Happy Birthday to you: Randy, Hunny, Dad, Poppa and FLASHBACK FRIDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Almost 5 years ago, this guy, my hunny, my children's dad, Natalie's Poppa, prided himself in bragging to me that he was the first person ( and other than nurses, doctors, etc.) that was not her parents. He went over early the next a.m. after she was born and took breakfast to her parents.

Today, July 24th, is his birthday. I won't list his age either, but I will say he is two days younger than me. We were even born in the same hospital and were there at the same time (for at least a day). I am not going to do a long post about how much I (we) love this guy. I did that a while back. Click HERE if you missed it. And click HERE to view the blog post that I mentioned in the last post about how us moms aka photographers of our families should have photo taken of ourselves. I found it and want to pass it along. It really made me think!

SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RANDY!

WE ALL LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH!

~~ja~~

Happy Birthday to me...

Today is my birthday (the age is not important). I am over 40 and less than 50. So let's leave it at that.

While I enjoy take photographs of my loved ones and others too, I don't particularly enjoy being in front of the camera these days. But since I am celebrating life today, I am sharing a few of me and some advice that I recently took seriously. Take photos with the ones you love. Today they may not seem that important or even that special, but one day they will be priceless. I recently read this entire blog post about a mom/photographer like me who isn't as photogenic as she once was or as young or as thin, but we only getting older and sometimes larger. I couldn't find the post or I would have included the link here. I have intended to do a post on the subject and include a link to this post that really sunk in with me. So even though I dont' have the link, the message is just do it...just take those photos with the ones you love.

EDITED TO ADD THE LINK: CLICK HERE.

I so love this girl and am so proud of her!

Above: Cari and I (just a few days ago at the beach)

...and you all know how much I love and adore my little sweetheart.

Above: Natalie and I at her dance review (mini recital) from dance camp


And of course, I love my hunny! Where would I be without him!
Above: my hunny and me


...I certainly wouldn't have this most precious family that I love more than words can express.

ABOVE: My Family

I am only getting older, but my love for God and my family is growing stronger.

I feel so blessed this birthday.

Celebrate life with the ones you love by taking photos with them as often as possible.

~~ja~~

NOT MY CHILD...

Today MckMama is doing something different. So I thought I would play too. I only have one thing to post that I can think of at the moment. After all, I only have one child living at home and she is 16 years old. If Natalie had been here all week or the last few days, I am sure I could think of something about her.

It was not my child who forgot to pack her beautiful halter-style white portrait dress for the beach portrait that I bought last year with intentions of doing some kind of portrait of me and her together last summer [even though she had it lait out!]. More recently, I decided it needed to be a beach portrait. How much prettier would our portraits have been with her wearing a halter style dress so that it would cover newly darkened tans lines.

She and I did share the cost of a new pretty white portrait dress. It was pretty and I am glad that we found it, but the other dress would have been perfect. If I decide to get a wall portrait of this one or any of the photos that we captured on the beach, I will be paying my lab to "fix" the tans lines.

~~ja~~

Many more...

This is a photo of my beautiful daughter, Cari, photographed during our Mini Portrait Session at the beach. The 14 year-old boys wouldn't necessarily think it was Mini Portrait Session, but I could have went on and on (even with the sweat running down my back...I love capturing these images)...so to me, it was a mini session!I have many more beautiful portraits to edit and to post to my blogs and facebook. I have posted a few more to facebook already last night that I couldn't resist. But for now I need to get to work. I have a few more orders to finish to have ordering caught up...just when I think I only have one or two more to do to be caught up, I receive another, I will praise God for that! And I have few sessions to edit. Cari will be leaving today for church camp. Pray that she and the other campers have life altering experiences and/enhancements. Natalie is still in Baton Rouge taking swimming lessons. I sure miss that little girl! So this week will be filled with work and some quality time with my hunny. I sure missed him while I was gone and I wasn't even gone that long. I think I missed sharing the expereince with him! [I do have him fired up for a family beach vacation. I don't know if we can pull it of this year, but he was online doing some shopping around last night. I love it!]

~~ja~~

The Beach...

In a few hours Cari and I will be on our way to the beach for a little mini vacation! I have been blessed with a great opportunity to spend a little time with friends and some of my family (Cari) at the beach for the next few days! I wonder if this will be the view from our room. This is suppose to be a photo from Orange Beach and that's where we're going! Hopefully life won't be so crazy that I can't post a few picks next week. Have a great week/weekend!

~~ja~~

NOT ME MONDAY (and yes, on Tuesday again)

Okay, I haven't posted anything lately. It's not like there hasn't been plenty happening in our lives. Though I must admit if I had time to post it would be on NATALIE'S WORLD because she has been such an intricate part of our busy lives and often the reason for it. The last three weeks have been quite a whirlwind: Two weeks of dance camp for Natalie with days that consisted of eating breakfast, dressing for dance, lunch, storytime/resting (aka naptime), swimming, supper and then we did it all over again. The 2nd week I was blessed with Cari's help on several trips because I had sessions [She was able to help because the child she was baby sitting for was on vacation with his family]. And just when I thought I would get back to work to finish some orders, edit those recent sessions, I've come down with one my worst sinus infections that has given me an excruciating headaches...actually they are more like face aches.

Just to vent a bit before I get on with my Tuesday morning, I thought I would play NOT ME MONDAY (and yes, I know it's Tuesday...don't you know me by now?, "A day late and a dollar short" or is "Better Late Than Never".

• As much as I had to do yesterday, I DID NOT stop everything to do a Walmart shopping trip to purchase bleach (over $100 worth of other needed food and household items) so that I could continue washing clothes. It really would be a waist of time to wash my husband work socks w/o bleach. I also did not have make that dent in washing after I got back home because my headache was worst again (really I didn't).


• While buying groceries and cleaning goods at Walmart yesterday, I did NOT buy some ice cream cones that I saw as I walked in the door because I have been craving an ice cream cone. And I certainly didn't buy one of my most favorite flavors, Butter Pecan, to put in those cones that I did not buy. We all know that I am very weight conscientious these day and that I would not splurge like that! No, no, certainly NOT ME!


• I was NOT proudly showing Cari, my daughter, Natalie's birthday invitations that came in yesterday to discover that we omitted the date of the party on the invitation. Yes, that's right. We have these cute Princess Natalie invitations with all the other details except for the date! I won't take all be the blame for that since I had Brittany give me then details while I created the photo side and accents for the reverse side with the details. However, several people contributed to proof reading it and no one noticed. Now I admit it seemed something was missing, but yet it wasn't like I could identy that it was something missing, but something just a little off or strange, but I couldn't put my finger on it or even realize that was what I was feeling. NOW THAT DIDN'T MAKE SENCE AT ALL OR DID IT?


• While trying to think of something different to do with Natalie, I DID NOT decide at the last minute to take Natalie to visit my mom (Friday night) Randy had golf the next day and I had Natalie while her parents moved into a new apartment. After talking to my mom who seemed a little down, I knew she needed a visit from our little loving sweetheat, princess child, Natalie. So I made a 24-hour visit! It was nice.


• I DID NOT GET THE NICEST FREE BEACH INVITATION YESTERDAY. NO, NO, NOT ME! Those things don't happen to me. Okay, maybe they do, when I have my calendar extremely booked (which is really sort of strange for July). And I am NOT trying to see if I can figure out a way to rearrange my schedule for the end of the week so that I can at least go for a few days. I REALLY DO NOT THINK I CAN (really I don't) as bad as I would love a get-away...as much as I want to go to the beach.


• And I am NOT FEELING HEADACHE FREE today...truthfully, it is pretty mild right now, but if start thinking about all that I need to do vesus what I want to do (beach trip) and then if I start do some serious comptemplating and re-arranging my schedule, I will probably have a really bad one again! UGH!
• AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, I DID NOT DO THIS NOT ME MONDAY and just now realize that I did link to Mckmamma's blog. Oh well...I have now!

Okay, with all that venting out of the way, I am off to try to create a productive day. And no matter what, I think I will have a blessed day! I do believe it is the state of our own mind that creates blessings more than what actually happens to us. [Disclaimer: I believe it. I just don't always follow it!]