This picture was taken at Tammy and Leon's wedding. I took it more for myself than for them. LOL! Below is a picture of Naomi, her husband was at a wedding I shot last year, and he came up to me after the ceremony and said "I was watching you work. Half the pictures you take are for yourself, aren't they? You were aiming your camera at the ceiling and windows, pipe organ, etc.--you're are just having fun ,aren't you?" At first I was embarrassed, but looking back I see it as a compliment--I LOVE WHAT I DO and I pray my clients see that. Even if it is a church I have shot weddings in multiple times, I ask the Lord "Okay, what do you want me to see for them?" And then He spoils me and points out things for me as well. I say it to Steve over and over again as I edit pictures "Look, Babe, look what God gave me!" I have gotten requests from people to see my weddings and I have always thought I would do a separate photoblog. I bought a wordpress blog a few years ago, but I have been waiting for the logo and text and everything to be perfect. I felt like my clients should have a nice, crisp showcase for their images. But here is the thing...none of it is perfect, it will never be "professional enough" and some of my favorite weddings came from people I have met through this blog. I cannot be with my kids the amount I want to and maintain a professional "image" with a separate blog. So I am hoping to start posting more weddings on this messy, bad grammar, sporadic, blog, because I want to share that side of my life with you as well, instead of holding back and waiting for perfection. There is a part of me that holds back because these photos are my babies, and I at times feel like protecting them in case people do not love them the way I do, but the truth is, I believe--I really believe--God gives me the ideas for each image. They are gifts from God to the couple, and who am I to claim them? Every year I write out a mission statement for my business and most often it comes back to something like this: "The aim and final end of music (photographs) should be nothing other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul"--Bach I translate that to mean I want to bring glory to God and bless those (refresh those) that I come in contact with So all that to say: I often, at almost every wedding, have tears running down my cheeks in gratitude for what the Lord allows me to capture. I see His beauty everywhere, and I am so blessed. 
My friend Naomi and her son. They go to our small group. She is due in a few weeks with her third baby. The last two will be approximately eleven months apart! Naomi is an MK from France so she has that calm, world wise maturity about her. 
Okay, so Jim does not get points for being classy...but romantic, yes. It made us smile and take a drive-by photo, so thumbs up for Jim. 
I was FINALLY able to grab an hour and spend time with my friend Sherrie. Just as I was leaving her house she showed me her "stones from a river box" (Joshua 4...she has a cooler name for it, but it escapes me now). She takes a permanent marker and writes on the stones things that God has done. Under the bowl of stones is potpourri. Steve and I have wanted to have something like this in our living room for a long time, filled with receipts and letters etc.--tangible reminders of all His great works in our lives. 
Here is Etienne and his cousin who I call Nate the Great. They went to a local nursing home with their class to sing to the residents there. There was one resident who was clapping very loudly through the entire performance and when one of the nurses softly asked her to stop she was resolute "No! I will not stop! I know all about children: they like clapping--it makes them happy and lets them know that they are doing a good job!" And then she just went right on clapping. Eti kept looking over at her smiling, I think he was on her side. 
My new Birks...they took about a week to break in and now I do not know how I ever wore anything else. I have been pricing them for over a year and found my exact size marked waaaaaay down. I took Juls' kids and my kids down to the creek. They spent their time building dams and catching crawdads. At one point Ali and I were sitting on a rock and a very large black snake slithered right between us. How about that?! 
My sister Julie told me on the phone "Jo something is wrong with your pictures, xanga is only loading them halfway. "What do you mean?" I inquired, "Well like the one at the creek, Nate is all chopped off and you can't see what the girls are doing!" I laughed and laughed and then responded , "No Julie that IS the picture!" Excuse #1 My memories of childhood are like this; blurry, dappled in sunlight, not revealing every detail or even all the faces of who is there. It is usually more a feeling, a hint of a moment, a playful mystery -you know there is something going on but you can't quite grasp it, it has moved beyond the frame of your memory. Excuse #2 I shot most of the pictures on this post with my little point and shoot Panasonic Lumix, which does not have a viewfinder like an SLR that I can put right up to my eye so instead I am waving it all over the place at arms length hoping to capture something and this is what it gave me. You, the reader can choose which excuse you like best but may I suggest excuse #1? It is more artsy and I worked harder at coming up with it. 
The girls discovered rocks can be used like chalk and every few minutes brought me gifts of scratched rocks and foliage. "I feel it is important to remember that there is beauty in every situation. And it is the imperfect moments of life that have the most value. They are the ones that shape who we are and years from now they are the ones that we remember. Photograph and enjoy the moments in between. " ----Carlos Tarrats 
My boys are spending most of their days outside. Steve is letting them use hammer, nails, and a hand saw. This is a first. From the time they were born, I have let Steve make the call with the boys. I have no clue what is too scary or dangerous and just let him decide what is okay. The boys love it and I paid them 2 dollars to make me a stand for my headbands. They had to paint it as well, and it came out so good! 
I love this picture above because it looks like something Coco did: it is outside of the bounds. I have so many pictures like this on my hard drive where my kids will ask me to take pictures, and then they break every single rule of photography. I keep them because as they get older, they will start to discover the boundaries, and I will show them these shots. Half the time I suspect that it is not the kids being creative, but more about my camera being very heavy and they are just happy to press the shutter and not drop it at the same time! 
Wegmans. Came home with ingredients for all the recipes I picked out of my Tessa Kiros cookbook as well as the Real Simple magazine cookbook which has SO MANY great recipes in it. Chicken curry, gyros, roasted garlic potato soup, angel hair pasta with zucchini and feta, baked fish with roasted red potatoes... | 
