrow as part of a 400 mile trip. For those of you who don't know, this means that tomorrow I will be going through a 300 mile cornfield. If you are waiting for a call back from me or needing to talk to me on the phone, tomorrow is the time to do it. No doubt I will be pretty sick of singing to myself 4 hours in and may be a little desperate for the company. :) So if I randomly call you and start singing into your voicemail box, now you know why. Promise me you'll just erase it and go on with your day as though nothing happened.

Have a great weekend. :)

The most tremendous thing I have ever seen. Really.

Every Wednesday morning I have a standing date with my wonderful friend Jen (not to be confused with my fantastic friend, Jenn, or my amazing friend, Jennifer....I am looking into getting them all t-shirts or something) for coffee. We pick a new place every week and it's always some independent place (because I guess that, according to her, Starbucks is the devil or something....whatever), which means that I get to see some nooks and alleys of Boulder that I normally would have missed out on. We get together and we talk about art, music, and the meaning of life. Nah, I'm kidding--we talk about the best way to load a dishwasher and who would win if competed in a fastest diaper changer contest. Today we talked a little about baking, but I am not proud of that.

And it's usually better coffee than Starbucks, but I would never admit that out loud.

Today, we found this alley, featuring what can only be described as "Rooftop Art". My iPhone camera really doesn't do it justice. Of course, no camera could do justice to a fake flower filled shopping cart mounted to a slide on a roof. There was also a lobster attached to a sewing machine, a bunny on a rocket, and a real hair braid attached to a rocking horse. Obviously.

The next time I joke about jumping off of a roof, you'll find me on this one. I'll be in the shopping cart on the slide.

I can't think of a cute title for this post. Sorry.

Lately I have been getting into half.com, a division of eBay, that sells used books, movies, video games, and CDs. And while sometimes I know that I am getting way too good of a deal and for sure some things on there are a "fell off of the back of a truck" discount, I still think it's an awesome site. I use it mainly for books, especially children's books, as lately I have been getting into reading the books I enjoyed as a kid to my own children. Turns out that I am so old, most of what I liked is now out of print. Apparently I really know how to pick a classic. But this site always has it.

Anyway, sometimes around here it feels like we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for new books to read that are interesting to them and not mind-numbing to me, but these recent purchases have all been big hits. So, if you too are searching for something to read to little ones that doesn't make you sleepier than you already are, give these a whirl.

And yes, I have heard of a library. But I like owning them too. :)

If You're Afraid Of The Dark, Remember The Night Rainbow by Cooper Edens
A little creepy, but beautifully illustrated. My grandmother who was wonderful in every single way, because as my mom says, you don't go enter Sainthood until you are dead, used to read this to me. :)

Grover Goes To School by Dan Elliot
An oldie, but a goodie. Helped us a lot with the whole school thing. "Just be yourself....you are very lovable." :)

I Like Noisy, Mom Likes Quiet by Eileen Spinelli
It's funny 'cause it's true. Really cute.

You Are To Me by Rebecca Doughty
When my son was around a year old, I used to take him to a storytime at the Longmont Library and there was the most wonderful woman who did the Lap-sit storytime (also named Rebecca). She read this often. She passed away in March of cancer, leaving a husband and a 7 year old child. This little piece of the world that she gave to me and my kids I will never forgot and I always think of her and her child when I read it. Hopefully she knew how much wonderful purpose she provided to so many children beyond her own.

Children's books. They're easier to read than the bigger ones without pictures. Getcha some. ;)

The kid is a year old....let's give her a name already.

Last Saturday, my first ever Shabbat service (I am sure many of you are shocked to learn that I had yet to experience Shabbat until now), also served as a baby naming ceremony for this adorable baby girl. The service took place at the Vail Chapel, as part of the B’Nai Vail Congregation. I have to say that for someone who had never before uttered the words “Shalom”, I have never before felt more welcome by a group of people. And it was a beautiful day for baby Hannah. I am sure she is glad to finally have a name. :) Kidding--she has had one since birth.

Big Sister: "Lynsey, I gonna miss you."

Me: "I gonna miss you too, Kid."

Big Sister: "Can I move the hair out of your eyes so you don't get sunburned?"

Wow, that moment was over quick.