Dear Brayden,

2 years ago today, after a very long and painful labor, we met at exactly 3:30pm for the first time.  4 days past due and you had no intentions of coming out so the doctor had to force you out.  When the doctor held you up over the curtain for the first time and your Daddy and I saw you we both cried, but later admitted to each other that we thought you were an albino baby.  Your hair was as white as your skin and you had bright blue eyes.  Regardless, we loved you because you were ours.

2 years ago today you were a stranger.  I could only dream of what your voice would sound like when you said, “Mama”.  I could only imagine what you would look like when you took your first steps.  I could never comprehend how proud I would be every time you learn a new word, when you blew out the candles of your 2nd birthday cake, when you said, “Love Mama” for the first time, and all your other little accomplishments.  I would have never guessed how much joy and happiness you could bring to me.

2 years ago today I wasn’t sure I could do it.  I still have days that I’m not sure I can do it.  But, I hope you know how much I try to be the best mom possible.  I love making you laugh so hard that your face turns red.  I love tickling you so hard that you giggle and say, “No, Mama!  No!”.  I love that I’m the only one who can understand your “Branglish”.  I love that I get just as excited as you (okay, maybe more excited) when we get stuck at a train crossing.  I love getting to discover new things with you.

2 years ago today I knew I loved you, but I could have never imagined how much more I could love you today.  Brayden, I love you so much and am so proud of the boy you are.  I can’t wait to see how much you change and grow over the next year.  But, please don’t grow up too fast.  These past two years have flown by.  I’d just like you to stay my baby for a little bit longer.

Love,

Mama

I was going to try to take credit for this outfit, but I can’t.  I would never pick out something this cool.  The outfit was a birthday present the very stylish Trista Lerit.  Trista has been buying Brayden designer duds since before he was even born.  Thanks Trista!

And a big special thanks to my hubby who helped me take these pictures during the Super Bowl  He’s so awesome!

And with Brayden’s birthday it also means that’s it’s the 1 year anniversary of Mom*tog!  192 posts, 2372 comments, over 350,000 hits, and countless new friends.  It’s been a great year!  Thanks for the support.  Thanks for reading.  Thanks for the fun!  I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store!

And as a Happy Birthday / Happy Anniversary gift the UNposing Guide is 25% off until Sunday at midnight!  Enter in the code “Anniversary” at checkout.

Last week we found out that Brayden’s pre preschool class was having a Valentine’s Day party.  His very first Valentine’s Day party!  His teacher requested that we bring something with a Valentine’s Day theme, but preferably healthy.  If it were up to me I would have brought cupcakes or brownies (yum!).  But, I wanted to be a good mom and adhere to the rules.  Of course I panicked yesterday because I still hadn’t thought of anything.  What’s a girl to do?  Twitter it!  My friend Kimmie suggested that I make these.  Um, cute!  So, I showed my husband a picture and told him to make them  Because, I’m just not good with things like this.  However, I did cut up the oranges!  And I tried to skewer them, but I stabbed myself twice and called it quits.  Here is the end result:

They were a hit!  Brayden’s teacher, Miss Heidi, loved them and so did all the parents!  First Valentine’s Day party = success!

I’ve gotten a few requests about how I made the tissue poms for Brayden’s birthday party.  I was going to do my own tutorial, but then I thought my friend, Martha, could probably teach you better.  Here’s her tutorial.  That Martha is pretty crafty.

I bought my tissue paper from Paper Mart because I knew I wanted a lot, but you can also buy the smaller packs from Target or Michaels or wherever.

Good luck to you!  They are a little difficult to figure out at first, but once you get the hang of it it’s easy as pie

Yesterday I caught my boy playing make believe by himself.  He was talking to himself and saying, “Brayden choo choo!  Go choo choo!”.  So I quietly went into my office and grabbed my camera.  Here he is acting shy for getting caught.

Then his train broke so he grabbed some power tools to fix it.

And then he said, “Mama!  Choo choo pease?” and pointed to my seat in front of him.  I mean, really.  How could I resist this face?

So we rode the train to Disneyland and then to the park and then to Florida.  I love my little man.

On Formspring someone asked me if there are certain ISO’s that I don’t go above indoors.  ISO is all relative to your camera.  On a Rebel I probably wouldn’t shoot above 800.  It will just be too grainy and noisy.  I obviously always do my best to stay at a low ISO, but all of the above pictures were taken at an ISO of 640.  It was pretty cloudy when I shot these pictures, but there was a window to the right and behind me (depending on the picture).  Remember, I shoot with the Canon 5D.  I am very confident with the ISO on that camera body.  That’s one of the things that comes with having a better camera body.

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