Baby Shower Details x 2!

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending two baby showers. One was for my friend Wendy and one was given to me by friends/co-workers. I took some detail shots at both. I was a little excited for both so I didn't really stop and take time to adjust the settings on my camera. :/ Oh well, hopefully you will still be able to see how adorable each one was.

Here are some images from Wendy's baby shower. These are two of Ginger's cute room!!




Centerpieces at the tables - cute!


Wendy's friend had a "Onesie decoration station". Here is the one I made:


Here is the one Al made. :)


Cute cupcakes for dessert.


Here are some detail shots from my work baby shower. Here is a gorgeous diaper cake my boss' wife made me. It had a cute puppy blanket on top, but this is the worst picture of it. :/ Again, I was too excited. :)


Another diaper cake from Jackie:


My boss' wife (and friend) Andrea made these. She is sooooo creative! She gave me the pacifiers and outfits to take home. Too cute!








And last but not least, Baby Riley's first cake. ;)

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Blessings...

I'm so blessed...

Do you remember our cross wall?


I try to collect a cross when we go some place special (even if it's the fair!). My husband came home safely from his Tennessee work trip and brought back this beautiful cross to add to our collection. It's made with jade stones and this picture does not do it justice, but it made me think:


I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful husband (and not just because of the cross he brought back), but because he's a good man and I went through a lot of heartache before him. I know how lucky I am.

I'm so blessed to be 30 weeks pregnant as of today.

I'm so blessed to walk, talk, listen, smell, taste, etc...

I'm so blessed with great family and friends. I have a friend's baby shower this weekend that I'm excited for and then my boss' (is that the correct grammar?) wife and two co-workers/friends are giving me my work shower on Sunday - at my boss' house! I think that's pretty special and I'm very grateful. It will be a fun weekend full of blessings here and there.

I'm blessed to have those of you who stop by my blog to peek or even leave a kind word. I truly appreciate it and feel happy when I see a comment waiting approval. :)

So many blessings...take some time this weekend and think about all that you are blessed for. We take so much for granted.

Have a wonderful weekend friends, family, and blog friends!!

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Shelly and Cindy - WE DO!!

Yesterday Al and I photographed a wedding of two beautiful women and their families and friends. I say that because this was not a "normal" wedding - and I'm not referring to the fact that it was a same-sex couple. It was not "normal" because you could feel that this was more of a celebration than most weddings - a celebration of support and love and leaving your personal beliefs at the door. EVERYONE at this wedding truly wanted to be there to support Shelly and Cindy. I think Cindy said it best when she said something along these lines, "There are some McCain/Palin supporters here..." (a big boo from the crowd broke out! LOL),.."but that's OK, we love you and we thank you for coming to celebrate this special day with us. There are also some people here who have Christian beliefs where they might not agree with this, but we love you too and we thank you for coming to celebrate this special day with us." She said it with a LOT more grace and sentiment than that, but that's the summary of what I remember about it and it was beautiful and honest and touching.

There were soooo many special moments about this day - too many to recount, but I will mention one at the end of this blog after we see some of the details and memories of the day...











I love this image because Cindy and one of her granddaughters was smelling the flowers and Cindy said, "We need to take time to stop and smell the flowers, don't we?" It was just a beautiful sentence that I was fortunate to overhear and I thought to myself, "What a great grandma to be blessed with."


Both families were BEAUTIFUL! This is Melina, Cindy's daughter and the woman who we initially set up the wedding with. Thank you for making us feel at home, Melina, and thank you for the sweet e-mail last night. :) Melina with one of her two beautiful children:


This picture makes me smile because this is Colleen (hope I spelled that correctly) who helped organize not just the flower girls (and you can see what a task that was!) but other details of the day and she was AMAZING under pressure. She was so sweet to us in informing of us the day and when we had questions for her. She acted as coordinator and I'm not sure if that is her regular job, but if not, it should be. We have dealt with professional coordinators and one who was a complete nightmare to us. It's always nice to feel like a guest with a fancy camera at a wedding instead of "hired help". Thank you for your help, Colleen.


Just one view of the crowd from a balcony above:


You can tell that family is very important to both of these women. One of the grandkids:


I love this image of Shelly because this is WHO SHE IS. She is an extrovert and LIVES life. You can tell just by being around her. And she is full of love and friendship for everyone. Even Al and I got a kiss like this from her when we were leaving for the evening. :)


Another image I love. One of the son's (I think it was Anthony) was toasting Cindy and Shelly. He was talking about Shelly's fun, outgoing personality and said, "Raise your hand if you've been kissed on the lips by Shelly." A bunch of people raised their hands! LOL Then he said, "Raise your hand if Shelly has told you that she had a sexual dream and that you were in it." A roaring laughter came over the crowd and again, a bunch of people raised their hands! It was hilarious!! :)


Cindy surprised Shelly with a cake. Shelly was kinda disappointed that it wasn't "the baby blue Bentley with the white interior" that she wanted. Again, another hilarious moment! :)




And the kids had their own cupcakes! :)


Shelly and Cindy, thank you and your families for making us feel welcome on your special day. Congratulations to both of you!







The other special moment that I referred to at the beginning of the blog? During the ceremony, Shelly and Cindy played Genesis' "Follow You Follow Me" and SANG it during the ceremony. It was beautiful and what made it even more amazing was when the families joined in on the chorus. I had never seen anything like it and it actually brought tears to my eyes (could be the pregnancy too ;)). Anyway, I don't have too many photos edited yet as I'm working on Jenna's and Brian's wedding images, but I decided to post the ones I had to a slideshow and play the song the brides and family sang during the ceremony...

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Pregnancy stages...

This is soooo embarrassing to post, but I know I'll probably regret not posting these once I get my body back.

I forgot to take a picture last week at 7 months so this tummy is a week bigger. I think I have the oddest shaped tummy when it comes to pregnancy. It kinda indents where my belly button is. Maybe it will pop out like a balloon within the next month?

Excuse the bad photoshop on the last picture. Al thought it would be best to photoshop my bow off my pants because it looked funny and I was not about to spend a lot of time getting it perfectly.

4 months


5 months


6 months 2 days


29 weeks

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Baby K - Slideshow

I had to give little Baby K his own blog entry! He was such a cutie pie. His parents were awesome too! He's a lucky boy! This post has some of my images and Al's.

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STOP Animal Cruelty!!!!

As you know, I only post things on my blog that I truly believe in or am completely honest about. Those who visit here often know how I feel about shelter animals vs pet store/puppy mills/even some breeder's animals. Now you will learn how I feel about Proposition 2.

Please, please, please watch this video and then vote YES on Prop 2. PLEASE WATCH IT so that you are informed. Not watching it because you don't want to be disturbed is not fair to those who cannot choose for themselves. Turning your head to something you are uncomfortable with DOES NOT MAKE IT GO AWAY. Please be informed and please know what is happening to some farm animals. It's not right and it breaks my heart and boils my blood. May God Bless the animals that have suffered and the animals that are currently suffering. May California voters support this so that every creature has a right to humane treatment.

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Jennifer and Jay - Engagement Slideshow

Whew! I've finished two sessions in the past two days! It feels good to cross some things off the "to-do" list! I've also posted a new Riley update if anyone is interested!

Here are a few of Jen and Jay's session that you've seen and some that you haven't seen. These are all the images that I am giving them - this doesn't even include Al's!

Again, it was such a wonderful day and when I look at these images I think happy thoughts! Congratulations again to Jen and Jay! We are so happy for you!!

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Jen and Jay - Engagement - 2nd Round

I told myself that I was going to get through these later this week as I have too many things to do right now. But I decided just to take a look through them tonight and key my favorites so that I could just work on those when I was ready. Usually I have maybe 8-10 favorites, but going through these photos I came up with something around 70!! I'm going to weed those down of course, but there were too many cute ones that popped up that I decided to go ahead and work on some.

Looking through these images, I find myself finding new things in Jay's ink. I don't know where he goes, but he's got some GREAT work on his arms! I'll definitely be asking for a referral from him when the baby is born and I'm done breastfeeding. Yes, Mom, if you're reading this I do plan on getting two more tattoos (in case you didn't know). Does it make you feel better if one is going to be a cross?! ;)

So here is Jen and Jay, round two. I'm hoping to have the rest done Monday or Tuesday evening and then I'll post the majority of the ones you haven't seen (along with some of these) in a slideshow!

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Jenna and Brian - WE DO!! (Sneak Peek)

Al and I spent the majority of yesterday afternoon/evening photographing Jenna and Brian's big day! Al did a great job summarizing the adventures of the day so you can read more about it on his blog. I just wanted to get some images up for Jenna and Brian in case they checked this before they leave on their honeymoon.

Congratulations Jenna and Brian! You two are PERFECT for each other - I never say things in my blog that I don't mean, so you can bet that it's true when I say that the love you both have for each other shows in the way you treat each other. It's really, really beautiful. I hope you two have many happy, healthy years together! VIVA LAS VEGAS...and please, have a FEW drinks for me. It's been quite some time now and I can almost taste the libations. ;) Have a fantastic time!!



The M&M's (in the trail mix) buzz is starting to wear off...




Jenna minus groom:


Brian minus bride:




"It's BridesMAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!"


A happy dad, bride and groom...


Mr. and Mrs. Olson!

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