a bag of chips

Happy Holidays!

From our family to yours! 

See you in 2008!

'tis the season...

...to be running around like a headless chicken.  I'm still in the middle of wrapping up some photo sessions and I am about to ditch the computer to assemble our Holiday cards in the kitchen while my hubby bakes cookies.  (Yes, I'm just now getting around to our Holiday cards.)  And I still have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff still on display around the house.  Crazy?  Pathetic?  You bet.  At least the Christmas tree and the stockings are up.

I have lots to share but little time so I'll be brief:

1.  My FIL is pretty sick and needs prayers.  He has MDS and was recently hospitalized in Trinidad for pneumonia.  He turns 80 next year and and we'd all like to see him make it.

2.  Finally got something up at the Simple Studio.  Seems like forever since I've scrapped just for fun.  Man, it felt good to fondle my supplies and push some paper around.

3.  Nadia is A-L-M-O-S-T walking.  I mean she takes steps on her own now and then, but it takes a lot of coaxing and us acting like total fools to convince her to do it.  She still prefers her crazy crab/monkey crawl as her primary mode of transportation.

4.  I still have Christmas shopping to do.

5.  My brother's nasty divorce keeps getting nastier.  Poor guy.  He's being put through hell.  He's just your typical dude - charming, funny, sporty, loving and would give anyone the shirt off his back.  And he's been blindsided by the cruelty shown him by his "ex" and her entire family.  It's breaking our hearts to watch him go through it.  He misses his kids and they miss him.  More kids getting caught between grown-ups just ain't right.  But let's not get me all riled up about this now.

6.  Loving Elizabeth Dillow's book, "The Scrapbooker's Almanac", and Ali Edwards' new book.  Some serious inspiration going on here, folks.

7.  I've watched "Elf" seven times in the past two weeks.

8.  Aidan has lost two bottom teeth and his new "growed up" teeth are already coming through.  He only just turned five on Halloween.

9.  Makena had her first asthma diagnosis earlier this week.  She has an inhaler now.  And she weighs 40 lbs.

8.  My little interview at the Diva Craft Lounge was fun.  I talked too fast and repeated repeated myself quite a bit but overall the Dork Factor was lower than expected.

9.  I'm hoping to add high school seniors to my photographic repertoire and here are some of my favorites with my first guinea pig lovely subject:

We did these photos in Balboa Park.  This bottom photo features antique plaster wings that were part of a Holiday display going together near the organ pavilion that some nice and trusting folks let us borrow.  They were quite heavy.  You can't tell, but Jessica's mom is holding up the wings.  I love how it turned out.

If anyone out there lives in So Cal and has a high school senior who'd like to model for me, shoot me an email.

10.  Gotta go now.  The cookies are ready.

A Diva Interview.

Guess what?  I'm going to be interviewed tomorrow on The Diva Craft Lounge at 12:00 PM Pacific Time.  If you miss the broadcast, check it out anyway.  And I apologize profusely in advance for sounding like a total dork.

Book now, shoot later, save money.

One of my first orders of business for 2008 is to update my session prices and package offerings.  My prices will be going up a bit so I'm going to honor my 2007 prices for anyone who books their 2008 session before December 15th.

Interested?  Send me an email or go here to learn more.

And meet my friends, Joe, Dude Dante and the lovely Alicia.  This session was done a week after the Witch Fire burned to within just several hundred feet of their front door.  They are such a blessed and loving family.