Photographic Expressions

I’m mentally singing Jay-Z’s song about brushing the dirt off your shoulders. That’s what I feel as I’m trying to update my website and getting my head on again for wedding season coming up. Whew!!

My little girl just turned 5 months on Monday so it’s been awhile since I’ve been on here. Sorry! Mothers always try and tell you what life will be like and you pay no attention. Then when your whole world changes you demand to know, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ Haha. Ah yes. Looking back though I’m so lucky to have such a smiley and happy baby. She’s been sleeping through the night since 2 months and now she’s mastered rolling onto her stomach and she’s trying new food each week.

She certainly turned my world upside down. I was fearful of change prior to getting pregnant, prior to marriage really, and it’s actually been something I embraced. Well I’m not sure how well I’m embracing working out, haha, though I’m knee deep in it now! Something sparked in me the week before Christmas (of all times right?) and I decided immediately to clean up how I was eating. From throwing pasta in boiling water to nooking (microwaving) something; my fridge is now full of veggies and my pantry clean of processed stuff. It wasn’t as hard as I thought giving up bread and pasta (my salvation) though I did find it incredibly difficult to learn how to cook with all these raw ingredients. Thank goodness for Pinterest and Super Cook. Did you know this site allows you to throw in ingredients and pops out different recipes? Awesome! Oh and Pinterest is an entirely new addition that I’ll get to another time.

So anyway, I’m working out with a personal trainer because I suck at pushing myself when working out. I know myself, I hate it. No bikini body for me though my first goal is to get back in my prepregnancy pants. I’ve pretty much lost all my weight and find it interesting that my waist isn’t shaped the same way as it was so my darn pants won’t fit! Lovely

I’m off to show houses today. Thankfully the weather is nice today. I am so over driving in the fog.

TTFN
~C

(image quality if iPhone-I promise I don’t use iphones to photograph weddings, haha!)

Amazing to think that Callaway’s due date hasn’t even come and passed yet, though I couldn’t imagine her not being part of our lives these last two weeks.

Well before I even wanted to think about having kids, I knew who I wanted to photograph these nonexistent youngins. I happened upon Amber Holritz when she spoke at a seminar I took in Atlanta and I’ve been blown away by her work ever since. I haven’t met or even seen anyone else’s work that can compare to the beauty that she captures. Thankfully we became friends over the years and she only lives in Chattanooga.

We contacted her just a year ago to come down and document us, just Josh and I, while it was still the two of us. We knew we wanted to expand soon and our lives would never be the same. Of course once we found out we were expected months later Amber was at the top of my list to announce our news. I was officially ‘penciled in.’

Fast forward to August, I certainly felt all of 8-9 months pregnant but still had until middle of September to go. Unfortunately my mind/body was not slowing down so the Drs slowed me down, by putting me on bed rest. Eleven days of bedrest followed by two overnight stays at the hospital and it was decided for me that August 23 was going to be Callaway’s birthday. Three weeks early but preeclampsia was rearing its ugly head. Oh wow, the flood of emotions that hit me! I was just not mentally ready to give birth, we weren’t even in the right month! The next day the Drs got things started and after 12ish hours of labor (wasn’t bad after the epidural!) Callaway made her appearance in the world. Words will never be able to truly reflecte everything that she became to us in those moments as J helped catch and when he placed her on my chest.

10 days later after we were somewhat caught up on sleep or were at least better at faking it, Amber came down to capture our new family of five. Her window into our world, how she was able to capture a day in our lives, allowed me to fall in love all over again. In love with my husband, with my new baby girl, with my friend Amber and with what we have become; a family.

Below are just a small amount of us, you can see more HERE.

~C

Literally!! We ended a great holiday weekend with fireworks and it drew a great conclusion to the weekend. I absolutely love Fourth of July in Jasper. I was initially hoping for a Fourth of July baby, but instead I’m getting an Autumn girlie. The holiday is just.that.much.fun.

So despite not being able to take part in the parade watching or riding any of the rides at the fair, I did eat my fair share of bbq, homemade peach and strawberry ice cream, cole slaw, corn, cake, fruit, and even ribs ( I know, I can’t believe it either). Oh my goodness I love all the cookouts all our friends host and the places to go and see.

Josh was fortunately home on Sunday and Monday so we were able to celebrate together. I’ve been all over the country and have seen my fare share of fireworks, but this year I really wanted to run up to the community Big Canoe and watch them up close. So Monday evening we ran up to Big Canoe and settled in close. Of course my vision of watching the fireworks was not in-sync with Josh’s ideas. Let me draw you a picture of what took place within an hour of the first firework going off.

So there I was (my husband’s infamous line). I was 7.5 months pregnant, wearing a longish dress, in flip flops, carrying my big ‘ole camera and my husband thinks that sitting on top, ON TOP, of a firetruck is the best spot to get the perfect view. I seriously, no highly, doubted that idea yet was somehow able to hoist my getting-larger-bootie up the back of the truck. No easy feat! So we’re sitting on a paramedic back board, on top of the firetruck which is blocking traffic on the damn so the fireworks can be set up. We’re enjoying the view of the lake to the immediate left and the crowd growing at the baseball field below to our right. Beautiful day, and then the sprinkles came, that turned into a cold, slightly slower than rain, rain. We started out by covering up with a windshield sunshield cover thing, after awhile we had to upgrade to a tarp. A huge, big blue tarp! Josh has donned a firefighter turnout jacket and we’re both still huddled. Not my vision of fun in the slightest! Yet I didn’t want to get down or leave, otherwise the issue of physically getting down will have to be solved sooner than I wanted. So we stuck it out. Finally we realized the rain has fizzled into drizzle, something a bit more manageable. Then the wind picked up. Do you see where I’m going here? DO NOT end up on the top of a firetruck, pregnant, in the rain and now wind-it’s definitely why I don’t see myself camping anytime soon.

So just when I thought my patience might be up the first firework went off. And that’s when I saw it. We were sitting just under the American flag that was placed out of the ‘deck gun’ (water hose on top of the truck for us civilians) and the wind had picked it up and was carrying right in front of each and every firework. It truly could not have been more beautiful, more perfect, and more unplanned than ever.

Thank you to all of our military service personnel. A special thank you to my cousin Captain David Draper in Afghanistan, who we are waiting to return home next Spring.

Can’t wait to share the fireworks with our Youngin’ next year!

~C