It has been awhile since my last post, so I thought I’d at least share what we are working on…
In addition to learning how to grab our toes, roll-over, fly, drool, and laugh… we are also working on my new website.
Because now that we have this parenting thing figured out (as demonstrated in photo above)…
…it is time to get back to work again. New website link coming soon.
…with one very delightful two year old…
….and two teeny tiny two month old twins…
…makes for two super sleepy parents.
But it also makes for one awesome photo shoot. I had so much fun photographing the continuous baby juggling and I hope to get to come back again when the twins are a little bit older, because these sleepy, baby juggling days will not last forever.
As hard as it is to believe right now, the twins will eventually become better sleepers, and they will not need quite as much juggling… instead they will be on to their next growing adventure. The fun has just begun for this family of five, and I am grateful to have been able to document the starting line.
It has been a busy seven months for this little one since the last time I saw her. She has learned all the usual stuff that babies have to learn… like how to hold her head up, and to sit up, and to roll over, she has a couple of teeth now, and she is practicing standing while holding on tight to mom and dad’s hands. But Elena has an extra challenge that she has to learn how to work with.
When Elena was born, Elena didn’t pass the routine hearing check that the doctors ran. The doctors said not to worry, but to check her ears again at her next visit. After additional tests, the doctors eventually told Rich and Susannah, Elena’s parents, that her hearing is severely impaired. No one knows yet why it happened or how serious the damage is, and the solutions for correcting impaired hearing are not easy… but because the doctors were able to catch it early in her development, Rich and Susannah will have a better chance of helping her have a normal hearing and speaking life.
After Rich and Susannah found out their daughter could not hear, they started learning sign language and teaching her signs, and they got her her first pair of hearing aids when she was 4 months old. The first day they put in her new hearing aids, their dog, Rudy, had a new squeaky toy that he was enthusiastically chewing. As soon as Elena could hear for the first time, she heard Rudy’s squeaky toy, and she started laughing and laughing and laughing. Rich and Susannah had never heard her laugh like that before. They laughed and laughed and cried too.
I learned a lot from Rich and Susannah about what options are available for children with hearing impairments. Cochlear implants are better today than they used to be, but there is still a long way to go in repairing hearing loss. Rich and Susannah are hopeful though, especially now that we have a new president who is in favor of stem cell research. Their doctor told them that in 10 years scientists and doctors may have a better solution to help their daughter hear… and not just hear people talking, but so she can hear music too, like the other children her age.
I was so happy to receive an email from JoAnn this summer. JoAnn is expecting her second child and she wanted pregnancy photos as well as photos of her cute family. JoAnn got my name from Maria, the mother of the 2-year old who’s birthday party I photographed in the spring, and Maria found me on the internet.
I love that I have been in business for 3 years and I have yet to make business cards… word of mouth is way better than business cards– and it saves trees too! (Although, I know I will receive grumpy comments from my loved ones who wish I had business cards so they can pass them out…. so it is only a matter of time until I give in to the little white rectangles.)
Anyway, here are my favorites so far. I took a few rolls of film too, so as usual, there will be more to come. It was such a fun photo shoot… gorgeous couple with a super happy 2 year old and big beautiful windows. It was a great way to spend a Sunday.
Jude and I met yesterday and picked our top 15 photos to submit to the stock agency in order to hopefully get accepted and hopefully start getting paid for all the fun photo shoots we have been having. Here are 5 of our favorites that have not been posted yet… to see some of the other ones (preteen rock-star and skater girl, bed in field, woman on bicycle) click here.
Don’t worry we only took one photo of crying baby, after her sister knocked her with the plastic fish and before mom picked her up. So no babies were mistreated in the making of this photo… but even crying she is still so cute.
It was hard to choose only 15, we have so many more that we love… so hopefully we will be admitted to the club and then we can put them all in. Thank you to all of our beautiful and wonderful models!!
First I have to say, I am so excited because last week I received two emails from mothers who saw my work on the internet and wanted to hire me to take photos of their families. Yay for the internet, and yay for internet savy mothers.
Now back to this week, these photos are from the photo shoot I did this morning, for one of those mothers. Growing up as the baby of her family, she wanted to be sure her own baby had the same amount of photos as his big sister. So we decided the earlier in the day the shoot was, the better, because having two young nappers, it is hard to coordinate happy moods later in the day. Since my favorite time of day, the late afternoon, was out of the question, I was worried, because to get good sunlight in the morning, you have to start really early, and there was no way any of us wanted to think about photos before 7 am, so we decided on 7:30…. which for those of you who know me, that’s still very early.
But I managed to get there, with even enough time to look around for a good outdoor spot… which happened to be the dirt bike course near their house. So we played in the shade there for awhile, and then we came home and played downstairs for a bit…. and right before I left I decided, just one more… just one more spot…. and so we all went back to bed.
And as a kid, there is nothing better than cuddling with your parents in their big comfy bed… so it is not surprising that these are a few of my favorite photos of the day…. although it was really hard to choose.
