Daniel is my cousin and the third of five boys in his family.  He and Kristen have been dating for several years and with her easy going personality she fits right in with all the boys and our whole crazy family.  Daniel, you did good!  They were so good in front of the camera, I barely had to encourage them to be cute and interact – they were just themselves.  It was great!  I’m glad we finally had this gorgeous day for shooting too because if I remember correctly, we had to reschedule twice because of wind and rain!  I can’t wait to shoot their wedding next summer!

First we started out over here at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Plano.

Then we drove over to Las Colinas to the canals.  Aren’t they cute?

Looove this one -

Although this might be my favorite -

And then I love this one too!

Click below to see Kristen & Daniel’s slideshow

I love the Boyd family!  Not only do they produce gorgeous daughters and have the ultimate backyard for a summer party =) but Brenna’s older sister Jessica is one of my best friends.  You may remember her from her fabulous bridal portraits and engagement pictures.  Well Brenna is the youngest of three Boyd daughters and she’s all grown up and graduating this spring!  She was seriously the easiest person I have ever photographed.  It was so bizarre!  She wasn’t freaked out to be in front of the camera, she wasn’t trying to run away from me, she didn’t have a dress that constantly had to be fluffed or a bouquet to adjust, she didn’t cry or ask for candy, she didn’t freeze up and look cheesey.  She just did what I asked her to do and looked fabulous the whole time.  I don’t know if I’ve ever come home with more ‘keeper’ shots from a session!  We were seriously done with this session in less than an hour and a half with four different outfits!  Those Boyd girls are fun to photograph!

I really love this last one.  I feel like she’s so channeling her inner Anthropologie woman -

Click below to see Brenna’s slideshow -

I have been dying to finish editing and share these photos!  These two little girls are both so incredibly beautiful and photogenic, I was absolutely beside myself editing their photos.  Every time I would go through the photos, they got cuter and cuter!  Dorrie and Mia’s mommies are the nurse and ultra-sound tech at my OB’s office, and we were all pregnant at the same time back two years ago!  We did this shoot on a Saturday morning after a rainy few days and the ground was muddy everywhere!  So between two 2-year-olds, pretty dresses, shoes, stockings and an older brother their moms had their hands full.  It was so funny, photographing two year olds is such a chaotic venture every time.  You’ve got me sweet talking and handing out gummies, moms doing silly dances and singing songs, big brother getting yelled at for walking into the shot and two little girls who don’t understand what’s going on.  I love it!  I think it’s hilarious and wonderful, which is why I love photographing small children.

This is Mia.  Look at her gorgeous eyes!!

I don’t have words for Dorrie’s curls.

Stop it.  SO cute!!

Gorgeous girls.

Can’t get enough?  Me either.  Click below to watch their slideshow -

I am really starting to feel pregnant now.  It’s getting more uncomfortable to bend over, sit on the floor, pick Shepherd up and even to maintain good posture.  I’m trying to think of ways I can move my desktop computer over to the couch and pretend it’s a laptop because my desk chair is so uncomfortable.  My cute maternity jeans are getting tight too, which is really bad since I still have quite a bit of girth to gain if you know what I mean!  I won’t even talk about the granny panties I had to buy this week…

When I was pregnant with Shep, it never bothered me if people came up and touched the belly.  Which is surprising considering all of the other things that I managed to be crabby about.  But the past couple of days, I have been officially hit with the ‘DON’T TOUCH ME’ hormone.  If you come up and put your hands on my belly and then ask me if he’s moving, and THEN ask me if it’s ok that you’re touching me, you may be met with a dirty look.

I realize that my belly now protrudes outside of a normal physical boundary line, and that it’s out there for all to see, but just because you have to see it doesn’t mean you have to touch it!  It’s still part of my body and my body is not public property.  Feeling my baby move is a privilege!  It’s a sweet intimate thing that isn’t just out there for anyone and everyone at any time or an place.  If I want to share it with you I will, and if I don’t I won’t.  When someone just walks up and puts their hands on my belly, it feels like they are taking something from me that I should’ve been allowed to give – like if someone kissed you and you didn’t want them to.

So next time you see a pregnant woman, give her the respect of asking permission before touching her body.  She’ll thank you for it!

There’s that cranky pregnant Beth we all remember!  I knew she was in there somewhere!!  Here’s a blurry picture of me not being cranky making macoroni on Thanksgiving day =)

So I had all these great plans to get the three amazing sessions I had over the weekend all blogged by Thanksgiving, but alas Christmas card designing, editing and ordering as well as previous projects that weren’t yet complete got in the way.  So next week will be full of fun stuff, but in the mean time, don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter because early December I’ll be sending out a newsletter full of tips on how to take great pictures at Christmas, how to make those Christmas lights look spectacular and maybe my recipe for Sour Creme Cookies if you’re lucky   Click on the image below to subscribe.

Also, since I know you were dying to see a picture of my cute little boy quickly becoming a cute big boy, who am I to deny you?

Thank you so much for all of the encouraging words and verses about Jake’s layoff.  It means so much to have people in our lives that love us and pray with us!

Week twenty four started out as a great week.  I got some good work done, worked on Christmas cards for clients, booked a wedding for next year and finished up a Bible study on faith.  And then at the very end of the week, at the end of the day on Friday my faith was tested.  Amazing how that happens right?

On Friday afternoon, Jake was laid off from his job.

There’s that recession everyone keeps talking about, right?  After our initial emotions died down (and don’t worry – we had some emotions!), we’ve both really felt at peace.  We’ve been going through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, and like I said I just got finished with a Bible study on faith, so I feel like God has been preparing us.  Even though it’s scary, I think we’re both in a place of faith in God as our provider and consciously watching for and choosing not to live and walk in fear.

God’s timing doesn’t always seem ideal to me – losing our main source of income while expecting our second child isn’t the adventure I would choose – but I know that God has it all under control.  I’ve been really encouraged listening to Kristene Mueller the past couple of days, especially this song –

Redemption

Kristene Mueller

The darker the night
The brighter the day.
The fiercer the fight
The stronger the faith.
So I place my hope in You.

The deeper sin
The stronger the blood.
The more to forgive
The more reason to love.
So I place my trust in You.

In Your ways oh God
Redemption is so much better than perfection.
In Your ways oh God -

Over and over
You prove You’re so faithful.
Over and over
You prove Yourself a redeemer.

Over and over
You prove You’re so faithful.
Over and over
You prove Yourself a redeemer.

And to lighten the mood, here are some sneak peeks at some of the fun I got to have shooting people (with my camera, geez!) this weekend -

I love the look of intensity on Erin’s face as she says her vows.  She’s not kidding!

To see more of Erin & Michael’s wedding, click the image below to see a slideshow -

This day has gotten away from me!  I was hoping to get their wedding blogged today but it just isn’t going to happen.  So here’s a little teaser -

We had such lovely weather for this session!  It was such a beautiful day outside and just the right temperature.  I always feel bad for brides doing bridal portraits on warm days because wedding dresses can make you very hot very fast.  Erin did great!  It helps that she’s gorgeous!  She has those tiny little model arms that most girls would kill for.  All of a sudden she just started working it for me!  Check out this fierceness I was so proud -

Look at her getting down with her bad self workin’ it for the camera!

To see Erin’s slideshow, click the image below!

This post really doesn’t have much to do with pregnancy, but it’s a funny story about what happened to me this week in my pregnancy.  I hope you enjoy reading it!

Wednesday I went up to Allen to see my eye doctor for a follow up visit.  I had picked up my new glasses with their new prescription from him the week before and I was having major trouble adjusting to them.  Now my eye doctor is no ordinary optometrist – oh no.  No no.  He calls himself a therapeutic ophthalmologist I believe, but those words don’t even come within miles of describing him.

I have been seeing this doctor for almost 10 years, and first saw him because I was having chronic migraines and although I had glasses, had heard that he was ‘special’ and made people ‘special’ glasses.  Indeed.  I’m still seeing him nearly 10 years later, his ’special’ glasses did in fact solve my migraine issue!  He incorporates what he calls binary optics into his lenses, which somehow some way affects more than just vision.  I really couldn’t explain it to you, all I care about is that it worked for me.  He is very holistic in his approach to eyes, which is always something I appreciate, but let’s be clear, sometimes the things he says to me are a stretch.  It’s so difficult for me to even find a place to begin in describing a typical visit with you.

Once when I had just returned from spending several months in Southeast Asia several years ago, I went in to have an exam.  He was examining the inside of my eyes, which he does by getting about a twenty fourth of inch from my face and looking through some sort of magnifying device.  Suddenly he sat back and said, “I see a lot of rice floating around in your eyes, have you been eating lots of rice lately?”  Why yes, yes I had…

Another time, before that happened I had just come home from my Discipleship Training School with YWAM, which had radically changed my life.  I could tell that I needed a new prescription so I went up to see the doctor.  Same kind of situation, he’s right up close to my face looking into my eyes, and all of a sudden he says, “Turn your glasses around upside down.”  I did, things got much clearer.  “You’ve totally changed the way you think and process information since the last time you saw me.  You’ve grown up and become more intelligent.  You just need your lenses to be upside down from what they are now.”  Sure enough, that’s what did it!

Through the years, he’s had me take different supplements, different eye exercises and told me all kinds of bizarre things about myself that affect the way my brain receives information from my eyes.  He is always trying to solve the root issue of eye problems to make your vision better instead of merely giving a prescription that pacifies the problem.  Those two stories are just to give you a frame of reference for what happened on Wednesday.

Wednesday I went in and explained the issues I was having with my new prescription and he sat there and started right at my eyes to watch their behavior for a moment…  I stared back.  Awkward silence.  He said something about my eyes darting around all over the place and then ran to the other room to put on a mask.  He had a little cough and I’m pregnant so he didn’t want to infect me.  Keep in mind through the rest of this story that all of this is taking place while he is wearing a surgical mask.  It adds to the comedy of an already humorous situation.  He then commenced with a new exam that included sticking various things in front of my eyes while I was wearing paper glasses that had one red lens and one green lens and asked what happened when he did ‘this.’

Finally he decided that I have a prism in my right eye that was caused by an inner ear problem relating to the fact that my body does not distribute water very well to my brain.  Obviously.  He says these things like it’s just as plain as day to everyone else.  He asked if I’d had any ankle or knee injuries because that would of course relate.  Later he asked what time I was born and when he found out, asked about my gallbladder.  I’m laughing as I write this!  I am not making this up!  It gets better.

Next he sat me down to do some exercises with the red/green glasses.  I had to flex my right ankle while simultaneously rubbing my left forefinger and thumb together, and looking at ahead at a stuffed dog and concentrating on my right peripheral vision.  Oh yes.

Just wait.

When he got me forcing my right eye into the correct behavior from said exercises, he told me to me say, “Ooobeedoobee.”

“That’s your magic word.  When it looks right say ‘ooobeedoobee’ to train your brain how it feels when your right eye is relaxed.  He says this with a straight face from behind the surgical mask.

I promise I am not making this up!!!!

At this point the stress of not seeing correctly combined with the added stress of the exercises and going from red and green glasses back to glasses that were already driving me crazy had me reeeaaally stressed out.  Fortunately he completely believes in emotional/physical relationships and he could tell by looking at me that I was losing it.  He even gave me a supplement right then and there of something in which I was (obviously to him!) deficient to help me calm down.  I went home with some exercises to do and the instruction that if the exercises and the incorrect vision really just start to drive me crazy to come back in and he’ll do a prism correction in my lens.

Now I know you may be thinking that this guy sounds totally out there and weird, but let me sing his praises for a moment.  He solved what appeared to be a permanent diagnosis of chronic migraines for me, he has helped people I personally know overcome behavioral issues like ADD, and helped correct extreme near-sightedness (and I don’t mean by giving the right prescription, I mean like they aren’t as near-sighted as before) along with a host of other things.  His strange methods really do made a difference in people’s lives and I’m so glad that we found him when I was 15 and losing hope that I would ever have a day without a migraine.

And since any blog post – especially long-winded ones – are better with pictures!