Well, not really.  B’s real birthday isn’t until Friday.  But, we did have his birthday party on Saturday and we had such a fun time!  The rain cleared up mid morning and we even saw some blue skies.  Things started to dry out and about half an hour before his party started it poured.  And apparently it hailed too, but I didn’t see that and people were kind enough to tell me after the party rather than before.  We spent a lot of time blowing up these giant balloons for the driveway and when it rained they got weighed down and just laid in the driveway instead.

But, we didn’t let the rain stop us from having fun!  We rented a trackless train from Train Party Express and they did such a fabulous job.  I would highly recommend them if you are in Southern California.  I was so grateful to them for operating in the rain!  We ran out in between showers and by the time the train started it was pouring again.  Everyone got wet, but we had SO much fun!  The smile on Brayden’s face was priceless.  He couldn’t believe there was a real train at our house!

We also had a face painter.  Mariza from Lulu Face (lulufacepainting@gmail.com) was awesome!  All the kids loved her.  Here is B telling his buddys that he is getting a train on his arm.

Brayden did an awesome job blowing out his candles.  I was a little scared he would get freaked out by everyone singing happy birthday to him, but he loved it!  Good thing we practiced so much!

I could have not been prouder of my baby boy.  He had SO much fun and I had so much fun watching him with all of his most favorite people.  Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us!  Thank you for being in our lives!  We had such a great time!  Can’t wait to do it again next year!

Here are the details for the party:

Beautiful invitations from So Divine Designs!

Awesome cake from Beverly’s Best

We spent all morning blowing up balloons to cover the whole living room ceiling.  Big hit with the kids!

Favor bags.  Inside there were train conductor hats (pink for the girls, blue for the boys), a train whistle, and bubbles.

I love my Cricut!

PS  Two years ago was my due date.  Boy, was I mad when I knew this kid wasn’t coming on his due date.  I had to wait 4 miserable and long days until we finally forced him out.  I think he would still be in there if we wouldn’t have yanked him out.  But, it was worth every second of pain and misery to see how happy this kid was at his party.  I love him!

70% chance of rain on Saturday.  Nothing I can do about it, right?  I promised my boy a train and he’s getting a train and we will ride on it whether it’s raining or not and we will have fun!  He’s so excited for his party!  And for all of his buddy’s to come over.

I’ve been crafting away all week.  Tissue balls will be the end of me!

Luckily I have an awesome friend who did all of my sewing for me.  Because me and sewing machines don’t really get along.

I think I will leave them up all year!  I love them!

Happy Friday!

This week I am trying to be crafty and finish all the details for Brayden’s big 2nd birthday bash on Saturday.  Crafty is not my thing.  Me and crafty don’t really get along.  So, I may be blogging a little less while I’m honing my inner crafty girl.

While we’re on the subject of Brayden’s birthday party can everyone stop what they are doing right now and do an anti-rain dance.  Weather.com keeps playing with my emotions and one day it will say it’s going to rain and the next day it’s not.  Today it says it’s going to rain and I don’t like that.

Thanks.

While looking through my images from a shoot last week I came across this image.  I saw that it was out of focus so I marked it to be deleted.  But, I came back to it and realized that I love it.

Technically, it’s all wrong.  But, I love how Halley is out of focus and it shows her movement.  And I love how the only part that is in focus is her hand holding her little sister Lucy’s hand.  Remember that not every image has to be perfect for you to love it.

I recently got an email from Katy who asked:

How do I increase my blog audience/readership? Also, How do I encourage comments without seeming desperate?

One of my biggest blogging pet peeves is when people ask for comments on their blog (my other big pet peeve is when people send out unsolicited, mass emails asking me to visit their blog, but that’s a whole different topic!).  It’s just so desperate.  Really, comments are nice.  Comments are awesome.  I love getting comments.  But, do I need comments?  No.  As long as my clients love their pictures that is all that matters.  Is it nice to know that other people and photographers like me work too?  Of course!

From my experience I’ve found that you need to give comments in order to receive comments.  And not just any comments, but genuine comments.  When someone leaves an interesting or genuine comment on my blog it makes me want to visit their blog so I can learn more about them.  I really appreciate unique comments where I can tell the reader took the time to really look at my pictures.  Not just, “Great pictures!”.  I like to know what about my pictures you think is great or different.  I would also suggest finding photographers that are on your same skill level.  If you leave comments on a big time photographer’s blog who gets 200 comments a post chances are they aren’t going to be visiting all 200 commenters blogs.

If you notice, a lot of photographers who get a lot of comments are also photographers who tell the story of the clients.  It gets people more emotionally invested in the pictures.  You don’t have to be a great writer and it doesn’t have to be a novel.  Just a few words about what makes your clients different and unique is enough.

Lastly, make it easy for people to leave you comments.  Turn off the anti spamer thingy that makes you type in a code (unless you have a problem with spam, of course).  There have been several blogs that I have tried to leave comments on where I simply couldn’t get it to let me and I consider myself pretty web savvy.  There’s one certain blog format that I have a problem with.  Next time I come across it I’ll update it here.  If I’m  having a problem then your readers will probably have a problem too.  Make sure you test out your comment area to make sure it actually works!

Now, everyone go and leave Katy a comment on her blog!  Ready, set, go!

Happy Monday!

f 2.0, 1/640, ISO 125

If I were possibly thinking about traveling to one location outside of California to do some shooting this summer where should that be and why?  I’m thinking about taking a long weekend and going somewhere new to shoot.  I’m looking for a place that’s totally different than Orange County.  I want barns, old buildings without fences, and no beaches!  Please leave a comment with a location suggestion if you’d really be interested in booking a session.  I get emails asking me to travel all of the time, but I want to see if the interest is really out there.  The shoot can be whatever you want it to be.  Family, engagement, head shots, just because, whatever you want!

When Brayden was 10 months old we went to our good friends wedding in Ohio.  I was so looking forward to taking pictures of B there.  Barns!  Cornfields!  Long, empty roads!  And then I got sick.  I was so bummed.  But, I still ended up going out and making my poor baby freeze while I tried to get a few shots.  Can you believe this is the same kid?

B wanted to let everyone know that he’s okay!  No permanent damage  You can just see a little bump on the left side of his forehead.  It actually looks worse in person, but it’s a big improvement from the night it happened!

Canon 5D, 50 1.2

f2.0, 1/320, ISO 250

I’m still Formspringing.  Come on over!

I’ve gotten a few emails recently asking about me and how I got started in photography.  It’s not a very exciting story and I really don’t like writing about myself.  I can write about a lot of things, but when it comes to myself I get writers block.  Because I’m pretty boring.  So, I’m jumping on the bandwagon and opening up a Formspring account.  You can go there and ask whatever you’d like.  Want to know what my major was?  Where I went to school (you should ALL know that!)?  What it was like to work at MTV?  What my training in photography is?  Why I want to be best friends with Britney Spears?  Go on over and ask a question and I’ll do my best to answer them.

I’m warning you.  It will probably be boring though.  Because, like I said, I’m pretty boring.

On another note, we had our first traumatic injury yesterday.  B ran into the side of the door and ended up with this (taken with my iphone).

I didn’t think it was going to be that bad.  He runs into things all the time.  But, when Chuck told me not to look I knew it was bad.  I almost threw up when I saw it.  It scared the crap out of me.  How am I going to deal with having a crazy boy and all the injuries that come with it?  If I couldn’t stomach a knot on the head how I am going to deal with blood and (knock on wood) broken bones.  Ugh.  This is the part of being a mom that I do not enjoy.

I’m starting a new segment here on Mom*tog called “Mom*tog of the Week”.  Well, hopefully it will be a weekly thing  Let’s see if I can keep up with it!  Basically, I want to feature Moms who have an interesting product (photography or mom related) they’d like to review, have a super cute picture of their kiddos, or just an ordinary Mom who has something interesting to say.  I want Mom*tog to be a place where we can all connect rather than just having to listen to boring old me day in and day out  If you’d like to share a topic or would like to nominate someone to be a Mom*tog of the week then email me!

Our first Mom*tog of the week is Brandi Blaha from Virgina.  Brandi is the mom to two very cute little boys and has recently started her own photography business.  Brandi left a comment in the flash post talking about an interesting product that I thought would help a lot of Mom*togs shooting with on camera flash, so I asked her to write up a little review on it.  Thanks Brandi for taking the time to write this!

PS  If you’re on Facebook can you pretty please take a second out of your day to vote for this?  You can read more about why you should vote for it here.  THANK YOU!!!

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I was so excited to be asked to talk about the LightScoop on MomTog!  I am a mom of 2 boys under the age of 5.  I have been a professional photographer for 10 years, working for high volume school photography company.  After years of people asking me if I have my own business I’ve finally made that big leap.  It’s a very exciting time for me.  You can check out my photoblog at here.

The LightScoop is my most favorite new toy.  We have all enjoyed post after post about using Flash and how challenging it can be to maintain that natural light look when relying on available light alone is not enough.  The trick to good flash photography, in my experience, is to use the minimum amount of flash required.  I often use fill flash when shooting outside as well, if the situation allows.  However, the LightScoop will only work indoors.

I snapped of few pix of my son in the tub so you can see the difference in the overall appearance of the photos.

The first shot is with the pop-up alone.  You can see the light is very harsh and also cause shadows behind him on the wall.  The shot was taken on Program at 400 ISO.

The 2nd image is with the lightScoop and give the appearance of ambient light in the room, which by the way has no windows.  This shot was taken with the recommended setting:  800 ISO, Shutter Pref f-stop 200 with the pop-up flash on 2+.  You can adjust the power of the pop-up flash on most DSLR’s.

I love the MomTog Blog because it’s for all levels of photographers.  Just like anyone else I like to take simple candid photos of my kids at their birthday parties and on holidays and just for everyday fun.  I’m pretty sure my kids are photographed on a daily basis.  I found myself relying on my tiny Canon Elf during these situations as I was always disappointed with the results of my DSLR with the pop-up flash when shooting candids indoors.  That’s when I found the LightScoop and it has allowed me to LOVE my DSLR even more.  It’s a lightweight and compact bounce attachment for the pop-up flash on your DSLR.  It’s genius if you ask me.  It can also be used in professional applications as well.  For instance, I recently photographed my friend and her 9 week old baby girl.  It was night time so there was no light coming into the windows.  I plopped them on my couch next to a floor lap, snapped in the LightScoop and shot away.  The results are amazing.  The lamp allows for some nice size catch lights in the eyes (without which the photo would lack punch) while the bounced pop-up flash lets soft light flow down around them.

You can purchase your own LightScoop online for less than $40.  I own the standard, they offer a Warming Lightscoop as well but I don’t think that’s necessary.

After reading my post on cropping a lot of people asked where they could get 8 x 12 prints.  A lot of smaller, mom and pop, photo labs will print 8 x 12 prints.  I have a local printer that I go to when I’m in a jam and he will print any size I need.  If you’re local in north Orange County, Fullerton Photo is a good lab that will print them.  And it’s a super cute place to hang out too!  Apparently Costco prints 8 x 12 prints too.

I checked with our newest sponsor, Color Inc Pro Lab, and they also print 8 x 12’s.  Check them out!  There’s no minimum order and if you use the promo code “Tag10″ you get 10 free 4 x 6 prints!  Score!

And just in case you are wondering, I’m so over this weather.  We officially have cabin fever!  I have a new found respect for people with kids who have to suffer through real winters.  We’ve had 3 days of rain and have 2 more left until we see the sun.  If we just had a BASEMENT then we could have a great big play room.  I really want a basement.  I get so jealous that the rest of the country gets basements.  I see all these rad houses with basements on HGTV and I really want one.  But, then I would probably never go in my basement because I would be scared of earthquakes.  Okay, I’m getting off topic here.  I tried to teach B that jumping in puddles was fun, but he didn’t get it.  He jumped this one time and then was over it.  He said it was too cold and then ran back inside.  Wimps, I tell you!  We have very thin blood here.

Up until Monday we’ve been having very nice weather in the OC.  I don’t want to brag or anything, but we’ve had temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s.  We’ve been enjoying Disneyland and play dates outside.  Shorts and flip flops.  It’s been awesome.  And then yesterday the weather was not so awesome.  Tornado warnings.  In Southern California.  The weatherman on the channel 9 news actually said that we should get in our basements.  What basements???  We live in Southern California!  Who has a basement?  It really was an exciting 30 minutes.  Everyone was freaking out over this alleged tornado.  And then the bad weather blew through and the blue sky came back out.  If you’re from anywhere but Southern California you would have laughed at us yesterday.  The rest of the country sees all the time.  We’re wimps.

Since the weather has been so great we’ve been spending lots of time in our backyard working on our garden.  Chuck decided to get Brayden his own watering can so he can chores.  B loves it!  He loves to do things himself.  He even has his own flower pots that he is responsible for watering.  Here are some pictures I took of him.  This was the week before the big tornado of 2010.

These pictures were taken about an hour before sunset, which is my favorite time to take pictures!

Shot with Canon 5D, 50 1.2

f 2.5, 1/1000, ISO 125

Same settings as above.

f 2.5, 1/800, ISo 125

And he even indulged me and sat for a minute and smiled for a picture!  And I apologize for my son’s hair.  There is nothing I can do about it.  It’s out of control.

f 2.5, 1/400, ISO 125