Wedding Game Face

Today we shot a wedding at the Newport Beach LDS Temple.

this is my game face

But this is my happy face (and my happy.)

the wedding was awesome.

My Model Sister

When I was younger and in dire need of subjects to photograph, my little sister always seemed to be my eager little model (and good thing too, because I probably would have made her anyway.)

These were all taken with a disposable camera, developed at somewhere like Walgreens  put into an album then rediscovered and scanned by me the other day. 

This was just before Halloween (she was a little cave girl, obviously) when I was in 6th  grade
So that would make it 1997.

She was be two years old.

This was from a little session right after they moved out of state.
I made this (adorable) pink dress for her and made her model it when I went to visit.
 

A few years later, when I visited again, I put some makeup on my sister (my mom didn't like that) put one of my jackets on her, grabbed one of my grandma's old porcelain dolls and took her to an old New England graveyard. My mom was all kind of creeped out by this shoot. :D

It was so cold, which made it look like she was sad or crying (that might also have been the eyeliner, which she had never worn before, being 9 and all)

This is probably my favorite ... possibly from all our little shoots. 

Anyway, my sister is awesome. Shes all grown up now and even more beautiful. 

(even though I think she wears too much make up and has too many piercings, but what else am I supposed to think? I'm the big sister.)

First hand out, First shoot, First Bacon drink

I should be writing my Relief Society lesson for tomorrow.
I teach the "Teaching for our times" lesson once a month, where you create a lesson from conference talks... yeah. I don't even have a lesson book to fall back on.

Tomorrows (Today's?) lesson is based on Elder Uchtdorf's October 2011 General Conference talk "Forget Me Not"

I did manage to cut out a large Forget-me-not for the board and make these hand outs for the "Group Discussion", other wise known as the "please-talk-for-a-long-time-because-I-didn't-prepare-much-else" time. 

Its the first hand out I've ever made. Simple, I know, but it took, like... three hours.

I also want to shorten the video of the talk to show a portion of it in class... so I have that uploading to iMovie... should in done in about two hours.

*Note to self: don't wait 'till the last minute to prepare lessons. Or if you do, don't insist on elaborate lessons.*

Anyway,  last night (Friday night) was awful. 

Kaleb now refuses to sleep in his crib longer than an hour, but thats a different post, what I'm getting to is the fact that I was completely exhausted this morning. 

Basically I had a rough start to what ended up being a good day.

Blake left in the morning to play basketball, so when he came home around 10am, I had finally gotten Kaleb to sleep for his first nap. I'm completely drained and Blake's like: 

"So how was your workout time?"

Granted "Paige's Workout Time" in on the schedule I put on the wall, but I still felt so defensive and snappy. I believe my response was some sort of guttural noise... he didn't press the issue.

So, I'm feeling crappy because I didn't work out and was kinda called on it. 

I go to the kitchen to make breakfast and our sink is FULL of dishes. Completely overflowing on both sides. Now, I dont know why I just expect Blake to do them, but he knows how much I detest doing them so I think he should always just do them. 

Apparently I'm wrong.

I asked him (probably accusatorially) why the dishes weren't done and he says something to the effect of "I don't know why aren't they done?"

Not a pleasant morning.

But then I started getting our cameras ready and getting pumped for the day's engagement session. 

I was honestly really excited. 

It was my first engagement session since I had Kaleb.

And these clients are pretty rock'in.

So we dropped the little dude off with Grandma and Grandpa Green for safe keeping until we returned.

Well, the session was fun, and I found my groove easier and more smoothly then I had anticipated. 

We shot in Old Town Orange where the shops and street make for good times.

It also really helped that these particular clients were attractive and fun.

I'd probably hang out with them even if they didn't pay me.

We ended the shoot at Old Towne Grinder and Ice Cream Parlor. Hands down best part of the shoot. 

Its this cool place with a million different varieties of bottled soda (or "pop". When I say "bottled" I just feel like "pop" sounds better than "soda"... anyway...) and after we got some cool shots, Blake and I decided to get a bottle ourselves. 

I chose this deliciously refreshing pottle of pumpkin pie soda. So yummy. 

But Blake chose this. This nasty bottle of Bacon Soda. In his defense, he was looking for black licorice soda, but our clients... with some help from me... convinced that he should get bacon soda just for the bragging rights. 

Blake made us all drink some too.

It smelled like gym feet.

It tasted like carbonated liquid smoke.

Blake kept burping and shivering in disgust.

It was freaking hilarious. :D 

Our clients, tasting the nasty Bacon Soda.

On the way home, I told Blake I wanted a picture of the two of us.
Something I hadn't done in years.

I try to avoid pictures as much as possible, unless its some kind of special occasion or my son is with me.

I avoided being infront of the camera because I was so embarrassed and hated how I looked.
Well, I still hate how I look, but I'm not embarrassed so much.

I think my previous post was some kind of liberation. I mean, everyone knows my secret shame now, might as well stop pretending.

Thats not to say I'm going to stop trying (though at the Elders Quorum activity I ate pasta, bread, cake and ice cream all before I even realized what I was doing... lame.) But I might as well stop hiding and document my life with out fear.

and my progress too. :D

So here's my "happy day and no makeup" picture, at a red light with my awesome husband who often tells me he loves me and that I'm beautiful. 

So, yeah. Overall... Good day. 

Oh, and here's one of my favorite's from today's session! 

*On a completely different side note: I changed the sidebar of this blog a bit. I gave Blake and I our own picture (from our last professional shoot right before I got pregnant, November 2010), I updated Kaleb's  picture and I added two new tracker thingies. One for how long we've been married (under Blake's picture) and one for my fitness goal (weight) progress (under my picture).*

Kaleb's Birth Story

The birth story of my baby boy, Kaleb.

As captured by the talented LDS photographer and friend, Ashley Perez.

It started on September 6, 2011. 

My water broke just after I had finished making a burrito.

Figures, right?

Well, I changed my pants, finished my burrito, did a little primping and we made our way to the hospital.

I wasn't feeling any contractions at that point. Just excitement and relief that we would soon have our baby boy.

While preparing for our little one, we devised a birthing plan that included the use of "Hypnobabies".

An awesome program that helped me get through most of my pregnancy pain, including Sciatica.

The main part of our "plan" however, was to roll with the punches. If something happened not on our birthing plan, to just go with it and make it work.

Good thing too, because nothing went according to plan.

I did not think my water would break, but it did so I had to stay at the hospital the entire time. 

I wasn't progressing hardly at all, so the doctors suggested pitocin. 

I said "no" I didn't want to interfere if I could help it, so we waited another painful 4 hours and still nothing. 

Blake (my husband) and I talked about it, and came to the conclusion; we weren't inducing labor (which we absolutely did not want to do) we were helping it along a bit. 

So they pumped me full of pitocin and labor got intense very quickly. 

I used the techniques learned from Hypnobabies through the coaching and support of my husband.

(and oh my goodness, he was amazing. So gentle and attentive. So loving and sweet. He was amazing)

However, 24 hours after labor started I was completely exhausted, and slightly delusional.

(apparently I was telling Blake about a man who wasn't allowed in the room...?)

Not to mention I had to constantly wear a fetal monitor around my belly, had the IV of pitocin in my hand and had to pee every two minutes. There was constantly unhooking, rolling over, hobbling, re hooking just to do it all over again. 

Everything was so intense, and I was so exhausted, Blake made the executive decision to have me get an epidural. 

I cried.

I felt weak and like I was doing the wrong thing.

Blake reminded me I had to have enough energy to push, or we would have to have a C-section.

(because my water broke, bacteria was able to enter my uterus and Kaleb and I were starting to run a fever)

So, I yielded and cried felt the most icky thing ever as a tube entered my spine.

However, two minutes after that, I watched the little contraction tracker shoot up and I didn't feel a thing. 

You also have to have catheter put in when you have an epidural, and as gross as that sounds, I didn't have to get up every two minutes anymore so that was a relief as well

I started laughing.

Then I "passed out". (read: feel asleep from exhaustion)

Thats about when Ashley joined us.

Blake was reading Kaleb The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe almost every night so he, Kaleb,  would know Blake's voice.

My mother in law cam in and felt my little boy squirming

Blake was so wonderful. He was comforting me here.

Trying to say hello to Kaleb

I was so very exhausted

... and a little delirious. 

Blake was my rock

My little brother's came in to visit. (Dig my Hospital gown? I got it at Gownies along with another one that I wore the following day.)

My dad came by too.

When my fingers became too bloated for my wedding ring, I started waring Blake's Spanish CTR ring.

I started to feel the urge to push, and told my nurses. We got things ready. I started pushing.

For three hours I was pushing. I was so exhausted.

Blake said a silent prayer while things stalled. (I didn't know about this until we got the images back from Ashley)

There was about a minute in between pushes... I fell asleep each time.

Blake could see Kaleb's head!

Just a few more pushes and he would here... have I mentioned how exhausted I was?

Then finally, late in the evening on September 7, 2011, he was finally here.

See that cone head? Thats what happens when you hang out in the birth canal for three hours. His head is perfect now, in case you were wondering.

The first time I held him he was right on top of where he spent the last 9 months. 

Because had a fever and possible infection, they took him away to clean and monitor him right away. Normally they would have just handed him to me and I could have held him. This is was saddest part of the day in retrospect, but at the time I just saying "make sure hes OK."

And Blake got to stay with him.

They handed him to me for a quick minute...

and I got to kiss him for the first time.

Then Kaleb and his daddy went to the NICU for bath and antibiotics. And my daddy came by to see how I was feeling.

Along with more family. I loved having them there for support.

It was a good thing Blake read to our little baby so often, because Blake was able to sooth him while I was getting stitched and squeezed and waiting to see my boy.

There is a painting at the hospital with a little red button in the center, and if you've just delivered you can push the button as you pass by and it plays Brahms Lullaby throughout the hospital. 

And when I finally got to hold him, I could barely breathe. He looked just like a mini my father. He was MY son. I had a son. I could barely breathe.

My little kicker baby was in my arms.

Our family had its newest addition. We were complete. We were whole.

I am so thankful we had Ashley there to capture these precious moments.
And I'm thankful for my darling little family.

My first Maternity Session

For the past few months we've been trying to decide if we wanted to hire another photographer to record our Pregnancy (maternity images) our Kaleb's birth (Birth Story).

Both had their own merits, but finally decided upon the Birth Story (to be captured by our very talented photog friend - Ashley Perez) because we knew we'd want images anyway, and this way, Blake wont have to be there through his lens. He can just be there with me.

So with that decided, Blake and I still wanted a few images of my bump. So after our Barrera baby shower, we pulled to the side of the road on the way down the hill and had a mini photo shoot!

What do you think?

I'm still getting used to being in front of the camera at this point.

20 minutes later, I was loving it.  This actually didn't hurt while lying, but getting up was beeotch.

I love how Blake got the bump and the ring.

So very happy.

Holding him. <3

This one is in Kaleb's room. 

I really love this one too.

and a little timer magic, and we both smiled for this beauty. This image is also in Kaleb's room.

It really was tons of fun playing the subject, and very hard not to try to take over and set up all the shots… I actually may have tried, but Blake was awesome and lovingly told me to back off. :D

We're all done with Kaleb's nursery, and I so want to share that with you, but first: the Barrera Baby Shower!… next time. :D