I’m so happy for her! Heather & Brent seem perfect for each other, and they’re super cute together. I’m happy she’s got someone else to look after her, since she’s been looking out for me for as long as I can remember. She’s one of the most caring people I know.

I feel a little bad, this was probably one of the most difficult e-sessions I’ve ever had.  Sunday was gorgeous all day, and about 5:00 I’m driving to Heather’s house & the sky starts looking a bit dark. By the time we get to her house we have to change plans to try to beat the storm.  We made it down to the river for a few minutes before it started pouring.  Then we stopped at Lavender Crest Winery & the owners were nice enough to let us, even though they were closed!

You probably can’t tell it, but it’s pouring outside of the gazebo and the wind was whipping all over the place. I’m glad they were willing to brave the weather though because in the end we got some great pictures & I wound up experimenting a lot more with off camera light a lot more than I would have. I love a good challenge!

April is Autism Awareness month. Autism has struck us pretty close to home, our son Anakin was diagnosed with it when he was two. It’s been a struggle and a blessing. He’s 8 and non-verbal, but he’s learning new signs all the time. He’s starting to pick them up faster and it’s so awesome to see the progress he makes everyday. He’s such a little sweetheart & his laughter is almost magical.

If you’ve never met any one with Autism, odds are that you will soon, about 1 in 150 American children are diagnosed with it every year.

“Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others. Autism is defined by a certain set of behaviors and is a “spectrum disorder” that affects individuals differently and to varying degrees. There is no known single cause for autism, but increased awareness and funding can help families today.” (From the Autism Society of America Website)

“Here are some signs to look for in the children in your life:

• Lack of or delay in spoken language Repetitive use of language and/or motor mannerisms
• (e.g., hand-flapping, twirling objects)
• Little or no eye contact
• Lack of interest in peer relationships
• Lack of spontaneous or make-believe play
• Persistent fixation on parts of objects “

(From the Autism Society of America Website)

More information on autism

To help the cause for every wedding package booked in April I’m donating $50 to the Autism Speaks.

I’m also giving away a free portrait session* to a Quad-City area child with autism. The winner will receive a 1 hour portrait session in a location (in the Quad-City area) the child is comfortable in, a disk with High resolution digital files from the session and a free 8×10. To enter just send an e-mail to tiffanie@tiffanieimages.com with the following.

• Name
• Phone Number
• E-mail address
• Age of the child

A drawing will be held May 5th to select the winners. If you have any questions e-mail them to Tiffanie@tiffanieimages.com.

Here is an image of last years winner.

If you would like to make a personal donation to Autism speaks you can do so here or to the ASA.

These are some other helpful links if you want to learn more about Autism or know someone with autism and are looking for help.

http://www.autismspeaks.org/
http://www.autism-society.org/
http://www.autismlink.com/
http://www.talkaboutcuringautism.org/index.htm

Quad-cities Support groups
http://www.autismqc.org/calendar.htm
http://www.qcautismcenter.org/page/page/2959054.htm
QC yahoo group – http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/quadcityautism/
Iowa Services – http://www.autismlink.com/locations/view/16
Illinois Services – http://www.autismlink.com/locations/view/14

Gluten-Free Casein-Free Diet information
Recipes, menu planning & info – http://gfcf-diet.tacanow.org/
http://www.gfcfdiet.com/

* Portrait session will be based on availability. No substitutions.

Spring is finally here! I’m so excited to get out & start shooting again.  Winter has lasted way too long.

This Sunday I got out with a few other photographer’s as part of the Quad-City flickr group. It was our biggest meeting to date.  My friend Teresa Ousely of Wiz of Oz photography brought two gorgeous models with for us to shoot.  Stephanie Pauley & Teresa Sellars, I can’t believe these girls, they tromped around the village in the cold in these tiny dresses, while about 20 photographers surrounded them.  They were so nice & they did an amazing job.

Here are a few of my faves so far.  I’m sure I’ll be posting more soon.

I’m supposed to be on vacation, but I wanted to put up a blog post since I haven’t done one in awhile. So I’m starting vacation after this! I’ve been super busy the last few weeks catching up with all the editing from the season’s weddings & getting some albums designed. Things are finally starting to wind down, just in time to spend some much needed time with my family for the holidays!

I love this time of year, it really makes you think about how important your family & friends are. I feel so lucky to have my caring & supportive husband, my two awesome babies & a wonderful group of family & friends close by. I hope everyone else had a wonderful thanksgiving!

I thought I’d share a few personal pictures from the last few weeks. Be prepared though, because it should be a weird mix. I didn’t post any Halloween pictures yet, but I feel I should, so I’m mixing ghouls with warm fuzzy Christmas tree moments.

My super studly zombie-obsessed husband.

I’m a vampire, cause that’s what Crystal wanted me to be.

My adorable sweet little vampire bride.

I take back the sweet part. 🙂

My cute little fireman! He doesn’t like his picture taken anymore so there’s only one.

Ok, a little bit after Halloween, a friend of mine from work gave me a surprise for Crystal. It was going to be Christmas present, but we would have had a hard time hiding this one in the attic.

Isn’t she just adorable. Crystal named her Raven, although we’ve been calling her “meep” because that’s the sound she makes all the time.

She’s too cute for words!

I love this one because he’s trying to steal her candy & hoping we won’t notice.

I swear our house isn’t usually this messy, it’s just Christmas tree boxes. Ok, I might be lying, I am not an awesome house cleaner. Thankfully my husband’s pretty good at it.

Sadly, this is probably the last year daddy is going to have to lift her up to put the star on the tree, Crystal is growing up way too fast. 🙁

About 10 minutes after we put it all up, (and yes it’s a fake tree, it looks bad, but I hate cleaning up pine needles.) trouble here came along and destroyed the bottom half of the tree & then proceeded to climb it like a crazy kitten squirrel.

Anyways, I hope the rest of you have a wonderful holiday season!

What a crazy weekend, I was planning on posting these Saturday, but we had so much going on it didn’t happen. Saturday I met with an awesome bride at Java Java in downtown davenport (my absolute favorite coffee place, the owners, Darren & Debby, have got to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met  & the coffee is magically delicious). Darren gave me some free tickets to the Putnam, so I took Crystal & Anakin there to get them out of Cory’s way while he worked on our fence. That was fun, I hadn’t been there since I was probably 10, so pretty cool. The kids loved it, they had a whole kids discovery section & we spent probably a good hour just in that section.

Crystal had been bugging me for weeks to go to Tropical Sno, so afterwards we went there (really good, I’d never been there before, but great flavors!), except it was super cold out & we’re sitting outside shivering eating sno cones, great idea. Then we had to run to the home depot, which now that we have a house, in the last month alone I think we’ve gone to one of the 3 home stores about 5 times a week, ridiculous.

Then I met up with some of my friends from the Quad-City flickr group (and some new photographers) for a photowalk downtown. That was a blast, and I got to meet a few new people, I have a few pictures up here if your curious!

Anyways, last weekend I had the pleasure of shooting the lovely Sydney, a soon-to-be senior at  Clinton High School. She’s going to be getting into Biology after she graduates, she’s got a flair for the dramatic, she’s into music and choir. That’s pretty awesome, I get excited to see high school kids involved in so many things, I was a bit of a slacker back then, so I’m in awe! She picked Vandeveer Park & downtown Davenport for her session.

We found out part of the way through the shoot that she’s also into video games (Resident Evil in particular) & horror movies. So when we saw bloody hands on a building window (um a little concerned what they were doing there), we had to do something fun.  This one turned out better than I thought it would, they weren’t showing up to well when we looked at the LCD during the shoot.

I can’t believe she climbed up on this ledge in those shoes, but she told me she was up for anything!

This wall was fitting for her love of music, I think they just finished painting it a few weeks ago, so perfect timing.

Check out the killer shoes, and the awesome scarf, love it!

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It’s lucky for me that my husband can read my mind, because I said something like “hey, wasn’t there a musical or something where they had people hanging off  lamp posts or something?”  and he knew exactly what I was talking about, I think it was “Singing in the Rain,” but I’m not sure, he’s outside still working on our fence, so I’m not going to go ask, but anyways, it worked out & we got a cute picture out of it.

Just wanted to let everyone know, the e-mail responses might be a bit slow over the next two weeks, I’m in the process of buying a home & we’ll be moving next weekend.  I will do my best to get back to everyone that writes, but I will be without a computer for 1-2 days & quite busy for the rest of the two weeks.  Thank you so much for patience during this time!

Just a brief update, before I head out for girls day. You might have noticed things look a bit different around here. I’ve been working on changing the site for a few months now, unfortunately I’m really not a web designer, so it took a bit longer that I had hoped. I wanted to combine my blog & my website so you didn’t have to look in two places for information & I could always keep fresh content on my site. That’s it for now, I have a longer post coming soon & some super cute baby pictures as well. Happy weekend!