Yeah, that is our new kitty Simba, super sweet, right? Not as cute as these two babies, though. It was such a strange Boulder night. It was sprinkling on and off, and the light was just so unique. It started raining too hard at the end, so we scheduled another day a few days later to get a few last photos. Connor is so sweet and bright eyed-here are his newborn photos. He was a perfect newborn, too.

I am finally feeling better, yay! I still am losing like a 1/2lb or 1 lb a day, so I am tired and worn out, but I can feel my belly healing and my symptoms are lessoning. I did cranial sacral therapy yesterday with an expert visiting from Germany. I have never done it before. It was kind of strange. She just moved my body in gentle, weird ways. It felt like a half hour but was really an hour and a half. It was like a dream, and afterwards I felt very dreamy and peaceful. Yeah, this is all classic Boulder-hippie-out-there stuff, but I am willing to try anything. This morning my acupunturist lit sticks on fire in my legs. So there. She heard of some man in Detroit who can energetically heal people, and there is a small part of mine that wants to go seek him out and pay him thousands of dollars to energetically take away my old-woman-witch-disease.

Anywyas, to be proactive I sent out some emails to some crohn’s research centers seeing if they can study my family. The chance of passing it along to your child is 5%. And my Dad passed it on to all FIVE of us. That is just so unusual. They need to take our blood and find a cure or an actual cause. It is such mystery.

Off to a photo shoot at a pumpkin patch now! I love this time of year. We are going to Munson Farms in Boulder-I photographed families there last year and it was beautiful!

A sweet family. Perfect Boulder night. Mac (the baby) was not so happy but I think we got him smiling enough.

Things are ok here. Getting a little bit better day by day. 60 mg of prednizone. So yeah, fun but no fun. Update tomorrow, hopefully I am feeling super well by then…

Boulder gloomy no-photography day. Had to post a few of a session from a few weeks ago….Have to figure out how to reschedule 16-20 mini family photography sessions because of the Boulder cold, dark weather this weekend. Almost a blessing, bc I am still so sick with the evil old woman witch disease and got to rest ALL day. Nice, Mom is staying an extra week. Extra points for her. Spoiling the kids like mad, but that is ok with me at the moment.

UPDATE: my intern’s adoptive baby was born tonight. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy. Yeah! I can’t wait to meet and photograph your baby girl!!!!!!!!

So, this weekend, the weekend I have TWENTY mini sessions in Boulder, Co, is going to be cold, snowy, and rainy. How the heck am I going to reschedule that many photography sessions? Kellie, my awesome super office manager, will handle it all and make it all right, so don’t worry. She will contact you. Don’t worry. We’ll find another date….

Well, I *need* start with happy news again bc things are not so easy right now. I have been doing all of these incredible, beautiful, photography sessions ever since Ms. Barb Uil came into town and taught me everything she knows. I am so inspired to use light, and love, and just LIFE to express who my families are. I am a good portrait photographer. Meaning, if you want a perfect photo of your kids close up, or far away, or a family picture where everyone is happy, then I am your go-to girl. But I want to be more creative, and make things more fun, and that is what I did with this shoot.

So the not happy news is that they looked into my belly today and found only really bad things:( My dad has’ crohn’s both my sisters have it, and both my brother’s have it. I have always been the one with “mild” chron’s, and now it is severe. Stupid old woman evil witch disease.

Happy news again? I have like 50 shoots planned in the next two months. LOVE photographing, no matter what. I have outsourced everything else, so no stress there. Just taking beautiful photos of beautiful families. Love it!

xoxo stacey

News first-I booked up all my Boulder mini photography sessions so I have opened up October 5th, October 12, and October 22nd. Email me asap if you want to book a session, you can read all the info here. Some will be at Wonderland Lake in north Boulder, one will be at Chautauqua in south Boulder. Either way, we will get beautiful, amazing photographs!

Barb Uil (aka Jinky Art) is just magic. She is my most favoritist photographer, blah, blah, blah, I have said this 8 million times on my photography blog. But really, these photos are beautiful and stunning and sweet and magical. I love them. I can’t wait to move in to our new home so I can put up beautiful big canvases. I still am in awe that she photographed my family. And really captured who we are. For sure.  I strive to be half as good of a photographer as her. As always Barb, I love you! Thank you!

So, news on the being-sick-thing. I am definitely surrounded by loving, supportive people who want me to heal and get better from this chron’s (autoimmune). I called my mom crying yesterday and she jumped on the first flight out there. That is a GOOD mom, right? I have a procedure tomorrow and hopefully we will find out what is going on. I saw a naturpath today and and plugging away with my awesome acupuncturist, Kate, but I am up to 40 mg of predizone (steroids) and ug, that SUCKS. Send me some good healing-belly-energy if you have some to spare.

xoxo stacey

ps. happy jinky art photos of my family are really helping me feel better:) Nothing like beautiful photography of your own family from your favorite photographer to make you happy.

pps. Thank you mom, Luanne, Natasha, Kate, Kellie, Adam, Rich, and Arturo for being such a solid community of support for me. It means everything to me to be supported.

Ok, I have to start with bright, happy news. I photographed one of my favorite families tonight. The mom was looking GORGEOUS in a vintage dress that I covet (give it to me when you are done-*if* I can fit in it, ok?). There were three cool homeless men hanging out like 5 feet away smoking pot. Yes, this is day two in a row that I am talking about mariuana on my baby photography blog. Whatever, obviously I need something to make me feel better, and I wish it was that but it is not. Anyways, they were super polite as they smoked their joints around this adorable 2 year old and sweet, sweet 4 year old. Perfect.

Well, I got the salt-on-fire-in-the-belly-button treatment again today, but I am feeling so bad. I think with a chronic illness like this, you get to this point where you are just so tired. So tired of being sick. The hard part is that I am not actually getting any food in me, so I am weak. And tired. And my husband is obsessed with aquaponics and is mostly only doing that and Amelia just had the flu and I am just tired. And caffiene makes me sick so I have to give up coffee and I am sad about that. Did I mention that I am tired? And can’t have caffeine?

Overall, though, I am super happy that I have booked TWENTY FIVE mini sessions. That is just nuts. And I still have people emailing and calling to request a session.

We have a crazy month ahead of us. My lovely office manager, Kellie, will take good care of everyone (and me!) and Reg, my gorgeous sales manager, will help everyone with ordering. All I have to do is take the photos, and that is what fills my heart with joy, so I think it will be a good month as long as Kellie and Reg pick up my slack (total bonus included at the end of the month if they are reading this post and mention the bonus:). I mean, they have to read my blog, right?

So, I filled up my two weekend mini photo sessions completely, and opened up two more dates if you are interested. Wendesday, October 12th at Chataqua in south Boulder, and Wonderland Lake in north Boulder on Saturday, October 22nd. So if you were on the waiting list or just want to schedule a mini session email me asap.

How am I going to remember all these kids names? That is the thing I am worrried about the most. I know I will get beautiful images of each family that is special to who THEY are, but if I see them on the street I might not remember, and I ALWAYS remember kids names. Parents names, eh. Kids, for sure. So, if you are doing a mini session with me and I call you a weird name during the session or ask what your husband’s name is ten times, please know that I LOVE all my families, but this year there are just so many mini photography sessions and I am tired and might not remember. But I still love you and your kids.

More tomorrow.

xoxo stacey

p.s. posting another sweet photo from this session, because it is all I have on my laptop, and my hard drive is still stupid crashed. So, this is all I have that is sized for blog.

pps. That is my sweet new kitty simba. He has the same roar and tenacity as the real lion king. Love him.

ppps. I did everything for my computer hard drive crash and I still can’t see my photos:( All edited shoots for the last year are backed up though, so no worries….

Yeah, well I have not been blogging because my HARDRIVE CRASHED. Yeah, that is like the most devastating thing a photographer can say. I *know* all my photos are backed up, but I don’t KNOW it yet bc I can’t see them yet. So I am in an uneasy in between place right now. I just want my computer back. So sad.

And I have been sick, sick, sick. Yeah, I have crohn’s disease. Such an ugly name. I wish it was Sunshine Disease or something more happy. But a crohn is an old woman-evil-witch, right? So I have old woman-evil-witch disease, and it sucks. I have so many emotions around it, but mostly I am sad and mad. Sad, that I can’t love my babies in the way they deserve right now, and mad bc it is a stupid disease that they don’t know anything about and they can’t cure it and it is just stupid. And it hurts. And I can’t smoke pot to help it like they suggest bc I don’t like mj. It makes me feel weird and paranoid. But, on the upside, I DID gain 55 pounds when I was pregnant with Amelia, and I have lost the last 15lbs in 4 weeks. So I am looking good. I am thin now. I am trying to eat lots a fat though to not lose any more. So now you know my life. It is what it is.

I have about 30 mini sessions booked. It is nuts. I am opening up a few more days if anyone else wants to book a mini session. I am SO looking forward to just going out in nature and photographing loving families. That is a good day, to me.

xoxo stacey

ps, Amelia’s stomach bug is gone but I *hope* i have it and it is not my evil old woman disease.

pps. Christian, my computer guy, just told me at 8:30pm that my computer looks good. There is some program that has to run and then it will be fine. Give me some good energy for it to run again!

pps. do you LOVE this picture? So sweet.

ppps. I just want to let you know that I let my acupuncturist filled my belly button with salt and lit it on fire today. AND-I feel much better. So go-fire-belly-salt. Fire belly salt rocks. Thanks Kate. I love you.

This was a beautiful Boulder night, but kept sprinkling on us. The sun peeked in and out throughout the session, and the rain kept starting and stopping. At this point, we just wanted to get a few last family photos but the rain was coming down to hard. I tried clicking away-not sure what the final image would look like with all the rain in the way, and I ended up just *loving* this photo. One of my new favorites, for sure.

Hard times today. Nanny left for school a week and half ago, I am super behind on emailing and calling, the babies are sick, Amelia is not taking naps and waking up WAY too early, the house is a wreck, and I am just plain TIRED. My neighbor and I spent TWO full days interviewing new nannies, and then my husband told me today that he ONLY wants a nanny that is fluent in Spanish. Seriously? Can we just get someone that will love my baby and do light housekeeping? We found some great candidates and now I have to do the process ALL over again. Bc Adam wants a nanny that speaks Spanish. All over again. I have to do interviewing all over again. Sigh.

xoxo stacey

Okay, you remember Victor from this sweet photo with his mamma a few days ago. I had to post more and tell the story of how this session came to be. You all know, that is, *if* you read my blog. Do you???  I think people do, they stop me out in public bc they recognize my kids from the blog, they ask my about how the closing on my house is going (not well), etc… So, anyways, hosted 30 photographers from all of the country and world a week or two ago and at the VERY end, Yuliya, from Yuka Photo Art approached me to do a session with her and her family while they were in town. They were gong to be in town for like twelve more hours. That’s no problem, right? It was 3pm and I had to drive Jinky and Heidi (her gorgeous assistant) back to the airport but I said “yes!” anyways.

It is a huge honor to be asked by another photographer to photograph their family, but even more so bc there were loads of other amazing photographers in town for the workshops. So that is me bragging. So there. I can be proud, right? I told her I could do a mini session rather than a full bc I was EXHAUSTED at that point from a week of running around organizing the workshops, and knew that was all I had in me.

I jumped in my car and drove Jinky and Heidi to the airport, and then I (gasp) took the kazillion dollar toll road home to try to make it in time to actually make a photo session happen for Yuliya. The toll road, btw, sent us a bill for $989 one time for late fees accrued off of like $17 dollars worth of tolls. So we try to boycott it. We never paid it, it was ridiculous, and they promised they would drop the charges if we signed up for x y and z of their programs, and my husband threatened them, and they dropped the extra $972 in fines. So don’t take that stupid toll road unless you absolutely have to.

Getting way off subject here. So I rushed home on the tollway and the weather was beautiful and bright with big cumulus clouds in the sky and then as I drove into Boulder the wind and rain HIT me. It was hard to walk from my car to my house without being blown over. Sadly, I called Yuliya and told her the photo shoot was probably not going to happen, but you never know with Boulder weather so I would call her back in a half hour. And guess what? In a half hour, things were calm and bright again! So we jumped in our cars and ran to Wonderland Lake and the wind picked up a TON, but it did not rain and we still got some beautiful photos of her family during their visit to Boulder.

Yeah, that dress is not meant to poof out that much-but I think it is kind of cute and I LOVE that dress so much I hardly notice the poofy wind underneath. And Yuliya’s hair is really a lot calmer, but I like how funky the crazy wind makes it look. It goes with her style. And then you can’t *really* tell that Victor’s mohawk is whipping from side to side. And thank goodness for dad’s haircut:)

So that’s the story. Thank you Yuliya for letting me photograph your beautiful family and being so relaxed about the whole thing! I had a great time meeting you and would love to see you guys again. You are the cutest family ever!

Did an *awesome* concept shoot last night with a four year old boy, bugs, frogs, mud, and fishing. Sadly, he was afraid of the frog. The frog my husband went out last minute to Petsmart to buy for the shoot (don’t call Peta, he was treated very well). So if any of my clients have little boys that love frogs and want to set up a session before we give this frog away (we need NO more pets in this house), contact me asap. I think if we had spent time warming him up to the frog a little it would have gone a bit better, so that is what I will do next time.

Amazing concept shoot tonight, too! I am loving all these wonderful ideas I am pulling together with my clients to create portrait sessions that express THEIR families and I can not wait to start posting all these amazing photos!

xoxo stacey