Happy Halloween

I had a much needed "break" (if you can call chasing three kids around who are sugared up a "break") with my kiddos this evening. Since my baby was born last October, it brought back lots of memories from last year, I can hardly believe how time has flown. Here's our annual "pose next to the pumpkins in front of the bushes" shot from last October:

And tonight (one and only shot before Maddy took off with the pumpkin)Hope your evening was as enjoyable as ours :)

D

YIKES

2am on early Halloween morning and I am even more behind than I ever could have anticipated...now THAT is scary.

Be patient with me guys---I'm really, really trying!!

In the meantime have so much fun with your little ghouls tonight and, although I am absolutely repulsed at the sight of my own camera right now **smile** I will try to take pictures of my Transformer, Ariel, and Kitten to share.

And here is something just for fun.

Happy Halloween and be safe!!

Deanna

Out of the Office

I will be flying to Houston Monday morning for some sessions and will be out of pocket for most of the day Monday. I know this is pretty bad timing since I have more emails to answer than I can count and even more sessions to proof and galleries to send out, but I will be back in the office Wednesday and will do my best to get to it all at that time. Thank you all for your patience and I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!!

Deanna

Let's see if we can fit this all in one post...

Any of you who have tried to call or email me lately know how completely CRAZED I am right now (my assistants have talked me through not one but two near-nervous breakdowns ;) ). It's just that fun time of year that we in the "biz" like to call Holiday Portrait Madness.

Every year I have way more people wanting appointments than I have appointments available, and thus, Mini Sessions were born. I fit as many clients as I can into one morning without going completely insane, and each get a "mini" version of a regular session. Although it's nuts, I have SO much fun seeing old clients, meeting new ones, and for those of you who came out, could the weather have BEEN any more perfect?? What a great way to spend a day, hanging out with awesome kids and enjoying a true Texas Fall.

All sorts of friends came to see me that day! Brothers...

Old friends... Redheads...Twins...
Little Ones....

and big ones.Guys your galleries are coming SOON!! Thanks for being so patient with me!!!

For those who are wondering or who missed out on Holiday Sessions, lots of people wait for the less chaotic Valentine Mini Sessions which will be on a Saturday in January, and send out Valentine's instead. Stay tuned here for those details.

Future Foodie

Check out this sweet little face...my newest Baby Planner and I couldn't be more excited to get to photograph this gorgeous family 3 more times, yay for me!

This baby girl is destined for the food industry, mom and dad are both chefs. As a matter of fact, Dad just opened a restaurant in North Dallas called Nous, and I hear it is FABULOUS and am hoping to check it out soon myself! Nous is located at Frankford and the Tollway for all of you DFW readers.

Reminder

Photographer's Packet Sale continues through Wednesday

A shot from the Dallas Arboretum this weekend:

For Photographers

SALE--$50 off the DM

Photographer's Info Packet

Now through Wednesday, October 24th, 2007:

Packets are regularly $295 and include marketing pieces, ideas, forms, information on vendors and suppliers, portrait process description, and answers to my most frequently asked questions. Also includes technical information on natural light setups and inspiration cards, all sent through email via .pdf. Great for those just starting out in the business or pros wanting some fresh ideas.
Information Packets are only available for those outside of the DFW market

Email us with "blog special" in the subject line to order and receive your discount. We accept Visa, MC, and Paypal payments


Example of one of the "inspiration" cards included:

Worth the Wait

Although I like to brag that I hardly am ever rained out, unfortunately last week I did have to postpone this particular session after the clouds rolled in and dumped on all of us. It never fails though that if I cancel a session because of rain in the AM, by the time the session was supposed to have taken place, the sun is out and it is perfect...and this day was no exception! But I'm glad that we did wait because the day we rescheduled was beautiful and bright...best conditions possible!

For some reason it took me a minute or two to get into my "zone" ... But once I "found" my light and got going it just flowed, even when sweet baby girl decided to take a catnap on us. (Isn't Mom GORGEOUS!)

I had so much fun chatting with Mom and Dad about schools and neighborhoods and cameras, and before I knew it, we looked down and baby was awake and grinning at us. Yay!!

Interesting fact about this family---Dad was a contestant on the Amazing Race a few years ago and from what I hear, did pretty well! Isn't that a cool story??

Good Ol' Blogger

Blogger is being tempermental with me and not letting me upload images tonight, so guess you're all stuck with my random ramblings. I haven't posted any random thoughts for awhile (or, perhaps, all of my thoughts could be considered random---interesting!) So here goes. You can blame Blogger. (M&A---your sneak peek will be up as soon as Blogger behaves :) )

Some friends and I formed a book club last January. It was my New Year's resolution to reconnect with my friends as I have let myself become so busy that I was neglecting myself. It worked! I have this great group of buddies that I now meet with monthly and drink wine and gossip have intelligent discussions about books. It was even our main topic of conversation tonight, making the time to do things for yourself. I remember when I first became a mom I thought my needs should all be placed not only on the back burner, but really off the stove completely. That made me completely miserable and in turn made my family miserable with me. Unhappy mommy? Unhappy kids. I feel really lucky to be so young and to have learned this valuable lesson. So once a month I make it a priority to meet with my bookclub, even if it's just a few of us, and it recharges me and makes it possible for me to come sit back here and love what I do again. Don't for a second think it's not really hard for me sometimes to go..."Oh I really shouldn't leave the kids since I worked all day" or "I have to answer those emails", etc. Sound familiar? Call up some old friends and commit to just once a month of adult only time--dinner club, book club, etc...you will be surprised at how much it does for you.

My next random thought---some ask me about my watermarks on my images. Most assume it's because I'm protecting my images from clients who would download and print them. Oh how I wish it were that--the images on my blog and website are low resolution and would look like junk printed. The reason I watermark every single image on my blog and my website is because in the past, I have actually found websites on the internet that have stolen my pictures and people I know and placed them on their own webpages and blogs and claimed them as their own work (shame, shame). So this is why I watermark right smack in the middle of each image, so it can't be cropped off or photoshopped easily.

And lastly--we visited the State Fair of Texas this weekend. This has been a family tradition for as long as I have been alive, and I can think of only one year that I didn't go in 31 years. And if you are not from TX, our State Fair kicks your State Fair's behind. The best part of the State Fair of course is the food, and it becomes a contest in our family to see who can eat the most junk. My husband, who has a bottomless pit for a stomach, wins by a landslide each year. This year's highlights--fried cookie dough (pretty darn good, I was surprised!) fried chicken livers, cotton candy of course, belgian waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar, root beer from a barrel, and the classic Fletcher's corny dogs. Lowlights---fried marshmallows, pizza ( I'm assuming next year it will be fried anyway, everything else is!) . And a really good thing to tell yourself when you're eating all this junk is that you're walking around all day anyways, so it cancels the bad eating out!! That's my logic at least.

Be back tomorrow, I hope, with an adorable sneak peek. :)

I love Fall Family Pictures!

I want to share this adorable family with all of you. They are currently holding the record for fastest family session ever...I have never photographed such cooperative, happy children (definetly not my own!!). I think we were done in 45 minutes, and that is only because I felt guilty being finished after only 20!! This family is so sweet together and hello, check out these gorgeous kiddos!!

*Side note, thank you to everyone for their emails yesterday. They were so appreciated. I do have the best clients and friends in the world (and co-photographers). Rest-assured I am fine and had a nice quiet day cuddling with my babies :)

Bittersweet October

I am definetly not a writer, so please bear with me on this one :)

October is such a fun month for me because of all the birthdays, Halloween, the State Fair, and just seems to kick off the beginning of the holidays. But many of you know that we lost a baby named Emily (whom the Emily Project is named for and inspired by) many years ago. You might not know thought that tomorrow will be the 10 year anniversary of the day she was born.

I have blocked this day out of my schedule since January and was hoping that by now I would know what to do with myself on this day. I still don't. I thought I might do an Emily Project session but just can't muster it up.

So I thought that I would do the best I could and try to bring a little bit of awareness to my readers in hopes that it will help someone out there who might be going through what we went through.

Emily was stillborn. I was almost 6 months pregnant and had just become aware of her kicking a few weeks prior, and didn't know that you should feel babies kick at least once an hour. We went to the OB after some time and discovered that she had died. It was truly the worst moment of my life that I have tucked somewhere in the back of my mind so that I cannot relive that pain over again.

After we lost her, our nurses gave us some literature about various organizations that help parents and loved ones cope with the aftermath of such a loss. I sought counseling but it was only after I joined one of these support groups that I began to turn a corner. I also was able to meet and keep in touch with other moms who had gone through my exact situation and having the same feelings I was having. When you lose a child, it almost becomes necessary to take a step back from the rest of society while you heal, as the rest of the world goes on with life and you have just had an atom bomb go off in your own life. Reaching out to others who have been through the same "bomb" is an amazing way to start the healing. Here are the organizations that helped me through:

http://www.nationalshareoffice.com/
http://home.mend.org/


What can you do if someone you know has experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or the death of an infant?

There are things that you definetly should not say to someone who has just lost a child. The first being "There will be more children" or "You can try again". Being as young as we were we heard these a lot. Nothing or no one can ever replace the child you lost, even if it is an early miscarriage. The best thing to do is just to sit and listen, let them cry on your shoulder and let them know it's ok to cry and be sad. Remember important dates with a card or a phone call (I personally don't talk to anyone on Oct. 10th) and if the pregnancy was late enough, always call the baby by it's name. Everyone is different, but these are things that have helped me or people I have known. If you know someone who has lost a baby or child and you want to help them, visit the above websites for suggestions on what to say, how to honor the baby who died, or just to read about what your loved one is going through. This will help more than you will ever know.

If you are pregnant or know someone who is, there are ways to help prevent stillbirth. Blair Blanks is a photographer who recently lost her son James to stillbirth the morning she was set to be induced. In his honor she has done tireless research on the subject and is devoted to educating pregnant mommies about counting their kicks. Please visit her website for more information: http://www.blairblanks.com/kickcount/

Finally if you or someone you know does experience such a loss, there is a wonderful organization called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep that connects local photographers with families who have lost babies. Photographers volunteer their services to these families to conduct sensitive and private photo sessions, and the photos are then retouched and given to the parents on CD or DVD. When we lost Emily, the nurses were thoughtful enough to take pictures of us for her, and I am so grateful to now have those, but I would have given anything to have professional, retouched photos of her or pictures of me holding her.

I will be unavailable tomorrow but will attempt to return to work on Thursday. Thank you for any prayers you might say for us, for those out there experiencing this loss right now, and go home and hug your babies a little tighter tonight.

Deanna

Pass the Tylenol

I must have temporarily lost my mind about 2 months ago when I decided to have Mikey and Maddy's birthday parties not only in the same weekend, but on the same day. 'Oh, I'll just rent a bouncehouse for the day and have their parties back to back...so easy!!' Oh, right, piece of cake. OH NO I still have to pick up the CAKES!!!

Anyways I know that I have phone calls and emails to return and I promise I will get back with all of you on Monday!! Right now I am in total birthday hell.

But I did want to stop and take a minute from this b-day madness to wish a very, very happy birthday to my precious, sweet, loving, handsome son Mikey (or Michael as he goes by these days) who is turning NINE on Saturday....I am the luckiest woman in the whole world to be able to call myself your mom. Every year I don't think I could possibly be more proud of you and every year you prove me wrong. I love you.

(4 yrs old and current b-day invites)



And to my **sniff sniff** baby Maddy...happy first birthday, my precious---it's hard to believe you have only been in my life for a year, it seems like we have known each other our whole lives, my little soulmate. A year ago Sunday I tearfully and joyfully welcomed you into our family with big open arms, with the TX/OU game on behind my dr's head :) I am so proud of you and love you with all my heart.

(2 days old, b-day invites, and most recent)

Hey Local Moms & Dads

This looks like fun!

Remember the Dancing Baby Girl, whose personality and downright adorable-ness had you all saying "Awwwwwww!" and voting for her picture for Image of 2006?

Well she and her precious baby sister came to play with me and this time, I got to meet Daddy! What a sweet family this is, I loved every minute of this session. Dad, who wasn't so sure about the whole photojournalistic thing, jumped right in there and was perfect: