Hello, world! I'm out from under my rock!

My goodness. Such time has been lost. I'm still trying to pick up the pieces. The beginning of March was met with some unexpected emergencies in the form of a severe reaction to peanuts suffered by my daughter the same day I was supposed to run a Charity Booth fundraiser. Luckily, a very gracious photographer happened to be at Pioneer Coffee, where the event was to be held and he ran the booth for me while I accompanied my little one to the ER. Funny how things unfold and just seem to work out in spite of life throwing nails in the street you are driving down.

The event went forward without a hitch and we even made the paper! You can see the resulting images here. Thanks to Cedric Duty for covering for me and Deanna at Pioneer for hosting and her continued support!

My daughter's reaction was very scary. And led me to disseminate  a message to parents of non-allergy sufferers to coach their children on the importance of not sharing treats with their friends in case of those allergies. Coincidentally, the funds raised at Charity Booth event will be used to launch a safety awareness program in the school district next year and while it is still in its infant stage, I'm hoping that this message will be able to be communicated along with the message of the use of helmets while doing sports, such as skiing, skateboarding, snowboarding, etc.

Her reaction also sent her immune system out of commission and she developed a pretty severe flu, which was then passed to my son, me and my husband. We are all just now starting to feel normal again. We are a healthy family and save the normal sniffles winter brings, we have never had the flu in our house. It really is debilitating! In turn, I had to bump a shoot with two beautiful newborn girls so I didn't put them at risk. It made the shoot that much sweeter when I was finally well enough to come and capture them! Here are few favorites. The knit headbands were lovingly created by my mom.

March is also the month of my daughter's birthday and so there was some planning going on in there, too, and the day before her birthday is our wedding anniversary so throw in trying to maintain an immaculate home due to having it on the market, this March was pretty insane. Somehow, we made it work. 

I found a sliver of time to do a quick birthday shoot with my daughter, the results of which turned out absolutely beautifully. I am so very excited to start shooting in this style with girls and women. Stay tuned for more information on my makeover experience and more styled shoots! Thanks to the countless hours of studying the work and concepts of the incomparable Sue Bryce, I am truly starting to understand all that goes into making a truly beautiful, genuine, connected portrait. I am so excited to bestow this gift upon my clients!

I must also extend a huge thanks to all of my clients, fans, supporters, friends and family members who voted for me in the Macaroni Kid Snoqualmie-Issaquah Family Choice Awards! We walked away with our very first award! Without your votes, I never would have taken the cake so thank you, thank you, thank you! If you are a parent in the Issaquah/Sno Valley area, you should sign up for Mac Kid! It is truly an invaluable resource for families! If you aren't local, go to the national Mac Kid site and find the newsletter nearest you and sign up!