things i love thursday!

photo courtesy of betty lang

this past week has been a busy one. my baby turned 1 on friday, and we had a fun little party for him over the weekend, complete with bounce house, bubbles and a make shift photo booth. it was a great first birthday party for our lil worm.

i've also been busy creating my new cd/dvd sleeves, and am SO happy with the way they turned out. handmade with recycled, organic paper, i am excited to be sending my images off in these little works of art (simple as they may be.)

i took a trip down to the flower mart in downtown LA, to get all the flowers for W's birthday. they are still blooming a week later and making my house smell yummy! (yes, that's them in the picture above) a trip down there is a must for anyone who loves gorgeous flowers without the horrendous prices of floral shops. (just get there early, the best selections go fast. my favorite days to go are tuesday and wednesday, before the rush of people for the weekend)

my new shootsac should be here any day. an early mothers day gift for myself, i finally gave in and bought one, and can't wait for my next shoot so i can use it!

uncommongoods.com is a fun website for off the wall, unordinary gifts for yourself or others. i can always find unique gifts that people love, and their customer service is excellent. check em out!

the plaza...

eloise. beautiful, vivacious, and smart eloise. she loves to cause havoc around the plaza in new york, and is always learning a new lesson while doing so. she is a perfect namesake for the little newbie i was honored to shoot on friday. i met up with her mama and grandma at their beautiful home to capture her in all her newborn glory. some newborns sleep right through their sessions, making it easy to move and position them just as needed. eloise was not that way. she was alert, and curious, a total sweet heart, and awake up until the end. it was so fun capturing her tiny little toes and lovely smile, and i hope she grows up to be just like the eloise in the books.   

things i love...

i can't believe it's thursday again! this week has flown by.

my favorite things....

1. planning birthday parties. W turns 1 tomorrow, and we are throwing him a little shindig on saturday. i can't wait to put up all the decorations and get all dressed up!

2. griffith park observatory. amazing views of la, and i love the history of the building.

3. a new toothbrush.

4. spring cleaning and organizing. i donated 7 trash bags of clothes and shoes to good will yesterday. it felt so good to clean out the closets! i got rid of a pair of pants i had had since my sophomore year of high school. not because they were out of style, but because they are now too big. sad. i know.

5. bubble baths

life, in miniature

details. some are important, others not so much. but it's the details in life that make it, well, real. a friend called me earlier this week and asked if i wouldn't mind taking some pictures for his family. his mom was going to be moving, downsizing to a smaller house, and her father had built for them a model train track, complete with flickering lights and a tunnel through the mountain. when i got to the house, i was in awe. the details that this man put into his train track were amazing. little birds on the telephone wires, people standing waiting for the trains, a man filling his tank up at the gas station, the priest standing outside the stained glass windowed church. it was remarkable. but even more remarkable were the little details throughout. the street signs, all hand painted with family members names, the ranch that bears his father's initials. the water tower with his mom and dad's names on it (along with a few ex boyfriends crossed out!) the construction sign with their old phone number as the business number. i have never seen such a thing. i know there is that show "i love toy trains" (which i've never actually seen, but i know joel mchale loves to make fun of it on the soup), and this train track would make that guy jealous! 

i loved listening to my friend's stories about watching his abuelos build it, and how he would play for hours with his brother and sister. it was great watching and listening to the excitement as he discovered new details that had been overlooked for so many years.

i was happy to be able to capture all the details for the family, since unfortunately, the train track will be no more after her move next week.

if only we could all see the little details in life, and see just how important they are to making memories real...

things i love...

yesterday was my brother-in-law's birthday, and while he is no longer with us, my family and i said a little prayer, and quietly celebrated him.

he tops my things i love list, and if i did a things i miss list, he would be on that as well.

things i love...
1. a golden sunset

2. lingering goodnight kisses

3. mint chocolate

4. new friends

5. learning something new

and this:

a little blurry, but he cracks me up with his fish face! 

the glow of pregnancy

this time last year, i was in my 9th month of pregnancy. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, i don't know if there is anything more beautiful than a pregnant woman. even when she is feeling the size of a semi, has swollen cankles, and is just over being pregnant, i still see her as gorgeous. kelli hasn't reached that point in her pregancy. she has about 5 weeks left, and when we were doing her maternity shoot last weekend, she was graceful, showing no signs of slowing down, able to get up, lay down, move over here, hike, yes HIKE up the mountain, just so we could get the best lighting and beautiful scenery of chitakwa state park in boulder, co.

her husband was off on his dadchelor party with my best friend's husband, so the three of us ladies had a great time going out to dinner, and walking through boulder's pearl st. mall, and me preparing them for how their lives would be changing in the next few months! 

as we were walking through pearl st, a street performer thought it would be funny to make kelli crack the whip, to show her hubs who was in control! 

                                                      

erin, evan, and the girls

have you ever had one person who seems to be your life's biggest cheerleader? or someone who pushes you to be a better person, whether it be physically, emotionally, creatively, or just all round better? i have a few of them in my life. the obvious ones, my hubs, the parental's, and my sisters. my best friends and inlaw's.  but then i have one who i wouldn't have expected. erin.

she and i met back in high school, and as fate (and facebook) would have it, we reconnected. from the day i started my photography fan page, and actually, even before that, when i was just taking classes and posting my work on my personal page, erin was there commenting on how fabulous she thinks my work is. i have been truly thankful for all her kind words, because on the days when i feel least creative, i can look at them and see that someone out there has been touched by my photos.

erin herself is now breaking into the photog business in denver, and she is doing amazing things already! she has a goal to have an amazing website up for tutorials for other photogs, which i will be a contributing author on (again, thank you erin for including me!) It hasn't launched yet, but as soon as it does, i will be posting the link here for all to see.

erin and her husband have been married for 6 years, and have no professional photos together. so when she heard i would be in denver, she immediately asked if she could schedule a session. i was excited to see parts of CO that i probably wouldn't have, and even drove past, and stopped to say a prayer at Columbine high school on my way to our session.

she and evan picked a beautiful, albeit windy, park over looking a valley called daniels park. the air was chilly to this Cali girl, but apparently it was warm for them! i had to keep wiping my drippy nose i was so cold, so it was a good thing i was on the back side of the camera! their goal was for not only pictures of the whole family, but of the two of them as well. we had a blast climbing around, and i even did some rock climbing to get to a few awesome angles. I'm an adventurer on occasion! it was a fun session, which we ended back at their house with a picnic for the girls.

like i mentioned, erin has an amazing eye for detail. when i told her my idea of a vintage picnic for the girls, she ran with it and had a whole little scene set up for us.