Bad Blogger!

I have been an absolutely horrible blogger! But, I've been getting lots done! Besides enjoying a few days off at Christmas and spending this past weekend in Laguna, we've been working hard on the nursery to get that ready just in case our little guy gets here early (hopefully he will get here early!). And I've been working hard on designing albums. I also shot a cool wedding the Friday before Christmas and an awesome engagement shoot last week. I'll be blogging about those after the New Year. I have two weddings in January that I've been really looking forward to. I've hired two of my awesome photographer friends to cover those with me just in case my water breaks in the middle of the wedding. Hopefully that won't happen because that would be gross, but I have to be prepared for anything :)

I have decided that January 18th will be my last day in the office before I go on maternity leave. It's just getting too hard to sit in a chair all day. I will officially be returning April 7. So, if you are a current client and want your album or proofs please order them in the next week. I'm getting very backed up because everyone wants their albums before I go on leave. And if you are a prospective client please schedule a meeting with me soon as well. I will probably be scheduling meetings again in early March, but I'm not making any promises. I will still be checking my email and returning phone calls, but it is going to take me a bit longer to get back to you.

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and has a great New Year! I'm just hoping to make it to midnight tonight. We're going to go see Juno in an hour and then I'm going to eat lots of sugar to try and stay up until midnight!

Christmas Lights!

Speaking of my competitive nature, we had our neighborhoods annual Christmas light contest last week. The past two years we've placed second. This year we really weren't planning on going big. We had no theme, we have been super busy working on the nursery, and our weekends have been jammed packed with things for the baby. Also, there's this house in our neighborhood that always goes crazy. They spend thousands of dollars on their decorations. Last year their theme was Christmas in New York. They had the New York skyline, decorated their windows to look like Macy's, and even had a hot dog cart the night of the contest. It's great that they are so into the contest, but it really doesn't make it very fun for the rest of the neighborhood. No one really tries because everyone knows they are unbeatable.

Well, even though I know they are unbeatable, I still have to try. Chuck was up on the roof the night before the contest until midnight putting the finishing touches on our lights. And it was 46 degrees that night too! I wasn't sure we were going to place at all, but we got second... again. But really, second is like first in our neighborhood so we were pretty happy with it. The crazy people made their house into a gingerbread house and had Polar Express playing on one of the walls in their backyard. They also brought out the hot dog cart and added candy apples this year too. Crazy. I want to win, but not that bad.

I'm very proud of Chuck for doing such an awesome job on the lights. He pretty much did everything himself this year because I can't get up on a ladder. I'm also proud of him because he went to our neighborhood board meeting and asked them to name the contest after our neighbor Roy who passed away last January. He was super into the contest and would go out in the middle of the night and add more lights to his house. He was the first one to win first place in the contest.

So here is a picture of our house. There's Santa up on the chimney. And we have a countdown to Christmas clock on our gate in the bottom right of the picture. We also had a snow machine going too! Apparently that's not good enough for first, but I'm not bitter :)

Vote For Me!

Last week one of my very favorite kid and family photographers, Tara Whitney, had a contest on her blog to decide on her best foot picture of the year. She also opened it up to other photographers to submit their favorite feet images and she picked one of my pictures! I submitted this picture:



It's my favorite picture of the year. I don't know why I love this shot so much. Maybe because they are some of my favorite people. Maybe because it was such a fun family shoot. I think it just totally embodies who their family is just by looking at their feet.

So go to Tara's blog and vote for number 3!!! Voting ends Wednesday morning at 9am PST. To vote you must leave it in her comments and only vote once or else your votes will get thrown out! I think I get a canvas print of the image or something like that. That's not important. I'm just a super competitive person and want to win :)

Happy Birthday to my Hubby!

Wedding Blogs

Wedding blogs are an awesome place to find cool and unique wedding ideas. I visit several blogs to stay up to date on current wedding trends and also to get inspiration from other photographers. Here's a list of some of my favorite blogs. If you have others you love feel free to post them in the comments section!

Wedding Bee
This is the ULTIMATE wedding blog. I'm sure most of you already know about this one, but had to state the obvious.

The Bridal Bar
Love the Bridal Bar! Harmony knows everything there is to know about weddings.

The Brides Cafe
Love this one because they talk about photography a lot :)

Style Me Pretty
Lots of great ideas!

Polka Dot Bride
Ms. Polkadot is in Australia and when I read her blog I read it in an Australian accent and it makes me happy.

Ten Thousand Only
This girl is planning her dream wedding for $10,000!

Preston Bailey
Just because he's simply fabulous!

Hope this gives you all something to read while you're bored at work :)

Take Your Dog to Work Day

Yesterday Hauggy got to go to work with me! I volunteered at Laguna Hills Animal Hospital and took pictures of pets with Santa. My friend Nicole is the manager there and I can't so no to helping animals. Hauggy got his very own luxury sweet complete with a dog bed and his own TV tuned to the animal channel. However, he choose to lay on the hard floor right next to the door. He also got all of his vaccines updated and we took a DNA test to find out exactly what breed Hauggy is! How fun! I've always wanted to meet his parents and see what kind of dogs created him. We'll find out in a couple of weeks. Here are some of the cute little critters I hung out with all day!



And of course I had to get one of Hauggy with Santa

Our First Official Family Picture

I've always looked at pregnant women and thought they were so beautiful. It didn't matter if they were big or small, I just thought pregnant girls were so cute. I couldn't wait to get pregnant because I thought I would feel the same way. I thought no matter how much weight I gained or how uncomfortable I was I would just feel cute.

I have felt anything but cute for the past 7 1/2 months. No matter how many times people tell me I look great it just hasn't sunk in. And that makes me sad because I know I've told other pregnant people they look beautiful and I know they didn't believe me. I never wanted to be "that girl".

Well, Jessica just posted our maternity pictures on her blog. I'm going to stop complaining. My bump is beautiful and Jessica's pictures made me realize that. Like I said before, Jessica is my favorite photographer so it was really fun to work with her. Everything she does is gorgeous, but she far exceeded my expectations. She also brought along another great photographer, Marisa. I met her earlier this year and she's a Bruin (woohoo!) so it was fun to have her along.

Here are some of my favorites, but you can see more on both of their blogs. Thanks again Jessica! You rock!

** A lot of people have been asking about my make-up. It was done by the absolutely fabulous Carina! She's the only make-up artist I will recommend. Not only is she super talented, but she's also one of the nicest people I've ever met. Book her! You will not be disappointed!

Email is Up!

My email is back up. Yeah! But, now my blackberry isn't working. Boo! I'll have to figure out how to fix that. I feel so lost without out blackberry dinging all day long.

Chuck and I had a big weekend. Yes, UCLA lost and I don't want to talk about it. But, we also had our baby shower, which was so much fun. I'll have pictures up today hopefully. And yesterday we took our maternity pictures with the amazing Jessica Claire. Jessica is my favorite photographer so it was a lot of fun to have a shoot with her. We brought our Ikea couch along and put it in the middle of streets and fields. I can't wait to see the pictures and will let you know when she posts a few on her blog!

Email is Down

Hi Everyone,

My website company just switched my email to another server and now it's down. Please email me at drewbphoto@hotmail.com.

Thanks!
Drew