Best Dr. Appointment EVER!!

Al and I had our genetic counseling appointment and ultrasound today. I have been somewhat anxious about this. On one hand I felt that nothing would be wrong, on the other hand, I felt that if there was something wrong, it was meant to be and God doesn’t give one so much that he/she can’t handle. Though I am happy to report, that God blessed us with a healthy baby so far.

Ever since I sat down in the Dr.’s office around 7 weeks along, I’ve been concerned about being “high risk” (the Dr.'s and society’s words). I knew there really wasn’t anything in our family to be concerned about, but I’ve never had the greatest luck so I figured that I might be one of the “older” mothers that might be surprised with something. As time went by, I felt that everything was going to be fine, but you still think about it every so often.

We sat down with the genetic counselor and she went over my blood results. My chances for having a baby with Down’s, Trisomy 18 and Smith-Lemli-Optiz Syndrome were considerably less than what they were “supposed” to be at my age. She said that I could compare the results of my blood tests to being the age of someone in my late 20’s. That is MUSIC to my ears – especially if we try for another one.

I am so blessed and I must have thanked God a few times today. Without further ado, here’s Baby Q! P.S. The technician said that you couldn't see anything in these sonograms that she gave us. For those of you who think you can, please do not share your thoughts with us. We have gone to great lengths NOT to find out the sex of our baby. :) You can also read Al's version of everything here!

First one is just a normal pose and second one he/she is lifting his/her arm:




I LOVE this one – Baby Q is sucking his/her thumb! Look it at the little fingers!!!!! Wow!


I love this one too – a little foot action going on here! This foot is ADORABLE!!!! But I know I’m biased. My friend Geri said that since I love taking feet shots, Baby Q must have known that! LOL

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Michelle & Gabriel - WE DO!! (Part Two)

This post is going to be a hodge-podge of sorts...I'm going to be busy the rest of the week so I just had to pick and choose some of the ones that "caught my eye" in case I'm not able to post again later this week.

More of the "getting ready" moments:






Beautiful details - from Michelle's gorgeous bouquet to one of the maternity photos we took of them:




Rarely do Al and I get the same types of shots, but we had limited times with the rings so we had to make do with as much of our own version that we could get (you can see his ring shot and some AWESOME images on his blog):


Some sweet shots of Gabriel looking at Michelle:




And as cheesy as this is, I had to do it:

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Michelle & Gabriel - WE DO!!

What a fantastic day with some fantastic people! I could go on and on posting images tonight but I am tired. Michelle is such a sweetie - she kept making sure I wasn't hungry or if I had enough water to drink or whatnot. I finally had to tell her, "you need to worry about YOU today!" :)

Just a few sneak peeks from getting ready with the girls in the hotel room (her friends are AWESOME, by the way!). I'll post some more later this week, but for now, the bride to be and some details...



The world doesn't stop just because one lil 'ol girl is getting married:




I love this one of Amy. Her little girl was saying "Hi" to Michelle on speakerphone:






My kinda girl...cowgirl boots on your wedding day:






She's gorgeous:


More to come later...

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Ali's Baby Shower (details)

Today I attended a baby shower for my cousin (my cousin's wife, really) Ali's baby shower. Our family is expecting Baby Lucy next month! We're all so excited and happy for Ali, Jayson, and little Jackson!

Her shower was BEAUTIFUL! I believe that her mom, aunt, and friend did almost everything - from the decorations to the tea sandwiches to the handmade truffles! Everything was so beautiful and amazing and I'm so glad I had my 50mm 1.2 with me to "practice" today. Here are some of the amazing details from her shower:











Water for the tables were in these cute bottles:


Soooo cute!!

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Two different kinds of love...

Remember this gorgeous couple from the maternity session Al and I photographed?






Well, they weren't really clients - they are our friends! And they were expecting their little baby boy in about a month and a half back then...and now they are getting married this Sunday and that little baby boy is going to have a part in the wedding!!!!! Al and I are photographing their special day and I don't think I've been this excited about a shoot in a long time! I'm soooo happy for them! It's going to be a kick a$$ day at such a cool location and I just love that we'll be photographing our friends. It's nice to become friends with clients and then work with them again and have that feeling, but there's such a nice feeling to already be friends with your "clients" and enjoy the day that much more! I am soooo incredibly excited!

But there could be one more reason for that excitement...

I've seen some UNREAL images of wedding and when taken with a 50mm 1.2 lens, it seemed to enhance the images that much more. I rented one of those bad boys from borrowlenses.com just for Michelle and Gabriel's big day. I wanted to get some awesome images and although I know two of my other lenses can shine in their own special range, I expect this 50mm 1.2 to BRING IT! I've heard the good, the bad, and the ugly about this lens, but most of it has been great, so I decided to rent it for a week and see how it performs. I'm also excited because my cousin Ali's baby shower is this weekend, so she and her friends and the gifts are going to be the guinea pigs for my new little (rented) friend! :)-

I decided to test it out tonight on some items. I focused on the "Friends" in this little plaque and look at the incredible drop off the rest of it had when I dropped it to 1.2! LOVE it!!!!


I hope I don't fall in love with it though...it's got a pretty expensive price tag. :/

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Some random thoughts about Baby Q...

Well, the excitement of being pregnant has finally given way to the disappointment of getting bigger - not just in the belly but in other places too. I've tried to start eating better this week, and I almost wish for the nausea back. ALMOST! It was so much easier not to eat and not gain any weight then. Don't worry, I'm not going to starve myself (I don't have the willpower ;)), and I do know that I need to be healthy for Baby Q. It's just a little depressing when your body doesn't seem "yours" anymore. :/

I will tell you that there are a few things that I can't have or can't do that I miss.

I would KILL for coffee. Well, not kill, but you know what I mean. I miss it so much. I'm paranoid to even have decaf coffee. I might break down towards the end of the pregnancy and have a cup or two here and there, but I don't know. I am allowed to have a limited amount of caffeine, but since I'm "high risk" (35), I have stayed away from it so that I don't chance anything.

I also miss running. I took up running a couple of years ago and have run 2 5K's. I was supposed to run a 10K in September, but that's out. Oh well, it just gives me something to look forward to when I have Baby Q. I'll be able to get back into it and sign up for a race to make sure I get back on track!

I really, really, really miss hot dogs!! I never ate them that much, but now that I can't have them I have some really crazy Weinerschnitzel (sp?) cravings!! When I can eat them again I am going to order a mustard dog, a deluxe dog, and a chili cheese dog. And fries. And a chocolate shake. Oh yes I am. :)

We have Baby Q's name picked out - whether he is a boy or whether she is a girl. I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the name (Al does too) but we aren't telling anyone. We only have to change the middle name depending on the gender. I'd love to hear your guesses. :)- I'm not telling, though. :)---- It's funny, when I talk to Baby Q, I still say "Baby Q". I don't call he/she by his/her name yet. Isn't that kind of weird if we already have the name picked out?

Al sent me flowers at work today - for no reason. I am so blessed to have someone like him in my life and I'm fully aware of it. I hope he still does those types of things in front of Baby Q as he/she grows. I want Baby Q to be someone thoughtful like that or if she's a girl, I want her to be treated like that - not to "expect" it, but to know how wonderful it is to be treated that way - and to not take it for granted.

Last random thought. Since we've announced we're having a baby we've received lots of warm wishes and kind words. I think the two kindest things I've heard have been from two of our animal shelter friends. Our friend Adele told me that she's so thankful that "there is going to be another animal lover in the world." I just LOVED that and it still makes my heart happy. And our friend Cathy wrote, "he or she will be so blessed with not just wonderful parents but parents who will teach him or her compassion, kindness and the important to have a reverence for life - all sentient beings." I feel so thankful that people see that of us. I think it's more important to have great character than to have great things. I love that we are known to have a heart for animals that can't speak or help themselves. And I'm certainly going to try to pass that on to Baby Q. I hope he/she embraces unselfish giving - and I hope that some of it falls towards animals. I'm sure I'll have many wishes for him/her, but that just might be the first.

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Gigi Hill Bags

Today I met up with Gabrielle and Monica of Gigi Hill bags to take a few new images of their bags for their website. These ladies started Gigi Hill bags about three years ago and are working full-time at it since then! They've been very successful in store and home parties and have been featured in some magazines and newspapers! They are about to start a full-fledged PR campaign, so I can only imagine that they are going to sell out of even more bags soon!

We met up at Huntington Beach. It's right in my backyard and I hardly go there. It was beautiful today and I realize that I take HB for granted and sometimes forget how lucky we are to live in Southern California where there are so many great places right at our doorstep.

Product photography isn't easy. At least not for me - I'm more of a people portraits person. You can't "direct" a bag or whatnot and tell it how to turn or to tilt this way or to keep it's handle's up ;), and you can't really process the images in the funky, artsy way that you'd like to - the products have to come across just as they are. It's more work than it may seem.

Here a few sneak peaks...










And although I'm not a huge fan of this shot, it cracks me up. I like to call it "Gigi Hill Bags go for a ride."

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Pregnancy Tummy - 5 months, 1 day

Here I am in all my glory. Blech. Again, I must be crazy to post these for the world to see. But as Al says and I agree, I'd regret it later if I didn't have these photos. And one day, if this blog is still around, Baby Q will be able to see it on his/her blog and Mom's. I'll update Baby Q's blog later. There are several posts about him/her that I put on here that I haven't copied there yet.

Baby Q is somewhere in this tummy along with some Yard House BBQ chicken pizza and brownie sundae from last night. Yes, I splurged last night because honey had a gift certificate and well, baby wanted a brownie sundae. I didn't, baby did. And you know, baby gets what baby wants right now. ;)



Last month:

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Fun with Photoshop

Our friend Sherif sent us a link from Flickr about techniques that compare to the ones that Dave Hill and Jill Greenberg use. I think the example they give looks more like Dave Hill, but what do I know when it comes to selective Flickr groups and their love of intense Photoshop manipulation?

I gave it a try and although it doesn't look completely like the examples shown or even remotely close to what Dave Hill does (his work is AWESOME!), I do like the "look" of it for images every now and then. Whether you like it or not when you get done with it, or it looks like the originals or not at all - it's always fun to give something a try and possibly learn some new tricks in the process!

Before:


After:


Can anyone give me some tips about how to make it more "Dave Hill-like"? I'd love to know!

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Does this baby make me look fat?

I had a 19 1/2 week check-up with the Dr. today. I gained 10 lbs since my last visit. That's correct people, I wrote 10 LBS!!!!

I was totally depressed. I even broke down and cried to Al tonight who says I look beautiful and says you can't even tell. Who knows if he's being truthful or not. :/ It's crazy because the butt and legs in my pants still fit, the only thing that doesn't is the midsection where I button them. The weight gain has definitely migrated mostly there and to my breasts - which are a whole different blog post in themselves! Goodness gracious! Anywho, I think it's mostly in those spots, but who knows. My body has completely left me behind in this whole process. I'm trying to catch up and wonder what is what and what "that feeling" is here and there. Pregnancy is crazy.

I'm also trying to tell myself that I've only gained 14 lbs total in almost 20 weeks. I think that's why I was so shocked. I only had gained 1 to 2 lbs my last few appts and I was scared I wasn't going to gain. Well, I guess it finally caught up like they said it would. :/

You're pregnant up to 40 weeks so if I stay on track, I'll gain the average or under (the average is 35-45 depending on who you listen to). I don't know if I will gain that amount or less (let's hope not more!), but I will definitely be making dates with my 24 Hour Fitness gym card again. I have a maternity session date with Ohana Photography in October and even though David and Kimi work magic with their lenses, I need to show up and do my part and look presentable. So Baby Q, be prepared for a few more apples and a lot less Hostess cupcakes.

At least until the next Dr. appt. ;)

Al will still be taking a 5 month picture of me this weekend, so let's all be prepared. :/

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Christian (and AL!) featured in Country Weekly!

I am sooooo excited for my friends Christian and Jessica and for Al - Christian is going to be featured in the August 25th issue of Country Weekly - and my hubby took the photograph that they chose! For those of you who aren't country music lovers, Country Weekly is like People magazine for us country folk. ;)

Not sure if you can see the binding, but it says "Christian Simmons courtesy of Albert Quackenbush"! So with my "Best of Photography 2008" annual and his magazine - we're both being published this year!

Country Weekly is huge in the country world and it's huge that Christian is featured and it's huge that Al's photograph from one of our last sessions (you can see the original photo and more on his blog) with them was chosen! Congrats Christian, Jess, and Al! Yee haw! ;)

Here's Al's photo in the magazine! And you can check out Christian here!


Here's the original photo!


It will be in the issue with this cover in case you get a chance to pick it up!

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