Marvel.

One month ago I had the amazing privilege to document the arrival of my newest niece H, daughter of my older brother and his wife. Being able to document their experience reaffirmed to me that I am a photographer for the right reasons! I was at the hospital within 20 minutes of the phone call, and with only ONE MINUTE to spare before she arrived. Talk about timing. I think I could make a decent firefighter with speed and timing like that! ;)

{The most astounding thing to me was at how alert she was at only minutes old. All of these images were captured in H's first 27 minutes of life outside the whom. I have never witnessed such an alert, wide-eyed baby. Her eyes had the wisdom of a lifetime of experience!}

I just posted a studio session of baby H. on the Tilt Photography Studio Blog- you can see how much she changed in just a week. Those first few weeks can be such a blur for parents of new babies--so these photos take on a whole new level of significance for me, because it documents something that is so fleeting!

Wow- I never would've thought . . .

I'd post a video on my blog by coca-cola. This one gave me a tear in my eye. Watch this:

One Year Ago . . .

. . . we enjoyed our first family airplane flight and vacation at the beach. We took about a million photos between the beach and theme parks. Here's a digital scrapbook layout I designed back then but was asked to post it for a period of time because it was published in an online scrapbook mag. called Scrapbook News & Review. I've got several more layouts that I'll likely share over the next little while:

She'll Be Here . . .

We are gearing up for baby in "T minus two months." I'm due May 7th, but M. arrived a surprising two weeks early, so perhaps we'll have some baby news in a mere 6 weeks! We're so excited. . . and so far I've been feeling great and am still highly functioning. I haven't kept up with blogging the way I'd like to, but there's only so much of me to go around (and around).

I am on a "baby high" right now, as one week ago today I had the amazing privilege of being the birth photographer for my brother and his wife. Documenting the entrance into the world of a gorgeous baby girl (also my niece) was wonderful, and I will post some pictures soon. She was one of the most alert and wide-eyed newborns I've ever seen at just minutes old.

Also, I am planning to do hypno-birthing this time around. I am still convincing DH that he'll do just fine (though I think he should be the one assuring me, right?). With my first two babies I chose to go the natural (unmedicated) route and opted for an epidural with M. who happened to be posterior. For baby #4 I would love to go natural again, but with some implemented relaxation techniques that can help get me through it. So if you can't reach me, perhaps I am practicing my "deep relaxation" techniques and I am able to tune out the phone and computer. :)

For those who may be curious, we haven't settled on a name. Finding the perfect name for another girl is tricky . . . and I'd like her to have a unique letter of the alphabet from our other family initials: M, A, S, K. Any suggestions?

Let's Do This The Whole Day!

One recent evening the kids were craving some family time, and I was feeling in the crafty mood. We came across a wonderful website by a talented artist: The Toymaker who offers patterns for paper toys for free-download. Her creative patterns and pretty illustrations were just the thing we needed! We enjoyed our creating so much that we continued printing, cutting and gluing until way past bedtime! S. was so excited to know she had the following day off of school, she said, "Let's do this the WHOLE day tomorrow!" . . . and we pretty much did.

{believe it or not, M's little airplane is still in-tact!!}

{S. made a whole family of pandas complete with a little cottage. These are so darling!!}

{A's toy store didn't last quite as long as the other paper crafts, and little brother got a hold of it and dismantled it!}

I highly recommend this website- if your kiddos love paper and glue as much as mine, you are sure to find hours worth of fun here. Our crafting project eventually became a photography project as well. We set up a mini-backdrop on the window sill and with a piece of blue paper created a sky to give the scene depth.