jodified

Did I leave the wedding 3 hours ago, get lost, drive for an hour, end up in a scary part of town, get propositioned by a man calling me "Ms. Lady" while I asked for directions, find the hotel, grab a snack, upload the images, edit two and get a sneak peek up already?

HECK YES I DID!

Man. Today has been a whirlwind but WOW was the wedding gorgeous and WOWOWOW was the bride beautiful!

Heading out to meet Chris and our friends for dinner… so only two images tonight…

Thanks Henry family for an amazing time… more soon!

My kids are still at the age, all of them, that if they are "hiding" and can't see me then they assume I can't see them. And since I can't SEE you I'm going to assume you can't see me posting tonight, at 11pm, when I am supposed to be on a hiatus!

I just HAD to give my sweet friend Christine a sneak peek tonight, from her HOT HOT HOT session earlier. HOT as in, it was 100 degrees and we all were sweating buckets! And knowing her, I'm sure she went home thinking we got nothing good… so I wanted to prove her wrong right away and ease her mind since MAN can that girl plan a session! Seriously, the outfits and the props were totally amazing!

Here's your sneak peek Christine!

Quite possibly my new favorite family image!

Oh yes. Christine totally brought a mini grand piano to her session! Love it!

And to show you how sometimes it's all about the details… see if you can find what I took out of the original photo that just distracted my eye too much…

Did you find it? Just proves that I really really pay attention to details sometimes!

AND… to prove JUST HOW HOT IT WAS TONIGHT…

 Do you see that sweat droplet? I really can't even describe the way my pants were sticking to my legs or how I was praying a sprinkler would just randomly pop on somewhere nearby! Oh St. Louis summer. Welcome.

Thanks Christine and family for a fun session tonight! So good not to be rained out for once this week! And thanks for the Dew! HA!

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Tomorrow we leave for Kansas City and although laundry isn't done, the house is a mess, Bailey threw up tonight and I have three errands to run in the morning, we are SO ready to get outta town! It'll be the first trip away from the kids since I was pregnant with Parker! And we're staying in a SUITE downtown! And some of our closest friends are coming in from KY to hang out with us all weekend! And I get to shoot a sweet wedding, an engagement session, two crazy brothers and a tiny newborn! If I can stay awake at night I will officially break my NON-hiatus and let you know how the trip goes!

go to this AWESOME event my mom helps run…

It really is awesome, and I'm not just saying that b/c my mom is awesome, which she is, but i swear it's awesome all by itself. Live music (kid friendly music), great and affordable silent auction, children's area and amazing food! And it's CHEAP! Seriously, if we weren't out of town this year I would be helping run it too! And it benefits an incredible organization!

ALSO… check out this link HERE. It's an article detailing an accident that happened outside our house  Monday that Chris and the kids witnessed. C was the second person on scene to help the man. Our kids SAW THE WHOLE THING which freaks me out beyond belief. Praying hard that their young eyes won't remember seeing a man fly out of his car and die on the pavement in front of them. Praying hard for that.

And now back to my blogging hiatus! HA!

When I was pregnant with Bailey it was obviously our first baby but she was also the first grandchild on either side of our family. Therefore none of us were well versed in anything pregnancy related, especially ultrasounds. We saw Bails for the first time when I was 8 weeks pregnant and when I brought the photos home to show Chris he got all excited that we were having a BOY! Until I asked him why in the world he thought it was a boy and he pointed to the umbilical cord… which he thought was, ahem, you know.

It was hilarious b/c all you really saw was this peanut shaped THING with a line connected to it. Thus we started calling the baby PEANUT. 

When I meet new parents who also call their unborn baby Peanut it always reminds me of that day in our tiny little kitchen in Spokane, Washington when Chris and I almost wet our pants at him thinking the umbilical cord was the big sign we were having a boy! Those were such magical times. The first months of marriage. All alone, so far from home. Love it.

Anyway, Susie and Aaron are waiting to see if their little Peanut is a BOY or GIRL so the name Peanut has stuck for their entire pregnancy I guess! Love that too! Here are some more photos from last night's session…

 Susie wasn't sure about showing her belly but oh my goodness have you ever seen a cuter one?

A friend recently called me an "environmental photographer" and the
more I shoot and the more I see my work come through during post
processing the more I think she's right. I am more inspired by my
environment and love to show my clients IN their environment, wherever
that may be, more than I am the actual people. No offense to the
people! I just mean, if you look at all of my work there is a big
tendency to zoom out and show you WHERE the people ARE in the world.
Does that make sense? An entire blog post will be devoted to this idea
soon… the wheels are turning!

For photogs out there… during my sessions I tend to only pose* people once or twice in each place. I'm a fan of JUST KEEP MOVING. It's not unlikely to walk at least a mile on a session with me b/c everywhere I turn I see a new place to shoot. So when I am in a place like a field, where there aren't any buildings or stairs or rusty things to inspire me I have to keep my people in place and just move myself a bit more. My friend Kim Wiess was along for this session and brought this awesome chair. We set it down and got Susie settled and I started shooting. I'd usually just post one or two of these but here are four shots of her and she's barely moving at all but each shot, to me at least, is totally different. I say this to just encourage you to MOVE around a bit more!

*I say pose loosely b/c usually I just say, "go stand and chat and laugh and just BE together…"

 Man she is beautiful!

I also obviously processed these each a bit differently b/c I'm crazy like that sometimes! HA!

This was kind of a random post considering it was all from one session! Can you tell I'm having more uninterrupted work time with Chris home and my brain is WORKING overtime?

Due to the TORRENTIAL downpours we've had all day my session tonight is postponed. I'm heading back to the hospital later for sweet Wylie and then a long night of design work. Two massive print ads for Kuhn Construction due by Wednesday! Standing right smack on top of all the other work I have on my list!  Thank goodness for my husband and his full-time Daddy status right now! Let's GO!

I tried really hard to capture Gray's birthday with my camera. But I seriously suck at taking photos of my own kids. I mean, I captured the moments which in the end is all I wanted, but I did nothing artistic or creative or even very good technically. Most times it was a miracle that I had my settings close to correct!

It is just really hard for me to put my photographers hat on top of my mommy hat. Both don't seem to fit on my rather large head.

So, even though none of these will WOW you, I want to share some photos from the last two days b/c if nothing else, I know my sister will want to see them! HA!

Friday night we just had a small party with our best friends, the MacBryde family. They have three little girls ages 10 months, 4 and 6, Kevin and Chris coach together and really, we just couldn't ask for a better family to have in our lives. When we're together it just makes me so happy to see how intertwined our lives are. We couldn't ask for better friends!

So for our "party" we just had all of our water toys going outside, the guys were grilling (we grill LOTS of meat each week together so we have cooked meat to eat all week so meals are easier!) and Angie and I were getting dinner together when she shook a bottle of steak sauce in our kitchen not realizing the lid was off! Steak sauce literally went EVERYWHERE! It was dripping from her head, the walls and the table! SO funny! So after we got it all cleaned up she went outside to "wash her hair"!

 We have four kids that live behind us that are older (12 maybe?) and they came over when they saw all the water and Chris came up with this brilliant idea… slide+slip n slide= BIG time fun! So the big girls were holding the hose on the slide and pulling the little girls down! It was hilarious!

What you can't really tell from this photo is that Chris was totally stuck! HA! OMG I almost wet my pants I was laughing so hard! He did finally get down but MAN it was funny while he was stuck up there!

 The girls post-shower to wash the grass and mud off!

So I don't cook much. And I rarely bake. But I spent 4 hours on Friday making two dozen cupcakes and a double layer chocolate cake for his party! No cake smash but we gave him a cupcake and he really could have cared less! All he did was dip a finger in the icing and then lick it off… he never even ate the cake!

Poor guy. He was just so tired!

Kelsey was totally into her cupcake! She has the whole thing in her hand right there! HA! Angie and I decided we definitely need to do a cake smash shoot for her first birthday which hits while we're all in Florida!

It was a great night with great great friends!

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Yesterday we took the kids to the pool in the morning… the pool is becoming an everyday thing and we're all loving it!

Then post-naps we headed to the Race for the Cure… not the big one in downtown St. Louis, but a satellite walk that happens at Des Peres Park (easier for the very young and older crowds and perfect for us) where after the walk we had a little party for Gray with C's entire family…

Uncle Matthew!

 His girlfriend, Betsey… everyone wore party hats! So cute!

I tried to get all three kids together in their CUTE 1, 2, 3 shirts but this was the best I got! UGH!

I WILL be having their photos taken soon by someone else b/c for one month they can wear these shirts before Bails turns 4! And obviously, like I said, I suck at taking my own kid's photo!

C's mom, GoGo, made Gray the cutest quilt to match his bedding she also made him last year! It has all of his nicknames embroidered on it which I love!

One more try at a BIG Elmo cake smash and again he just sort of tasted the icing! But at least I'm in a photo!

And the next and LAST photo of the day that C took makes me so crazy happy…

 It's C's grandpa taking a photo. I just am in love with this image!

It has been a BUSY two days of celebrating but SO great. And today we are going to church with my parents (we go to the same church) and then out to lunch for them to celebrate with Gray! Hopefully naps are in the cards and then tonight I have a maternity session.

I'm still in shock I have a one year old. OH! On his birthday Grayson decided to take 3 independent steps! Walking is right around the corner!

Thanks for all of your birthday wishes for our little man!