I’ve been meaning to write some if this for a while now, but it seems like the last couple weeks have just blown by. Autumn is almost over and winter is really setting in. I’ve been crazy busy with work the last few weeks and we’ve had a ton of stuff going on.

Halloween was a blast. We have this huge football rivalry going on. My husband Cory is a huge Green Bay Packers fan, and he’s pretty much alone, everyone else we know are big Bears fans. So every week the guys have phone calls back & forth depending on who’s won. At one point my mom & step-dad Jay bought my son a full bears outfit & got his pictures taken in it. My daughter Crystal is also a Bears fan (although when she started talking my husband got her to say “kick da bears” to everyone), and they write messages back & forth with the fridge magnets. So it was no surprise when my mom, Jay, their son Stephen (who changed before I could get a picture) and even their dog showed up for trick or treating in bears costumes.

Crystal went as a “Bratz cheerleader”, which I wasn’t really excited about, but it turned out pretty cute.

Anakin went as Spiderman. He wasn’t really loving the mask, so he only wore it long enough for me to get a picture. He really liked the jumpsuit though.

Cory went as the guy from the Saw movies (I think it’s Jigsaw maybe?), creepy.

I wussed out this year and didn’t wear a costume for trick or treating, although I did dress up to go out with a few friends later. I don’t normally go out much, but Halloween is so much fun. I love the bizarre crazy costumes people come up with. I was wishing I’d brought my camera the whole time. Shannon took this with her camera phone, yeah we’re dorks. 🙂

Crystal had to get glasses this year. She did pick out some pretty cute frames though, & now she wants to wear them everywhere. Of course if you know any 8 year old girls, you know we had to pick up the “Hannah Montana” case to go with the frames. You can’t go anywhere without seeing some kind of “Hannah Montana” products. Jeez.

We elected a new president, I’m feeling pretty good about it, all though it’s too soon to tell. I’m really excited we live in a country where we can vote, so I get pretty jazzed up when we have an election. Hopefully we can get things going in a positive direction now.

Cory & I recently finished reading Jenny McCarthy’s two books on autism, Mother Warriors & Louder than words. Really informative and inspiring. There is so much research that needs to go into potential treatments for autism, and it’s great to see someone who has the ability to get some of the information out there. We’ve had our son on a Wheat & Dairy free diet pretty much since he’s been diagnosed with Autism, and it’s exciting to hear about some other dietary interventions that might help him out. After the holidays we’re going to be trying some of the interventions she used in the book and hopefully seeing some more improvements. I’m feeling really optimistic about the whole thing. I will say I was a bit disappointed that she didn’t go into more detail about possible treatments, but there is a huge message of hope there & I think that’s what’s important. If you know anyone with autism I really recommend these books & checking out the TACA website.

Hopefully this post makes any sense, I just had my wisdom teeth out on Friday, and I’ve been on pain medication ever since. I had been putting it off for quite awhile now, but they’re finally out. I just want to say thanks to everyone who rescheduled appointments with me for this weekend, I really appreciate it. 🙂 Unfortunately I had to miss one of my best friends art show on Saturday, Shannon had some really fabulous pictures in it ( you can see them here: My favorite “Hope2”, my second favorite “Hope4”, Hope, Hope1, Hope3). I’m really excited for her, Shannon has been shooting weddings and portraits with me this summer and she’s working on getting her own portrait business going, I’ll post a link when she gets her site up!

Since I’m not doing much work this weekend because of the teeth thing, I thought I’d post some updates in my personal life.
August is crazy busy for my family, it seems we have an abundance of Leos. My sister, my daughter, my niece, two of my uncles & me. Crystal just turned 8 last week, and her birthday falls on my grandparents anniversary, which I always thought was sweet, my grandma likes to tell me that they were expecting my uncle to be born around their anniversary, so grandpa promised to get her a dozen roses if she had him on their anniversary, well she did, and he kept his promise. She tells it way better than I do, but I always thought it was sweet, and pretty special that my daughter was born the same day too.
Anyways we just had Crystal’s party last weekend and Thursday she went out & spent her birthday money on a super cute pink guitar (even though she hates pink).

As I’m writing this Cory just came home & surprised me with birthday cake (we’ll see if I can eat it) and ice cream, and some movies! Awe, he’s a sweetie, my birthday isn’t until Monday, and he already took me out to see The Dark Knight a few weeks ago (awesome movie by the way!). Ok, I don’t think I can sit up at the computer much longer. Here’s a few pictures of my other munchkin, Anakin. Have a good weekend everybody!

It’s about time too, I think I was going stir crazy waiting for nice weather! 🙂 These are just some pretty flowers from Vandaveer’s botanical garden.

When my mother-in-law Jean asked me to take Easter pictures of the kids(my two and my niece Autumn) this year I was a bit stumped on what to do. Last year we just did a white backdrop with flowers, so I wanted something different this year, so we headed out to the Pioneer Village out by Scott County Park. Unfortunately nothing wanted to go right, Easter was super early this year and so the grass was still mostly dead and even though it looked nice out, it was pretty cold. The poor girls didn’t want to take off their coats, so most of the pictures they’re doing more shivering than smiling, lol. Anyways it was at least a nice drive out there, and we had some fun playing. I did manage to get a few decent shots out of the whole thing too. The one at the top was my favorite.

My favorite shot of Crystal, she looks a bit grown-up in it. 🙁

My adorable niece

Anakin wasn’t going to have anything to do with looking at the camera, but he’s a cutie anyhow.

My beautiful daughter

Proper little ladies. 🙂

After sticking a camera in their face the whole trip I thought it was only fair to let the girls throw eggs at me. 🙂

So resolutions, yeah, those haven’t gone so well (oh, come on, I’m not the only one, am I??). I did manage to quit drinking pop, which was suprisingly easier than I thought it would be. I did manage to drop 10lbs, but I’ve slipped quite a few times. Blogging every day, um yeah, that one didn’t go so well (as you can see). So I guess I haven’t done that bad.

I’m still working on getting everything ready for my official business opening on May 1st. Although I had some set backs with logo design, and had to redesign alot of things I’d already called finished. The website is getting closer, and this week I started designing a sample album.

I have just about finished my portrait album. I can’t wait to get it submitted so I can post some images of the finished product. The picture above is my favorite spread in the whole album. That’s my cousin’s daughter, and she is such a blast to photograph, she’s at that age where she is completely comfortable in front of a camera, and this girl is so spunky I don’t think she’d ever be uncomfortable anyways (takes after her mom). I think her mom’s getting some more pictures done of her in a few months, can’t wait. Anyways, I have the rest of the album here. I’ll be putting together a wedding album in a few weeks.

I did get a chance to meet up another photographer (Shannon Colgan) last weekend, she’s become a really good friend of mine over the past few months. She is going to be shooting weddings with me. I’m so stoked about it. Most photographers are really good at seeing things we see everyday and bringing out the extraordinary, things most people will just walk by and ignore. This girl can find things that most photographers will just walk by and ignore. She’s got a totally unique spin on things and I love it. I think she’s going to really bring a different flavor to the table. She’s also won quite a few contests and had some of her work published in the area, and she is awesome at pool. I’ll be working to set her up with her own blog soon, but for now you can check out her flickr stream.

Ok, I freaking love that picture. My cousin’s daughter is probably one of my favorite people to shoot, because she is just full of attitude, and adorable. That picture about sums her up. 🙂 Anyways, had night 2 of “Trick or Treat”. We hit up Moline with my mom and their family again. Anakin didn’t quite make it that long, I think he had it with the whole thing so we cut it short. Which worked for me, because it was way to cold and I actually decided to dress up.

I’m a witch, although you can’t tell because I had to take the picture myself, sometimes it sucks being the family photographer. Although I can’t have anyone else take my picture anyways, I hate having it done and I am always the one in the picture blinking or making some horrible weird face. ugh.

More of the “Gouhls” (yeah, I know that was bad).

We had “Corpse bride”, “Mad Hatter”, and a cat.

Oh and how could I not mention that Jay dressed up their dog as a “glow stick” he’s too cute. Didn’t get a great picture, because their dog is more active than Anakin.