Katie and John {A Lavender Crest Wedding}

A couple of weeks ago I made a trip...a trip to IL. I was on my way to shoot Katie and John's wedding. A few months back my BFF Azure got married and her friend Katie saw some of the photos that I took (just for fun) and she loved them so much that she was interested in having me come to shoot her wedding. At first I thought "Is she serious, could she really want me to come all the way there to shoot her wedding." Well she was serious! After some e-mails and some phone conversation it was for sure! I was booked to shoot her wedding! Ok, seriously, how many times have I already said the word wedding?!?! So, October 15th, here I go, on my own on an airplane to IL. I was nervous. I sat next to some guy on the plane that wouldn't speak to me. I tried to nervously make conversation but he wasn't interested, so I sat there and stared out the window thinking. Thinking about what I would say to Katie when I met her for the first time. I finally arrived and Azure was there to greet me with a big hug!
It was finally time for the BIG day. We met up with Katie and her girls at the hotel where they had stayed the night before and she also greeted me with a BIG hug. I then felt comfort. The girls were so much fun getting all dallied up. And then I yelled out to Katie for something and she stopped a minute and just looked at me with this look. She said "I love it when you say my name." Apparently the southern accent is quite popular in the northern part of the world, OR are they making fun of us;) No, I think she loves me! And I love her back! We went on from there to meet the guys at Lavender Crest for some shots, then the girls turn and then it was time for the ceremony. It was truly a touching ceremony. When I am behind my lens, I tend to listen a lot more then I normally do. See, I am a talker! A BIG talker. I will talk your head off. But, when I am behind the lens I listen and hear everything that is going on. I could hear a pen drop, I think. The preacher delivered a wonderful message and then read some vows that Katie and John had written for each other. They were beautiful.
After the ceremony, it was off to take a few more photos and then the fun was on, the reception! It was so much fun and relaxed! I am so truly thankful to have been a part of this special day and I hope you guys LOVE your photos! I can't wait until the next time I visit!

The pumpkin patch+mommy's minor meltdown

So, we went to the pumpkin patch this past Saturday night and it so much needed! After everything that has happened this past week with my little Ayden, and Joe was away hunting I decided I wanted to take the kids to the pumpkin patch. I text Debra to see if her and Whit wanted to come too and she said of course! So here they came and away we went. We had so much fun eating at Burger King (well when we finally decided where we would eat since Ayden is not supposed to have salt or grease and that was the ONLY thing in sight), riding the hayride, hunting pumpkins and just being together. Well at the end of the night Kaleb wanted to make sure that we had plenty of time to do the slide and the jumpy thing so I told him we would. We get back form the pumpkin patch, go over and find out that they are charging $10 per child this year for a wristband! Well guess what! Mommy only brought $40, and I spent $12 at Burger King and $15 to get into the Pumpkin patch. As you can see that does not give me enough to buy 2 writbands and anyway I'm not so sure that at 7:20 at night I want to spend this for you to jump a couple times and slide down a slide. I explain this to Kaleb and he gets very mad! Of course, him and I have always been really close, more like brother and sister and so I get mad back. I start crying and storm off and it's this big dramatic thing;) So the car ride home is a little uneasy as Kaleb tries to tell me sorry a couple of times and I just tell him to be quiet. (I just wasn't ready to talk yet) So I get home and the next day I send Debra a FB message apologizing to her about the drama and she writes a little note back to me that she understands. And then at the end she writes this

Well anyway a memory was made and I promise it was a good memory for the kids. They will remember shwanda directions, picking out the pumpkins, no sodium for Ayden, Taylure's hair style, Kaleb helping Taylure navigate the hay bales, Whitney's laugh and straight hair, mom taking ANOTHER picture and memom Deb's big smile as she watched them all.

Love you

(shawanda is my GPS's name) now, onto the good part, the pictures!!!

     as you can see, Tay wasn't having a good hair day:(

         "navigating the hay bales"

      Thanks Whit!

     this pictures, courtesy of Ayden. his request...make a silly face.

     Deb. needed a new FB profile pic, so Kaleb was obliged to help.

        courtesy of Ayden

                              

I think this has to be one of the funniest faces. And shes actually looking at the camera without crying!

and a nice man there took one of all of us! This really was a fun trip and I'm glad we spent it together. Now if JoeJoe and Dave could have come it would ahve been complete;) Happy Monday friends!

A.Y.

As many of you know, we have been going through alot with Ayden in the past week. I wanted to do this blog post to let all of my friends know what is going on with him, (well at least what we know).
As of Sunday Ayden started this really strange swelling in his face and belly that we didn't quite understand. We thought that maybe he was having an allergic reaction to something that he ate or got around over the weekend, we just didn't know. He went on to school the next morning even though he asn't feeling the greatest, and I worried all day because by this point I had a feeling that something else was going on with him. The reason for this feeling was that we had given him benedryl the night before and the swelling hadn't gone away at all. Anyway, he made it through school, but daycare called and said that he was running a fever of 101 and we needed to come and get him. We went to pick him up and he just didn't look to be feeling well at all. I went ahead and got him a DR appointment first thing the next morning. We went, I told the nurse practitioner what was going on and she didn't seem to worried but wanted to take some blood and run a urine sample. Next thing I know the DR comes back in with her and tells me that Ayden has what they think is a condition called Glomerulonephritis. He told me Ayden had blood and protein in his urine and with the swelling and everything he was almost positive of this and wanted to send him to a Pediatric Nephrologist to look into this further. I was scared to death! Ayden of course was hopping around on the bed going crazy;) Next thing I know the nurse comes back in and wants to re-check his blood pressure. I ask her why shes checking it again, I figured he didn't sit still enough the first time. She told me that it was high the first time so they wanted to test it again. She ran it, it was high again. Apparantly, Glomerulonephritis causes high BP. They came back in ran another round of blood tests on him and then we were on our way. The next morning we went to see the Nephrologist. He talked alot and asked alot of questions. He wanted to know family history and Ayden's history since birth. They ran more blood test on him, re-checked his BP (which was still high) and re-checked his urine (which still showed blood and protein). They also sent us for a chest x-Ray because he has had some trouble breathing. Come to find out. He has fluid on/around his lungs and has to be put on some diuretics to help remove the fluid. He also has had to be put on BP med to control his BP. He is being tested daily right now for his BP to make sure it doesn't get any higher, as it could cause complications. He went today for a renal ultrasound (in the words of Ayden "no he's not having a baby") heehee...and the results from the ultrasound tech looked good. She said that everything looked great to her.

At this point, we are waiting...waiting on his strep results to come back, which may take up to a week, to find out if that's what cause this. If so it can be treated with steroids and no long term kidney damage...We are going to stay positive and hope that's all it is at this point! I put a link if anyone is interested in reading anymore about it! Thank you all for your concern and thoughts and most importantly, your prayers! Please  continue to pray for Ayden and our family! We love you all!

             I bet you all wonder why the title of this post is A.Y.? Well it's a silly nickname I made up for Ayden, one of the many. It's gets on his nerves so bad when I call him that and I really don't know why I started it. It's the first two letters of his name and I am cool and just made it up one day. That's what cool mommys do;)

Hello, baby Carly

I was more than thrilled to see baby Carly. I was anticipating her arrival so that I could get in front of her and capture her sweet innocent beauty and she was finally here! I am positive that I probably more than annoyed her parents when I contacted them more than once about when I could come to take her pictures;) I was so excited. It had been a while since I had seen such a tiny little thing and I was super happy. I knew she was going to be a doll. Her parents are both adorable, so I knew that she HAD to be as well. So here I went, as happy as could be on my way over to Carly's house! She wasn't very excited at first to have my camera snapping in her face but she soon calmed down and went right off to counting sheep and it was easy from there. She was so fun and we were able to capture so many great and cutsie shots of her! Jesse and Tassie, you are both very lucky to have such a sweet baby and I want to thank you for allowing me to capture her at such a pure and gentle age. Thank you and I hope you love them!