Wyatt and his blocks

I took these of Wyatt a few days ago. He has been sitting up on his own now for a the past 2 weeks. I cannot express the small yet wonderful joys in life like your child sitting up :) This means that he can entertain himself for a few minutes so I don't have to hold him ALL the time... I love holding him, don't get me wrong, but its pretty frustrating for the both of us when he wants to sit UP and still wants his freedom from dad's arms. :)

Look at that face :)

Memphis, Son!

Soooo, I am really bad about posting timely blog posts about fun things that we do :) We were in Memphis 3 weeks ago, am I am just now getting this blog post up and running. I am working on it, I promise :)

We spent the following day in Memphis after Matthew and Jennifer's wedding and had a pretty killer time. As much as we love shooting weddings, there is something magical about the following day and not having any responsibilities. Weddings, especially for me, come with a lot of expectations; 'There is only one chance to capture everything going on, so don't blow it!' kind of pressure :) So, the thought of spending a whole day with my bride in a new city without the responsibility of being photographers OR parents was awesome! It was the first time for us to be away from the kids for so long, so of course we were missing them like crazy, but we still had a great time.

Check out our day...

I didn't know they had a ginormous pyramid in Memphis...

My hot wife :)

'Here comes the smolder'...

LOVE these yellow trees, which I recently found out are Ginkgo trees. (fact provided by Dr A. Osteen, MD)

Rendevouz... BBQ so good you'll slap your mamma :)

Old meets New

After much persistence, Emily did a 'leaves falling' portrait :)

One of my favorite parts of our day to Memphis was our spontaneous trip to the zoo. Memphis has a killer zoo! I had no idea, as I... well, I don't keep up to snuff on what zoos are out there :) Anyway, after a few minutes, I ran back to the car to get the camera because this was not your ordinary zoo... you could actually SEE the animals :) If you've been to the PHX zoo, you know what I mean.

I've decided this is my favorite monkey ever, the Langur. SO hilarious :)

:)

Much better view...

This one is my personal favorite photo I have ever taken of an animal...'There's a smile!' :)
Finally, when it was late, we headed downtown for some good Jazz music. I didn't take many photos here because the lighting was terrible, but here is one from Beale St. which is the place to be in Memphis on a weeknight.
So that was our trip... I promise that next time we go somewhere exciting I won't post 3 weeks after the fact :)

Abby Josh and Wyatt

I am looking forward to a nice relaxing week. It is the first time since February that I do not have any photos to edit and I am LOVING it! :) Emily is shooting a holiday mini-session tonight, and other than that I don't have anything until Bobby and Ajshia's wedding this weekend (which we are REALLY excited about)! :)

This is when I usually get to edit pictures that I don't have time to edit otherwise. A few weeks ago, Emily and I baby sat our niece and nephew Abby and Josh. Love these kids :). Jason (my brother) and Esther wanted to go on a date so we took the kids off their hands and hung out. Here are some shots that I took.

Wyatt going from happy to tantrum in 3.2 seconds...

Joshy reminds me so much of Wyatt! They are both 2 of the most go-with-the-flow kids, they are always smiling, and really easy to make happy.

Look at that chubby little smile! This little man is the bees knees :)

Joshy is always 'raising the roof'...

Wyatt is loved

Everyone should have a chunky, happy, little kid like Wyatt. One of my life's greatest joys is turning around and seeing that he is looking at me; then, when he realizes that he has my attention, he flashes me the biggest toothless grin his chubby little face can give :) Even on a frustrating and stressful day, when everything seems to go wrong (ever have those??? :) he fills my heart with joy.

Temple also loves to smother her Bubba, which is what she knows him as. If we don't keep an eye on her, we can often find her completely laying on top of Wyatt with his head in a giant bear hug while he struggles to get free :) She has no idea that she could hurt him, all she wants to do is shower him with hugs and kisses. Like I said, this little guy is LOVED!

"Really guys? Is this necessary?" is my guess at what he is thinking :)

Faith Tested

Hi all, I hope your weekend was fabulous(does that word coming from me sound feminine?)! Our weekend went by way too fast and for the most part was on par enjoyable. It didn't start out that way, however...

Trouble started out around mid morning. I was at home working on Caleb and Sarah's wedding when Emily came in near in tears and said that while she was out shopping, Temple was being obnoxious (which, if you have a 1 1/2 year old little girl, you probably know what we are talking about. It's not the norm, but she DOES have her moody days). Emily just had her birthday and was really excited about using her gift card she got for $60. While going through the aisles, at some point Temple took Emily's gift card out of her wallet (unbeknownst to Emily) and tossed it. Em didn't find out until she got up to the register and saw that her card was missing. They searched and searched and it was no where to be found. I don't have much doubt that someone saw the opportunity and pocketed my wife's card which is an irritating thought that people are so inconsiderate, but what can you do. Em was so disappointed that she just needed to take a break from the kids so I took over for her for most of the day thereafter.

That's not the half of it...

Then, while Emily is at the gym, she gets an email on her phone that one of our couple's is canceling their wedding with us because of their economic situation (I called them, by the way, and they are definitely in a tough spot and we completely understand why they needed to cancel). This was the first time we have ever had a cancelation and it's not fun in our kind of business. THEN... less than 45 minutes later! We receive ANOTHER email of one of our couples canceling due to a death in the family. At this point Emily and I are both thinking 'Okay, what on earth is going on here!?' 2 cancelations within 45 minutes of each other? And again, both couples had serious and legitimate reasons to cancel; it had nothing to do with our work or our relationships with the clients which were (and still are) in good standing.

THEN... (at this point it's just comical :) we received a call earlier about a photo shoot for a corporation for that night! 'GREAT! some good news finally!' we thought. So I talked back and forth with the Scottsdale Hilton rep to make it happen, draw up a contract, etc. So I go to the hotel and guess what? They hired someone else! :) I was stunned... The rep their said that she never received my contract via email and so she hired someone else because they didn't hear back from me. We go back to her office to check it out, and there it was, my email in her spam folder. At this point, I'm not even mad at all... 'figures' was my only thought. I'm so spent at this point that I start having random breakouts in laughter followed by exhaustion :)

So why and I writing all of this? Because I am thankful for days like this... Let me explain.

Emily and I are Christians (which is a vague term these days. Suffice to say we are followers of Jesus, believe in the Bible, and live our lives according to the principles within the Bible to the best of our ability). On a day like this, I step back and am forced to take a serious look at my security and where I put my trust; within 45 minutes we lost a considerable amount of our future income (not that it broke the bank by any means, but it was a substantial hit), AND certain things that we thought we had the rights to were taken from us without our consent. I got the chance to see what my first flinch was, and I'm thankful that it was 'God, you aren't caught by surprise by all this. If we lost everything, we can still place our trust in you and know that you will provide.' Not that I didn't have my serious moments of doubt and depression, and I don't think many would fault me for struggling, but my overall point of view was 'God will provide, period'. On top of that, I am thankful that I still have my lovely and beautiful wife, my adorable and healthy children, a roof over our heads and food on the table. Their isn't a whole lot in life that we NEED, really, and in this light we are so very blessed beyond what we realize.

This was a really wordy blog post, and if you made it all the way through it, I hope that you are encouraged with it. :) Here's one a picture of Wyatt from Friday. He LOVES Netflix :)

Tempe Photographer: Bobby and Ajshia

Happy Monday! I am glad to be back at home in the captain's chair (my overly dramatic name for my office chair) editing pictures! We went camping with my folks from Thursday through Saturday up in Williams, AZ and had an amazing time! I cannot tell you the difference it makes to be in 70 degree weather as opposed to 110! The kids had a great time too so that is always a plus... well, Wyatt kind of just laid there because thats all he can do, but he enjoyed himself all the same :). Temple, on the other hand, ran around and tried as hard as she could to escape the iron grips of her parents who wanted to keep her on the campsite and in sight. She's such an independent and curious kid, always wanting to explore her surroundings and find as much freedom as possible. I will have more about our trip up soon!

Emily and I ran into Ajshia at the AZ Bridal Show. Emily followed up with her after the show and they hit it off right away. We love when we make strong connections with brides right off and Ajshia was such a down to earth and energetic bride. Well she and Bobby have since decided to use Emily and I for their wedding photography and we CANNOT wait to shoot their wedding later on! We just did their engagement session last week and we had the greatest time with them! So much fun in front of the lens, we couldn't help but love every minute of it. Here are some of our favorites. If you like, leave us a comment at the bottom of this post to tell us what you think!

We LOVE working with cool textures and architecture.

More to come with Bobby and Ajshia's wedding!
Oops! I forgot to add this one :)