One last snow…

At least that’s what I’m hoping… fingers crossed. For those of you who do not reside in the wonderful state of MinneSNOWda, we experienced a serious amount of snow yesterday. On a drive which usually takes me 15 maybe 20 minutes, took me an hour and a half… it was absolutely ridiculous. There were accidents left and right, cars in ditches, peoples slipping and sliding…. it’s days like that which make me wonder why I live here.  

Just to show ya’ll what I’m talking about. This picture was taken on Wednesday afternoon probably around 4:30. Absolutely gorgeous outside, probably 40 degrees… sunny, starting to see signs of spring, right?

And then…. WABAMMMM!! 24 hours later, this is what that exact spot looked like…

 

So for those of you who are currently residing in warm climates or planning a trip to Mexico (aka my parents), please bring back the warm weather with you… I’m sick of the snow and want it to be nice out!  

On another note, ever have those moments when you are cleaning (yes that’s how I spent my afternoon) and you are just struggling with one particular thing… Well today’s struggle is my too hard to open, impossibly tight, ripping my hands to pieces… Drano bottle.

I’m not joking either… I have spent 20 minutes drying to get that gosh darn bottle open! Nothing has worked, and of course I already threw away the receipt from Target so I can go back and be like… umm so I’m not strong enough to get this bottle open, may I have another? I can only imagine what they would think of me.. 🙂 So if you have any tips on how to get the toughest bottle of Drano open, please pass them along! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend, can you  believe March starts on Sunday? Where did the month go? Well I guess that means we are one more day closer to SPRING!!! 🙂 I’m thinking positively, hopefully it works! Bring on the warm weather!!!

Lil’ Miss J

My friend from college called and asked if I would take some picture of her boyfriend and his young daughter, of course I said yes! The second I walked in to meet them, I received a huge hug from little Jozie, which just melts your heart. I think Dad should be a little worried… we’ve got America’s Next Top Model on our hands… I mean… gorgeous eyes, beautiful personality, and loves the camera… look out Tyra Banks!!! 🙂 

Can’t you see it???  A front runner for America’s Next Top model in about 15 years 🙂

Hope to see you guys again soon, thanks for coming out on a cold afternoon!

Bella

I knew from the moment her dad e-mailed me that she was going to be a joy to photograph, her name says it all…. Bella. It means beautiful and that’s exactly what she is, so full of life and excitement. You can see it in her face and how she adores her parents more than they know 🙂 Thanks D family for having me over, it was so nice to meet you both and Bella!

Look at that face, I can only imagine she’s thinking… lady what are you doing??? 

I think Bella was telling us it was time to do a little meditation and relax for the afternoon 🙂

Little of this and that

Hope everyone had a wonderful love day yesterday! I have to say spending an evening with your girlfriends getting all dressed up to go out to dinner, no boys allowed, is quite the way to go!  But don’t worry I wasn’t without a valentine… it’s been like this since we were little kids… my mom would be my brother’s valentine and my dad would always be mine. That hasn’t ended now that I’m a ‘grown up’; he spoiled me this year with a movie, a cd, a squishy pillow and a GINORMOUS bag of M&Ms (which would have been more than enough). It was the perfect gift from a dad to his daughter, thanks again papa! 

I’ve been taking some time and playing around on Photoshop, there is so much to learn and so many new things to discover I spent a few hours playing around with different ways to edit pictures. I went back through my old pictures from a Workshop I went to in September and did some quick tweaks and wanted to share them with all of you out there.

 

Like I’ve said before I’m going to do my best with posting every day, but sometimes it’s difficult! I’m going to try my hardest this week! As I’ve mentioned before, I’m still doing complimentary sessions so if you are interested please contact me to set something up! Hope everyone had a great weekend! 🙂

Lots of love!

I can’t even start this post without saying a huge THANK YOU to all you lovely blog readers out there! The past couple of days have been sooooo busy on here, and I’m just in shock! Usually the little blog stat thingy says maybe 20 clicks a day, but the past two days have reached almost 200 EACH DAY! I can not believe it, and honestly don’t think it would be happening without the good looking ladies and gents on my blog so a special thank you to them!!! 

Now on to more pictures!! This past weekend was super busy but my friend Emily and I had been talking about doing pictures of her and her boyfriend Ryan for awhile now. We were just waiting for the weather to get a little bit nicer, well we lucked out on Saturday and it was pretty warm for Minnesota in February. Of course as soon as we get outside it’s windy and a little cooler than expected. We got a few great shots before it was just too cold to handle! I wanted to put a couple of them up for Emily and Ryan since Valentine’s Day (or to the rest of us, Singles Awareness Day) is just around the corner 😀 

Seriously how beautiful is she??? Oh did I mention she’s a photographer in the Twin Cities as well! She’s who I  learn everything from; she’s my mentor and a great friend! Check out her blog, she’s AMAZING!!! Thanks again Em and Ryan for letting me take pictures of you guys! Have a great time in Vegas!

Miss Iris

Remember Will and his beautiful blue eyes, well I want to introduce you all to his cousin Miss Iris! She is just the happiest little girl I’ve ever met! I loved that the minute I walked into their house she walked (with Mom’s help) over to me. It was absolutely adorable! I have a feeling she is going to be the brightest girl in her class, she loves her books almost as much as she loves her baby dolls! Thanks H family for having me over! It was so nice to meet you and spend time with Iris, she’s a joy to be around! Here’s a little look:

Meet Mr. Michael

Not only was Saturday absolutely gorgeous here in Minnesota but I got to spend some time with Mr. Michael and his fabulous parents! I pulled up to their house and realized they lived right next to the park where I spent so much time back when I was in school, such a small world! Anyways, Michael was not the least bit shy in front of my camera in fact he seemed almost drawn to it! He moved so fast on the bed (crawling across at the speed of light) there were moments I thought he was going to get to me before I could get one picture! But I managed to get so many great ones of him, so here’s a little sneak peek for Mom and Dad! Thanks for having me over S family, it was great meeting you! 

 

Look at those eyelashes! I wish mine looked like those! 

I absolutely love his expression in this picture… he’s on a mission! 

Look at those eyes, he’s going to have all the ladies after him on the playground!

The beautiful S family, can’t forget to point out Michael’s pouty lips! 

Maybe Michael will grow up to be a pilot someday? 🙂

Computers….

Does anyone else out there think their computer hates them? Well I’m starting to think all electronics have a thing against me…. you may think I’m kidding. I realized yesterday that since college I have gone through AT LEAST 5 computers! That’s almost a computer every year! That’s absolutely ridiculous! And I don’t even do anything illegal, I swear 🙂

So currently I am borrowing a computer from my amazing dad, because let’s be honest I can’t go 24 hours without a computer. Who can these days? But I think tomorrow we are going to go out and buy a new computer that will last more than 6 months… unlike my last 2 computers! I had one of those moments yesterday where I was tempted to take my computer, stand out on the balcony and throw it into oncoming traffic. Of course I didn’t, but the thought crossed my mind multiple times. We all have those thoughts, especially when dealing with electronics… or is it just me?

Anyhooo….I’m a member of an on-line community called Photography Mentor and it’s where photographers can come together and communicate and learn from each other. We had a video chat with one of my favorite photographers Jasmine Star tonight. The forum got to ask any and all questions, and she answered almost all of them. It was such a great learning experience and one of the main things she said was to blog every day! So that’s my goal… to at least try blogging every day. You may end up reading some silly stories about my afternoon with the girls I nanny, or the movie that I just watched but hopefully most of the postings will be of the beautiful people I get the joy of photographing!

Hope everyone is looking forward to the warm up we are going to experience this weekend! It’s suppose to be in the 30’s and 40’s, holy cow it’s shorts and sandals weather! Don’t worry once it’s 50 degrees outside I will be back in my flip flops and as happy as a clam 🙂 I’m so not a winter person, but I would be sad without the change of seasons. I know it really makes no sense at all… but I am looking forward to winter going away!

Unfortunately there will be  no picture on this post, since my computer crashed and I haven’t moved all my pictures from my external hard drive yet… SORRY. There will be many more after this weekend… 🙂

iPod Lifesaver!!!

I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this, but earlier this summer my computer crashed and with it went my entire iTunes library. Unfortunately my external hard drive didn’t have all the songs my iPod did so I lost almost 3,000 songs. Yes I have almost 4,000 songs on my iPod, it’s a little ridiculous! ANYWAYS…. I was completely devastated to have lost that much music which I love to have in my car or work out to. I’ve been putting off syncing my iPod and iTunes because I did not want to have all those songs erased from my iPod. All the tools I found online were somewhere around $25 or more, and I didn’t want to pay that, because I knew there had to be a way you could do it for free. They are my songs, on my iPod and I wanted them for FREE!

To make a long story short, I was googling… yes I do that often… and I found this AMAZING site,  http://www.getsharepod.com/ . It’s seriously a LIFESAVER! The best part about it, it’s FREE!!! FREEE!!!! I could not be more excited about this! I found it just as I was about to sync up my iTunes and iPod and wanted to jump for joy!  Not many things are free these days!

So if this has happened to you or anybody else, pass this site along to them! Now I’m off to sync my iPod and iTunes FINALLY after months of listening to the same music over and over again on my iPod, I will have NEW MUSIC!!! 😀

For her husband…

I made a quick trip to Iowa for a day, but it was well worth it! My friend’s sister wanted to have some pictures taken to give to her husband who is over in Iraq. We had such a great time doing the shoot, and she looked absolutely gorgeous! I really hope he loves the pictures! I’m so jealous because she is heading off to Italy this week to meet him there. They get to explore and just have some quality time together before he heads back to Iraq!

Have a safe trip and thanks for having me over!