boys, boys, boys

This was my first official on-location shoot with kids and I must say it was great. These boys were all boy and so much fun. I just wanted to take them home with me. Their parents we so much fun, also. They even let the boys play with whipping cream at the end of the photo shoot!

puppy love pics

Yay! I finally got these up. I love his sweet little face in the second picture.



Today's my mom's birthday and she's gone to Mexico. They've been there for almost 2 weeks with my sister and her family. I'm sooo jealous. Wished I was with them. I can't wait for her to come back to El Paso. We haven't seen her for probably about 3 months now. I really miss her. I called her this morning to say happy birthday and it was great talking to her for a few minutes.She's an amazing woman and I just love spending time with her. I feel bad that when she is here in El Paso, I kind of just take her for granted. I need to work harder on showing her how much she means to me. One more self-improvement task to tackle!

puppy love

I've been wanting to get some pictures of Diego in his cute little puppy towel that Tia Yaya gave him when he was born. But I always bathe him at night when there is no natural lighting. I didn't give him one last night since I was sooo tired. Yesterday was a crazy, crazy day. I dropped off Kai at pre-school, then had a 3-hour newborn photo shoot, picked up Kai, took him to a birthday party, came home and made chicken soup for my poor little sick hubby, dropped some off at my other sickie friend's house and finally came home for a period longer than a half-hour. (Whew! Long side-note.) Anyway, I was just too tired to bathe the babes last night, so I gave Diego his bath this morning. The light at this time of day is perfect in one of my rooms, so I snapped some pictures of him. It just want to eat my little puppy-he's so darn cute! (Alright, I know I have mommy eyes, but that's what mommies are for, right? Just ask my mom or my grandma! They're so in love with their sons.) Tomorrow Diego will be 5 months old and it is has gone by way too quickly.

(Well, I can't seem to upload any pictures. It's sooo frustrating! I'll try to upload them tonight when it seems I usually have better luck.)

Like I said, my poor hubby's been sick with the flu for a few days now. Yesterday he stayed home from work (very unusual for him to do that since he's become such an workaholic) and just slept ALL day. I felt so bad for him, especially since I wasn't home for more than half the day to tend to him. I guess that was a good thing for him since I took the kids with me. Miraculously, neither one of the kids nor I have gotten sick. (Cross my fingers!) Kai was so concerned for his daddy the whole day. He kept on telling everyone he saw that his daddy was sick. When he came home from pre-school, he went up to Matt and asked, "You sick?" Matt said yes and then Kai responded, "Daddy, you need to go the doctor's, you need to get a bandaid and you need to drink Sibu." Kids always have a simple solution to everything!

beautiful newborn

The day finally came when I got to photograph the little almost 2-week old baby I'd been looking forward to shooting all week. I went a little long (3 hours) but it was so worth the wait. At first the baby did great, so I immediately put him on my wooden antique bowl thing (I don't think it's really a bowl, but I can't remember what it is, exactly). This only lasted for the first little while, though. It took me a while to set up, so by the time I was ready, the wee babe had only one thing on it's mind-milk! So the rest of the time was spent camping out, waiting for the baby to eat and fall asleep. But when he finally did go to sleep, I got some great shots. I was really excited to edit these pictures, so I did them all today when my little ones went to sleep. I'll post some of my favs.

my cousin's wedding

I've finally been proofing some pictures from my cousin's wedding from back in June! Weddings aren't my favorite thing to do, but this one wasn't bad, actually. They were just so grateful that I was taking their pictures, so there wasn't a whole lot of stress involved. I took their couple pictures on Rim Road overlooking El Paso and Juarez. Here are a few.

exhaustion!

Ok, how can I go from one post titled therapy to another titled exhaustion? Simply have my husband go away on a business trip for merely 5 days! Luckily, he'll be back in 11 1/2 hours (but who's counting?). This exhuastion is also due to my renewed commitment to being a better mother. Since the baby was born, Kai has had a hard time dealing with all the change that has happened in our home. It's been very obvious to me that when we give him extra attention and love, he behaves a lot better. So I've committed to only work when he's either at school or asleep, which doesn't allow me much time to edit pictures and blog. But it is so worth it to me. If I am not willing to commit to my children, why did I have them in the first place, right? My children are my top priority (2nd to my hubby, of course) and they bring me so much happiness and fulfilment. So these past few days have been very, very tiring as Kai has loved the attention I've given him and can't seem to get enough of it. Hopefully he'll get bored of me sooner than later!

So it's 11:30 and my eyes keep shutting on me, but I wanted to post since I haven't for a few days. I'll leave with a few pictures from my most recent maternity session. I just LOVE taking pictures of preggies and newbies. Lucky for me, I'll be shooting a 2 week-old baby Tuesday. I can't wait!

Uggghhh! I can't get this thing to upload one more picture! I guess I'll just have to try again tomorrow.

therapy

Our trip to San Antonio was great and very therapeutic. Well, only if you don't concentrate on all the fits, tears and drama that Kai made us put up with. My favorite part of the trip was walking down the River Walk. It just feels so foreign, so European. It's beautiful and relaxing. I got a few pictures of the trip, but wished I had got more. It was just hard to take pictures while constantly tending to the baby and our 3-year-old. Kai LOVED Schlitterban. He's such a little fish. His name suits him so well (it means "sea"). Sea World was also good, but I did think the one in San Diego was a bit better. Here are some pics of the vacation.

The Alamo has some beautiful gardens. We really enjoyed walking through them.

These are at the River Walk. (Just wished I hadn't got the elbow in the upper left corner. Urgh! Makes me upset that I couldn't crop it out without cropping Kai out too much!)

And of course, some of Shamu (throwing the trainer above an arch of water in the upper right corner).My sweet little monkey in his car seat, where he spent most of the trip!The hotel we stayed at is historic and had some beautiful picture windows.

captivating

While we were eating at one of the cafés in Sea World, I saw the cutest little boy with the most amazing, captivating eyes. The crazy, photographer part of me started to come out and I was itching to take his picture. I asked Matt if he thought I should approach the parents and ask them if I could take a picture of their son, but he wasn't very sure about the whole thing. The parents looked Indian and we weren't sure how they'd feel about a stranger taking a picture of their boy and then posting it on the internet. After a few minutes, I decided to just ask them. What was the worst thing that could happen? They might say no and I'd just go back to my table a bit embarrassed, but then I'd get over it. So I did, and they said yes! I told them I'd send them an 8x10 of the picture and they seemed to be happy. This little boy was such an angel. I'm happy with the picture I snapped of him. I think the picture stays true to his stunning eyes. (I also tried to take a few of him and his younger brother, but wasn't very successful. I didn't have enough time to make the youngster feel very comfortable around me.) The only thing I'm lamenting is that the boys mother noted her address on a napkin and somehow through all the junk in my diaper bag it got lost. I feel horrible. So now I'm hoping they still have my information and contact me so I can send them their pictures.

off to pre-school!

We got back late last night from San Antonio and we had such a blast at Sea World, Schlitterbahn, the River Walk and the Alamo. I will post some pictures of our vacation tomorrow. Right now I'm enjoying a few hours of solitude (well, not completely, since I'm with little Diego). Today is Kai's first day at pre-school and boy, does it feel good! I'm feeling like I should be feeling a bit guilty for feeling this good, but I'm not going to let even that ruin my moment of total relaxation. Since we got back at about 10 pm last night, Kai didn't really want to get up this morning, not even for school. When he finally did get up, he just wanted to watch cartoons, so we were a bit late on his first day. I know that's not very surprising for anyone who knows me, but I tried sooo hard to get him ready on time. I even got up before 8 am, which is very note-worthy. I think I'll have to get him up half an hour earlier on Thursday. He was so excited to go to school. He felt like such a big kid with his lunch bag and everything. The moment we got to school, he disappeared from my side and didn't even say good bye! He's just so independent. But of course, I followed him and snapped some pictures. I did get a few before we left the house as well. The journey to childhood begins...