Prayers are needed...

This morning when I checked my email, I had received the following letter from my aunt:
Hi,
Just wanted to let you know little Reese needs your prayers. She's in the hospital and so far they don't know whats wrong. She's been running a temp for about a week but got worse today. When they admitted her, her temp was 104.3. They took blood, urine,Xray,nose swabs and no results back yet. Earlier this week they thought she had pneumonia and put her on an antibiotic but now they say she didn't have it. She was negative earlier for the flu and another virus so guess we'll just have to wait, pray and see. When we left tonight just before 10 her fever was down to 99.9 (it had come down with cold washclothes earlier but went back up when they removed them) they put in an IV with a different antibiotic and she seemed a lot better when we left. The Dr said it would be 12-24 hours until the blood culture came back and that they could expect her to be there 2-3 days.
Please say your prayers for her, we'll keep you posted.

For those of you who have seen my website, Reese is the sweet little cutie on the opening page and in several other images on my site. She is my cousin's little girl and my heart and prayers are with them at this time. All of your prayers are gratefully welcome, I will update when I know more. Thanks.

This is one of my most recent images of Reese, we took her pictures in December. Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Growing up...

For those of you who know and see my family on a regular basis, you would know that my daughter has the cutest head of blondy curls ever (yes, I'm completely bias). Well, she hasn't always had them, as a matter of fact she hasn't really had much hair at all until the past 4-5 monthes, so as you can imagine I was thrilled to find out that she now has enough hair to wear little clippies! Jaden on the other hand has downsized in the hair category, he also had such cute curls and it took FOREVER for me to bring myself to cut them off. The curls eventually became less and less and then I had a girl so I figured it was time to let go :) What does this have to do with anything? Well, tonight I was just going through some old pictures and I found the baldest little Sammy and Jaden with a head full of crazy hair, they change so quickly *sigh*. Here are some "old" and "updated" pictures of both of them.

Jaden 3 years old:


Jaden now, almost 5! What a handsome boy:)

My "baldy bean," Sammy, one year old.

She has dropped the "baldy bean" title and graduated to "goldilocks" :)

Hmmm...now if we can only get her to keep the clips in her hair, she wasn't too excited about them...

Thanks for the input...

Well, after careful consideration and advice from good friends:) I have decided to change my business name to Bella's Images, for those of you who don't know my daughters middle name is Belle, which also means beauty, I am choosing Bella because a two syllable word sounds better. It is simple and easy to spell, so what do you think? I figure it's still early enough in the game to make the change and I most certainly do not want to be associated with erotic images! So now I have the task of changing everything, it's a little annoying but I think well worth it.
P.S. If you can think of a more creative name, let me know! (I don't want to use my name, it's too long)

The dilemna (PLEASE HELP!)

Ok, so I recently took the marketing plunge for my business and had an ad placed on http://www.myseattlebaby.com/ , well, this evening I checked to see if the ad had been posted, to see what it looked and well, because I was excited :) Anyhow, it was definetely posted and boy did I get more than I bargained for! My photography website is myposhportraits.com, there also happens to be a poshportraits.com which is intimate ADULT portraits, not only do I find these kind of portraits inappropriate but please keep in mind that I am advertising for newborn and children's photography and this website is a far cry from either (not to mention that intimate portraits are not my thing). I once had a guy call me and ask me if I would do some pictures for of him for his girlfriend, um, well, I..., uh, hmm, well lets just say the only naked bums that I'll be photographing are babies ;) I wonder if he thought I was associated, I never thought of that until now, hmm. So my dilemna is do I change my name? Will people associate me with the other? I am not upset with the advertisers, it was an honest mistake, but I wonder if this will be an isolated incident. Will people hear about my photography and go home to look it up and think to themselves "Now what was the name of that business...I remember "something" poshportraits, hmm, maybe I'll try that". In the grand scheme of things this is all quite hilarious and it does give me something to blog about, I certainly hope I was the only one to see it, I hope there were no hits on the photography section tonight, but if there were, could you imagine the shock of a mother seeing an ad for a blue eyed baby girl in a fluffy pettiskirt and thinking "Oh, that's so sweet, I wonder what her other work looks like"
-click-...oh, the horror.

What is real...

This week has been a week for much reflection in my life. I have thought about addictions, sacrifice, love, and choices and how all of these things affect ourselves and those around us. Now before you go calling my bishop :) let me just say that addictions don't have to be drugs, or alcohol, they can be anything that keeps us from doing the things that we should, the things that keep us from accomplishing our goals. I, myself could name a whole list from A to Z of what I could be doing better, but I just don't have that kind of time and would rather not develop carpal tunnel from one blog entry :) Now with all that being said I came across an excerpt from the children's story "The Velveteen Rabbit" that I felt summed up my feelings about life and who I want to be. Don't you just love children's books? The lessons that they teach are so simple and just make sense, mostly because life's lessons can be solved in such a simple way but as adults we tend to overcomplicate things (human nature). So here it is,

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day..."Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once..." he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Happy Valentine's Day!

A heart that loves is always young

~A Greek Proverb

All that is beautiful

Every morning at 3:00am my sweet little Bella bean climbs in bed with us, she always comes to my side to crawl in. Well, this morning was no different than any other except I could not go back to sleep for the life of me! Why couldn't I sleep? Most people may not know this about me but I love to write poetry, it has always been a creative outlet for me. Last night before I went to bed I was looking through my "memory" box and came across some letters that my cousin had written me shortly before she passed away, this month marks ten years since she left this life. We were very close, she had cancer, she was 17 when she died. She was also a poet, she wrote beautifully, she understood things that only someone close to death might understand, the important things. One of my most treasured "earthly" possessions is a compilation of her poetry that her mother gave me shortly after she passed away. I think that is when I really took an interest in writing, at the time it was my way of coping with the situation. Well, back to last night, I couldn't go to sleep, words were keeping me awake, yes, words. This is not the first time this has happened, but I apparently haven't learned that my overactive mind will not rest until I write it down. After several hours of tossing and turning I finally got up, grabbed a pen and my journal and this is what I came up with:

If she had a name would she be mine,

or would she be yours?

Would beauty kiss her on

the cheek?

Would she medicate your mind

or heal your soul?

If I spoke to her would she recognize

my voice

or would my words fall on deaf ears?

If she will listen,

I must tell her that I love her

and she'll forever be

our baby girl.

This is a little different from my "normal" style, I am usually a rhyming sort of gal, but this is what I came up with.

I so love this picture of my baby girl, the inspiration behind the poem.

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

Do you ever hear a phrase and can somehow put a song to it? I have a knack for this and do it ALL the time, sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing it. Anyhow, I was trying to think of something to blog about and I thought about the oh so fabulous designmom. If you have never heard of this blog, you must check it out, it is one of my absolute favorites (hence the title with the catchy tune;). Designmom always seems to find the oh so fun, oh so chic stuff that you never knew you always wanted. For the sake of not making this sound like an infomercial I will leave it at that and let you see for yourself. As for the songs in my head, I hope you hear them to :)

Gracing the page...

Well, I had big hopes and dreams for my very first post, you would laugh, you would cry, share some "moments" together, etc., etc. After more than a week of dreaming up my big debut I decided to just get it over with so that I could move on to the next big thing. So, here it is folks my new blog! For those of you who are tuning in to my life for the first time or are simply coming back after an extended vacation, this is actually a second blog for me. I have a business blog and I have been debating doing a separate family blog for some time now (since one is already enough for me to maintain!). In the end I decided it best not to post my "me" stuff on my business blog (it also gives me a little more freedom to let loose...you'll see what I mean;)
Until next time!