Arianna at 3.5 years old

And what post would be complete without some Arianna pictures!





To say I'm proud of her would be an understatement, she's amazing to me :)

Facebook

So... what's new with me?

AHH!!! I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off!

My photography business is growing and thriving and I'm INSANELY busy! I do alot of my marketing on facebook so you can find me there most days and here almost never as I don't have much time.

My photography business site is a blog and you'll see me there nearly every day too. So if you want to check up on me or my girls, find me there!

Back from 'the dead'

I know, I know... where have I been?

I've been busy with life. I had to reorganize my priorities the last few weeks because EVERYTHING was out of control - I'm not kidding. I dropped the majority of those stupid MOMS groups and joined Flylady.net again. The house is clean, the kids are happy and, more importantly, I'm happy.

My photography business is booming right now - 8 sessions this month! Wow!

The kids are doing well. Daria is such a joy. She's so easy and happy. I'm so hopelessly in love with that girl. She went on a nursing strike over the weekend due to teething and I cried so hard on Sunday. I was so sad that she may be 'over' me. Thankfully she changed her mind Monday morning. It really made me realize what a special relationship we have.

Feeding Daria is so easy. ANYTHING we put in front of her, she eats! It's amazing. She eats anything and everything. I was very casual with the whole 'introducing foods' thing and now she's on all table foods. Arianna was so total different its not even funny. This morning I gave Daria some strawberries and cheerios for breakfast and hubby commented "We could NEVER give Arianna cheerios at this age", and he's right. Arianna gagged on EVERYTHING and was very fussy when feeding. Daria we don't even have to feed - she does it herself. She is her happiest when in the highchair eating. There will be no force feedings, no 'mesermizing with the TV' and most importantly - no tears from either of us. The difference between these two, as far as eating is concerned, is astounding. I marvel at it. I told hubby the other day "So this is what feeding a baby is supposed to be, fun?". Arianna wasn't fun, still isn't fun. Daria eats more than Arianna most days. There is seldom a meal that doesn't end with me yelling at Arianna to eat - seriously. I think she'd go all day without eating - but she'll drink milk all day long, still. I get sad just typing that.

Arianna is reading now - last week we were in a restaurant with a friend and Arianna took my menu from me and pointed at an item and said "Mommy, I want the fish", and sure enough, she was pointing to a fish meal. I think I jumped up and screamed "OH MY GOD!!! YOU CAN READ!!" I was so excited. She's so amazing to me.

3 years old is hard. She's so sassy and at times so unbelievably disrespectful that it makes me want to go crazy and smack the smirk right off her face. But I have to keep in mind that 'this too will pass'. I had to give up on the whole 'let her dress herself' thing too - she's just so reliant on me doing everything for her that even the act of taking off her shirt is cause for breakdown. Last week she broke yet another pair of glasses - she's getting new ones on Thursday but I swear I'm going to order the rubber ones cause when she's being a snotty little brat and throws them on the ground they can just bounce right back up and hit her in the nose.

She better win an Oscar when she gets older! She's an unbelievable drama queen - I really have NEVER met a kid that can be so over the top about things. Sensory situations are the worst. Stepping on something gooey or squishy will immediately lead to falling on the ground screaming. Brushing her hair is an epic event every day. I've actually gotten to the point where I put TONS of crap in her hair to keep it so silky smoothy that one of those head lice combs could get through her thick hair with ease. I should just shave her head.

So ya, things here are good - just INSANELY busy and that's a good thing. So much has changed in the 9 months Daria has been here, good and bad. I've learned alot about myself and that I have so much to work on!

I won't promise to be back blogging more cause I hate to break a promise... but I hope to catch an inspiration breeze soon :)

Here's a picture I took to commemorate Daria's 9 month birthday :)

I'm a little biased

But I swear she's the cutest 'baby in a pink hat sitting in a swing'. I'm hopelessly addicted to this cute kid!

My girls

Today was another preemie dig at my heart & soul.

Arianna had her 3 year pediatrician appointment.

She's 36" tall, finally. But lost weight, again. She's 26 lbs. 1 oz. She has a cold, no surprise, but I think we've come to the conclusion she has asthma and will need to be on medicine now. Although this is totally no surprise to me I'm bummed. Being a preemie has hit her hard for being a nearly 29 weeker. Heck, I was only 2 oz. bigger than her when I was born at 30 weeks and I haven't dealt with what she's dealt with. It makes me sad and feel guilty at the same time.

On the bright side though we're working hard on our phonics and math and she's doing great. She can read a few words and what she can't read she can at least sound out phonetically and sometimes figures them out. She's really amazing me with the attention level she has for this.

Gross motor wise, well... she's really far behind. I see it more and more. She goes to gymnastics and can't do anything the 2 year olds can do. Her gait is really immature for a 3 year old, she can't/won't jump, can't/won't 'do' stairs and is very clumsy - to the point that I think she's a danger to herself. But, as her pediatrician pointed out, it's not delaying her advancement so we'll just let it 'get better'. Well how can it get better without help? I'm really concerned about it and don't feel I'm getting much help.

She still stutters, especially when asking a question, but apparently they don't do anything about it until age 5 and even then its done through the school system which is backlogged, under staffed and unorganized.

Daria is 7 months now and weighing in at a very hefty 19 lbs. She's in the 90th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height - she's just a moose! She sits up on her own fully now, gets up on her hands and knees for crawling (but thank god doesn't do it yet), is experimenting with solid food and today she said 'mama'. She has the most infectious laugh and is totally a dream baby - sleeps well and hardly ever fusses. She nurses avidly and makes me so very happy - she's my sanity saver when Arianna is 'in a mood'.

What post would be complete without pictures of my babies? I took these last week at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Gardens.

Photographers are funny

I did a workshop today that was lots of fun. Our model was the flaming red head you see below, yes, the female one...

Photographers are funny people :P

I think I may have a little model on my hands...

Daria was a baby model for a photography workshop I did today. She's so yummy :)

Hyper Speed

My life is moving at hyper speed right now - I've had 9 photography clients this month and 2 workshops - I'm BEYOND swamped so I haven't had any updates. Life (and blogging) will return to its regularly scheduled programming soon.

Daria turned 6 months... where did the time go? Seriously, I miss my little baby... now she's my big baby. Last night at dinner I think she ate more than her sister did, no surprise there. LOL

I need your help...

As I've mentioned before I'm starting a photography business this year. I want to enroll in an online business course geared toward photographers but seeing as I don't bring in an income anymore I don't have the money.

As luck would have it she is running a contest this month and asked us to submit a picture explaining why we deserve a spot in her contest. Can you help by voting for my picture?

My picture is #1, scroll to the bottom and vote for #1 please, pretty pretty please - with a cherry on top! :)

http://tennilleking.com/tkbusiness/blogsite/?p=260

Goodbye 2008!

2008 was amazing!

* Daria arrived
* Arianna thrived and learned so much
* I left my job
* Hubby got a new job
* We paid off lots of debt
* We saw family we don't see often (hubby's family came to visit after dd was born)

I can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for us!

This is my favorite part of 2008!

Happy New Year everyone!

I just want to kick myself...

Today I ordered $175 worth of photography prints from the lab. These include the fabulous pictures you see below. Problem is that when I edited them they weren't edited using the colorscape for my newly calibrated computer monitor. So the color will be ALL WRONG (such as the Arianna picture below, its way too blue). What's even worse is that this includes our 'christmas card' picture that goes out with our newsletter every year. And in the newsletter I mention how I'm looking to build a portfolio for a possible photography business and hey, look at the great pictures I took in the studio I rented... but what they see will be a very poor representation of my work/talent... all because I didn't set up my color in photoshop. Lovely.

I'm so mad at myself because I can't tell you how much work I've been putting into my photography these last few months and getting into the studio (now 3 seperate sessions) has really popped my work up to another level and I finally feel like my hard work is paying off... and I feel I can finally show people... and now this.

So anyway - I've put off doing this for a few months because I wasn't sure I was ready for the criticism, but I think I'm ready now. So... introducing... one of the first shoots of my photography business. I'll be spending most of 2009 'portfolio building' (aka. practicing on willing participants). My focus will be child and family portraits, everything from maternity to HS Seniors and more.

The only way I can get better is to get feedback from people. I want to know if this is something you like or something you would purchase if this was your own family (instead of mine LOL). If I don't know what people want, I don't know what style to shoot.

And the Award goes to...

someone else...

I didn't win anything in the photo contest but two of my photos were disqualified due to a technicality. I forgot to set the time in my camera when I first got it (only care about the date anyway), well as it turns out, not setting the time set some of my pictures date data back to the previous day. So the pictures I took early on October 4th actually read as having been taken on October 3rd at night- so they were disqualifed. I was not happy. I mean they were broad daylight pictures, how could they have been taken at 9:30 PM?! Whatever...

My photo of Misty did come in a tie for second place in one category though - but no winner for second place. Overall I thought the camera club did a really shitty job with this contest and it could have been executed MUCH MUCH better.

On the bright side I did win a door prize - 2 hours in a professional studio, equipped with lights and everything - I'm very excited about that. I hope to drag along my friend Brenda and her hubby (as he's a photographer too) and grab the girls for some christmas pictures - we'll see how that goes...

Photo Contest Submissions

Here are the pictures I submitted for the photo contest - I'll find out in 2 weeks if any of them won. From what I've seen of others pictures, I have a good chance!

Daria, on the couch

Wildflowers in my driveway

Mini pumpkins in a barrel

My cat Misty

Checkboard and rocking chairs outside Cracker Barrel
(yes, I took many pictures inside and outside of CB and yes they thought I was strange)

Whachu lookin' at?

I did a mini-photo shoot with Daria yesterday in the living room - got some good shots out of the 500 pictures I took. I love this one in Black and White - still needs some tweaking to really pop though... I'll get to it eventually

Misty, before and after

Here's one photo of my cat Misty going into the contest:

Before:


After:


It's framing funny on blogger, but you get the idea. I must say, I love photoshop!

Please help

I'm trying to narrow down my submission photos for the photo contest I'm in and one of the categories is 'people' - so of course I had to submit photos of one of my darlings, so I took some shots of Daria on her tummy on my couch.

Which one do you think is more 'contest worthy'? And what can I do to make it even better?

Getting Serious...

So I've made the decision to get more serious about my photography. I actually made the decision last year but I couldn't decide what the best avenue would be.

So last night I attended my first camera club meeting with a local camera club. It was the second time in 6 weeks I'd actually left the house without my babies... it was awesome! hehe

Although everyone is an amateur they are all really fantastic photographers and I am really looking forward to learning more from them.

This weekend they are sponsoring a photo marathon/contest for fall photos and the prize is a large gift certificate to a local camera store - I can hear a Tamron 17-55mm lens calling my name! LOL

They participate in lots of contests for the new england camera club council and plan field trips and studio time (for those of us unlucky enough to not have our own studio...). I'm really looking forward to learning more and honing my skills.

It's so nice to be doing something for me again!

What do you mean there's none left??!

Christmas!

Sorry for the long delay I had a big problem with my camera - I accidentally formated the memory card without taking the pictures off! I had to spend some cash to get them back, but I got them, finally!

The day started out wonderfully - Ari slept in! (slightly) We got up around 8 o'clock and I
got her out of her crib and changed her diaper while Shawn ran to get the video camera.

Here's video of her opening her presents:

Arianna opening her presents

After that she had a small breakfast (just yogurt) and then off to the bath for a much needed wash down. She looked irresistably cute and these shots were the first one's I took with my new Canon 50 mm f/1.8 II camera lens:




Then it was off to my parents (with a short detour at my friend Karen's to drop off her christmas gift) for dinner/gifts. We got there about 10:30 AM and hung around for about an hour as other folks started arriving and then it was Arianna's nap. She looked super cute in her dress and even more so when it was covered in tears from her screaming, at the top of her lungs, when I put her into the crib to nap. She eventually fell asleep and the rest of us could open our presents in peace.

When she did get up we opened her gifts and she was thrilled - her favorites were the rocking horse and the tea party set:


Then we had a fabulous meal (which included this ham, doesn't it look yummy? It sure tasted it! Add mustard pickles... hmm hmmm hmmm):


Arianna didn't eat well at all but we kept pumping egg nog into her and that probably filled her up. I really wish she'd take to eating better but I'm not sure how to make sure her weight stays up while she focuses on eating vs. drinking her calories.... sigh.

After a few hours at my parents we trotted over to my brother's girlfriend (fiancee now?) house to open more presents. I got this great picture of Amanda and Arianna, I just love it:


We stayed there for about an hour and then drove to Quincy to visit with my grandmother/aunts/cousins. At this stop Arianna thought it would be fabulous to throw up on my nana's rug. For anyone that knows my nana... this is really embarassing. But I cleaned it up and got her changed and she didn't seem any the weary. I snapped these cute pictures of Arianna with her cousin Samantha:


Then it was home about 7:30 PM - Arianna fell asleep in the car before we even got back on the highway. She was darn cute the whole day though :)

Of course, the next 10 days will be consumed with her barely eating. Tonight concluded with a beautiful vomit fest on the kitchen floor. Amazingly she goes right back to playing!

On the plus side, Santa must have really liked me this year cause I got great stuff:

• Speedlite 430EX, 8 batteries and charger for it
• 50mm f/1.8 - I'm in love!!
• Cactus wireless camera trigger
• Sto-Fen Omnibounce for flash
  
• Sunpak Tripod
• Extra camera batteries (2)
• New bag - Canon backpack
• Bunch of clothes from the 'rents
• Foodsaver system (gotta start saving money to buy my new studio lights!)

Phew... Goodbye 2007!

Happy new year (this took a long time to write!). I'm going to bed now! *yawn*

The real reason I can't get the christmas tree up...