Istarted my first blog the fall of 2007 that was all about Natalie. After all, our lives seem to involve her. So I started this blog about 3 years ago when Natalie moved to Baton Rouge after her mommy and daddy moved down there. I wanted to do a blog that was for venting my loss of my time with her and for sharing the rest of my family via blogging, but also for digital type scrapbook of our lives...a new style of keeping a family album of images that also included a little story behind the images. After all, I was doing this type of thing before scrap booking become a hobby, but I took on my hobby and made a business is out of it. The one thing that I learned from that is once you take your hobby to the next level by creating a business, you never have time for other hobbies again. So to put it mildly, one of the reasons that I quit (or took a break) is that I have been in a somewhat burnout from feeling overwhelmed trying to combine my business life and personal life for the past...hmm...5 or 6 years (probably since making the digital transformation along with becoming a grandmother). I haven't even wanted to take snapshots unless it was my iphone. Yes, I confess! Photography, my love/my passion, turned to work. And sometimes we get so tired that work is work and we just need a mental as well as physical break. Have got all of that, not sure, but I my priorities are coming back in focus once again as I can see the summer coming to an end very soon as well along with many changes. So I plan to list a few things as I remember them that has happened the last 16 months since I made my last blog post (not counting yesterday: LOL).
(one of the fun shots)
I will try to list in order, but first I will give the background on these photos. Most of you have already seen them on facebook. They were captured in Key West, Florida. Randy and I have always wanted to go to Key West and I've always wanted to have a family beach portrait. November 29th was our 25th wedding anniversary. My husband booked our family a 7 day cruise out of New Orleans that included three stops: two in the Bahamas and the other, Key West. So decided it was more important to celebrate our family more than our marriage. After all, we officially became a family when we married, not when our first child was born.
ABOVE: (one of my favorites: us walking hand-in-hand looking toward my sweetheart)
BELOW: The first image again...one of my faves, but not my wall portrait.
Spring of 2010:
I started Weight Watcher's (a wonderful journey that from
time to time was one step forward and two steps back) [made Lifetime
Membership in February of this year] I believe everyone has an addiction
or two. It is a matter of whether they can find the balance in their
lives with things they are tend to be addicted to. Mine is food!
I hosted a
BUNNIES & BABIES PORTRAIT EVENT. I had not done bunnies in a few years. Bunnies are always one of the most successful portrait events of the year.
Cari had her
JUNIOR PROM. [She broke up with her boyfriend about 2 weeks before prom.] To view images of her and her friends, click
HERE!
I attended a week long photography school. I had not done that in years. I was hoping it would jump start my juices to flowing and it did for while. I must admit as mentioned previously they are flowing as quickly or as freely as I desire.
Cari also came with me and photography friend and modeled for many different world renown photographers. Okay, maybe they're only well-known to other photographers, but trust me...it was an honor and very fun to Cari. She received many compliment from the photographer instructors and students.
The day after we got back to town we left again to go to
NATALIE'S FIRST DANCE RECITAL. She had completed her first year of dance at Machita & Co. in Port Allen. Her recital was held at the River Center at downtown Baton Rouge. It was very long. But so precious to see her dance on stage.
Cari also completed her junior year and "officially" became a SENIOR!
Natalie completed her 2nd year of pre-school at KinderCare.
Brittany and Cameron celebrate 2 years of marriage.
SUMMER 2010
- Natalie spends lots of time at Mimi's pool swimming and showing off her cute swimsuits that Mimi is addicted to buy for her.
- Cari got a job working sales/customer sevice for Verizon Wireless in Vidalia.
- Brittany was Conner & Abby Branton's baby sitter for the summer.
- Cari wrecked her first car, her green, 2005 Nissan Altima. She loved that car.
- Cari attended her last high school cheer camp at LSU where she made ALL-AMERICAN!
- Natalie went to Tea Party Classes with Mignon. Her first beginning classes of social etiquette.
- Cari went to church camp. While she was away at church camp, we bought her 2nd vehicle, a white, 2006 Ford 500 (we got a really deal on this one!)
- Natalie turned 5 years old and had a Luau Birthday Party at the Country Club to celebrate with friends and family. Some of our extended family stayed the rest of the weekend and we continued to celebrate at the lake house.
END OF SUMMER 2010
- Cari found a new job that she loved. She has hired to work at AFTER GLOW, a tanning salon with two locations, one in Vidalia and one in Natchez.
- Cari starts her senior year. She had her last first day of school.
- Natalie started her new school thanks to some special recommendation letters from two special friends: Tanya Mallory and Nicki Glenn. Natalie become a Kindergarten student at Baton Rouge Visual and Performing Arts Center (a wonderful magnet school that we were blessed to get Natalie into). We have been very impressed with this school and looking forward to another school year there.
- Cameron starts his Senior Year at LSU and Brittany starts her junior year. I am very proud of growup kids.
- I did a Mini Cheerleader Portrait Session of Cari in her CHEER ATTIRE for the football program book ad.
- We spend several weekends at the lake after having fun after Natalie' party. Natalie could even get-up...rather stay up on the knee board.
- Natalie started her 2nd year of dance at Machita & Co again and Cari started her senior year of ballet at NATCHEZ BALLET ACADEMY with Mignon again.
- Cari tried out for Nutcracker. Even though this was only her 2nd year to do the Nutcracker since she had only started back taking ballet her sophomore year, she was hoping for a lead role. She was tickled to learn the had the role of SNOW QUEEN.
- Randy booked the cruise for our family. We begun then to look forward to celebrating 25 years as a family and I knew then I would book a photographer in Key West to do our beach portraits.
Okay, I know I still have a lot of catching up to do. But this is a start. I have, in a nutshell, covered a large portion of events up to last fall. Maybe I will even go back and do many posts and add photos. But I doubt it...since one of the reason I stopped (or took a blogging break) is because I really don't have lots of extra time to do things like this. Maybe I will have more while living the empty nest life that will start very soon, but I really don't expect that I will. However, I do want to take time to blog about little things, big things and the things that really matter to me...in other words...the moments that I want to remember!
NOTE: As in my post on NATALIE'S WORLD today, if I remember additional things that I forgot to include in the Spring, Summer or Late Summer 2010. I will add them. This is my little digital scrapbook to remember the little things that mean so much to me and maybe to some others too.
~~ja~~
So how do you like my new header for NATALIE'S WORLD...OH NO! Just found an error! "As viewed by Mimi" should be somewhere else. I moved it and then planned to go back and move it to the appropriate spot when I finished with the images. So back to the drawing board! I am going to get a new background an header for this page. I am shopping for digital scrapbook papers for the links on the Blogs For A Cause page. So I was trying to decide if I want to change Natalie's World background up too. Since I have such difficult time making a decsion. I decided to change the images. Since I don't remember how to change it, I will get Nikki from Blogs for a Cause to do it when I get her to do some for this blog. Decisions, decisions, decisions....
