photo shoot : a family of 4

I met Amanda last year.  She is another resident's wife/stay at home mom.  I completely value her friendship and have been so excited to watch her family go from 3 to 4 this year.  It makes finding time with her a little bit harder, but she is pretty good about getting back to me with texts.   I was beyond excited when she asked me to take some photos of them now that Baby Charlotte (aka Charlie) is here.  Here are a few of my favorites:

social life and progress.

Last week I had the pleasure of spending time with the residency moms for another play-date.  As I mentioned before, we took their kids to Snow Fest at the local ice rink about 2 miles from my house.  I think they had a lot of fun!  There was bouncing, snow ball throwing, and a train ride!  I can't wait until Myles is able to join the mix, but until then I had fun capturing the festivities :-).

The rest of the afternoon I spent shopping around town for the last few things to be able to actually work on my long list of projects.  I finally found a great $1 piece of reclaimed wood from Habitat's ReStore, so I hit Home Depot for brackets to build a 5ft long shelf on Myles' wall for about $7.  While over that way, a local fabric store was having a 50% off sale, so I also found some fabric to line the back of the bookcase I am using to store baby things in Myles' closet.  Grabbing staples from Target allowed me to also finish some display frames for another decoration idea for the baby room.  Now that the shelf is hung, I will be able to finally decorate a bit this week!

It feels really good to get that stuff off of my list.  Kyle's parents came in this weekend as well so they were able to knock off another thing from the list for me!  My laundry room is no longer beige!  I hope to post more on that later.  We had a busy weekend and I am whooped.  I'm really starting to realize just how much I HAVE to slow down.. my body just can't take my normal pace anymore.  

So how about you?  Did you get any projects completed over the weekend?  It feels great doesn't it?!

a beautiful day to fly

or just watch planes.

I met up with a few lovely ladies yesterday for lunch at the Runway Cafe.  And got to enjoy time with their adorable kiddos.  Thats right.  I'm making friends with the moms club of surgery residents.  Here's a few shots I got of Elizabeth's kiddos.  Three year old Jackson and his baby sister Isabella.

Is she not just the cutest thing in the world?!

A few of Lizzie and Ella.  That girl was really into the airplanes!

Oh and there were airplanes too :)  

The weather could not have been any better.  Can't wait for the next outing!

photo shoot : siblings part 2

Here is part 2 of the photos I took with my brother and husband.  As I mentioned yesterday, he wanted to do some photos in his uniform but had trouble getting it.  He hadn't bought a new uniform since his freshman year of college.  When he was a stick.  The term high-waters was an excellent description of his pants 5 years later.  Little brother grew up.  And bulked up.

5 years ago.  Stick.

After over a week of trips to 2 different military bases in Ohio and Kentucky, he finally got the uniform put together.  So here is Mother's Day present take 2.

(1)

(2) 

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

I'm really happy to have both of my guys with me in these pictures.  They have become very close over the years and its going to be hard to have us all together after we move.  They have really become brothers since we got married and I absolutely love it, even though they drive me nuts when they are together.  Number 8 is going to have to be blown up somewhere in our new home.

photo shoot : siblings part 1

The two weeks leading up to our whirlwind weekend, my brother and I did some secret photo shoots for our mom.  He had the fantastic idea that since we were both leaving the state and country soon we should take pictures together for his commissioning gift to her and our Mother's Day gift.  We wanted to do all of them at once but he had some issues getting his new uniform ordered and tailored.  So one week, with the help of Kyle, we did some plain clothes photos (today's post), and the next week we did the military ones (tomorrow's post).  Kyle made his way into a few of them.  We all took turns using the camera depending on who was in the shot and then I edited.

Enjoy.

(1)

(2) 

(3)

(4) 

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

We had a lot of fun doing these and I will treasure them for a long time.  So glad he had such an awesome idea.  Whats your favorite?  Comments are welcome.  :)

photo shoot : baby bays

Back in the fall I was honored to take the maternity pictures of my good friend Lauren with her husband Jeff, before the birth of their precious little boy Jeffrey Lee Bays III (JLB3), or "Baby Bays".  My husband and I have been in community with his parents for almost a year now and they are some of our very best friends. 

And then about a month after he was born, I had the privilege of getting to photograph JLB3 and his parents for their first family photos.  

Last week, he turned 2 months old and I got to take some more pictures of this quickly growing baby.  He is really starting to show some personality and that was really fun to catch.

1

2

 3

 4

 5

6

Isn't he just so precious!?  Such a handsome little boy.  It is so awesome to get to see how much he changes every time I see him.  And I get to babysit him this weekend.  So. excited.  Which is your favorite?

The beginning of a new normal

image source 

For years now I've read from blogs of friends... Julia over at black tag diaries, Amy at That Winsome Girl, and various others from time to time... church leaders, traveling friends... I guess I decided its time for me to join in.

You see, I'm in the calm before the storm right now.  My husband, being a 4th year medical student, is a month away from finding out where a computer will decide we should spend the next 5 years of our lives while he is trained to be a surgeon... more on that later.  That day will hopefully set in motion many other new experiences for us: buying a house, moving more than 2 hours away from our previous location, and moving away from KY for the first time in either of our lives.

So why not?  Why not get in the habit now of semi-regularly writing a post about what is going on in our lives?  I plan to use this as a bit of a scrapbook... document photo sessions, craft projects, home improvement plans, dreams, thoughts, ADVENTURES.  Because that is what this next chapter of our life together is going to be.  A huge adventure.  I might as well look at it that way... otherwise I might just get swallowed up by the overwhelming dread of the unknown that is usually my passenger.  But what is the fun in that?

In the summer of 2009, I attended my husband's officer training graduation at Maxwell Air Force Base.  While there, I received some of the best advice of my life.  It holds true for not only military families, but medical families as well.  Especially for someone of my background.  An officer's wife shared with the rest of the spouses:

The best way to survive this is to change your sense of normal.

The normal I grew up with will never be the normal of my life as the wife of a surgeon or a military officer.  But if I can accept this new definition of "normal", and accept that the definition will never stop changing, I can do this, and have some fun along the way.

Any advice out there for the future of this blog?

Verse of the day: "Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed." Proverbs 16:3