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…

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.

Another good day. And not so good. I got to photograph three gorgeous families and I am sooooo happy with the beautiful photos I got. Bad, bc I just am still sick, and want to not be. This is a shoot from a month ago, I am so behind! How sweet is Sasha? 7 Years old’s are so easy compared to two year olds.

Anyways, four more mini photography shoots at Wonderand Lake in north Boulder tomorrow. Sooooo many blog posts to come!

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.

One week of total awesomeness. Miss Barb Uil, Jinky Art extraordinaire, came to Boulder to hold two fabulous three day workshops (at my house, no less). We did so many amazing photo shoots. Many of them involved my family, with a VW Bus. And lets say that there was also an awesome field of sunflowers involved. We photographed so many families, children, babies. It was all so sweet and I learned so much and am SO inspired by it all.

I worked with Barb on figuring out how to move my business from just doing family portraits, which are great and all, and I love doing them, and I love my clients and I LOVE my client’s kids, and I love producing beautiful images that they will cherish for the rest of their lives. BUT, I want to create stunning works of art. I want my personality-my brightness, my joy, my nurturing spirit, the passion I have for families connecting and loving each other-to be the center of my work.

So, what I am saying is yes, I am still going to be photographing families and children and doing everything I do now-I am just going to get more creative, have more fun, and let my personality shine through a bunch more in my images. You’ll just have to wait and see. Trust me, it is going to get good!

So, after saying all that, these photos were from one of the very simple shoots we did out in a field with two very sweet children. At workshops, what happens is we set up all these shoots, and then you have like 15 photographers all trying to photograph one or two kids at the same time. It is hard, because you don’t get a lot of eye contact  (the kids have no idea whose camera to look at), but it is a fun experience and I got a few sweet ones of these two.

SO many more blogs posts coming about the workshops, and SO many shoots of my own from the last month still need to be blogged. So check back often, I will *try* to blog every day. Going to try and catch up on emailing and calling back new client inquiries! I know I have been MIA this past week and I am SO sorry! If Amelia takes a nice long nap today I *might* be able to catch up. If not, I may have to call you tomorrow. Crossing my fingers for one very sleepy toddler today though.

xoxo stacey

ps. update. 2:16pm. Amelia is NOT asleep. I am ignoring her whines on the monitor and AM answering phone calls, so call away if you need to chat!

Just back from Breckenridge. We had a ridiculously wonderful weekend up there. We swam, went for walks, ate lots of good food, watched tv in the condo (we don’t have cable at home), went to a farmer’s market, art fair, and the fun park up there. Yeah, it is great to be able to take a mini vacation so close to home. I was going to plan a big trip this summer-but we are buying our new home instead.

So I am sick.  I have crohn’s disease-which I have shared on the blog before. It is basically an autoimmunie disorder, where my immune system eats up my intestines and MAN it is a pain in the butt to have. Painful sometimes, but just really draining. I have lost 5 lbs since Thursday. Which, really, that is the perk to the illness-I never have to worry about keeping extra weight on for too long. A build in weight lose system that makes you skinny in just weeks. If I could only bottle that part of it-with no pain or bad medications-I would be rich!  So, this just means that I am tired and a little out of it. I am getting treated with acupuncture, but I think I am going to have to cave and go on predizone (steroids) later today. It is a nice excuse to use the time I have my nanny here to take a bath, read a book, watch some movies. Last time I was sick was during my San Francisco sessions a few months back. Once I go on the steroids, though, I have crazy amount of energy. I clean, declutter, and can work on photos well into the night. So, some good things, some bad.

Good news, though, is that we are closing on our new house tomorrow! If we can get one last piece of documentation in on time. I can’t wait to move in-I am already shopping  a ton for new furniture. It will be beautiful. Best part? It is already painted inside mostly yellow-and I love living in yellow rooms. I have ordered a bunch of canvases and float wraps, too, since we will have a lot more wall space and I have A LOT of photos to display.

And some pictures for you too… Linnea and Julianna are super sweet together. The baby’s eyes are just gorgeous!

xoxo stacey

I have a very long list of sessions and family times to blog. Millions of pictures. Well, at the very least, thousands. I can cut that down to a few per blog post, but that is so hard! I have so many photos on my computer, I hate deleting any of them. But, a few days ago, I went and deleted about 1000 of my own family photos. So hard, but it had to be done. I think I have taken 10k in the last two years, just of my own family. How will I enjoy that when I am old? I am going to cull them down to the best, then make an album for every year, and then blow up the very best as canvases and float wraps.

Anyways, this was Adam’s 35th birthday party. 35! We met when I was 21. We are getting so old (well me, I am a mere 31, so there). He is looking GOOD though. Gotta get a good pic of his newly finished tattoo (my bday present to him, along with a weeklong meditation retreat).

Off to Breckenridge for the weekend for a family only-no shooting at all-feeling free and being well kinda weekend.

Because my boys love those babies I love these two photos, for sure. Adam *finally* told me the other day that he “wasn’t against having another baby if the circumstances were right.” Told ya. It would just take some time for him to come around. I have been saying this forever! Glad the day came. Coming up with new baby names as I write….

Super wonderful sales manager Reg, with her new baby. Love those baby feet! So sorry we have to represent the competitor’s baby sling. What’s up with that Reg?

And then it turned windy. We were being blown all around-crazy Boulder wind.Eli’s face ROCKS. (fyi-my Elijah is in blue here-Eli is the one rocking the yoda extreme jedi scream there.

ps. if you know me well, then you are not wondering why my husband’s 35th birthday party blog post is all about kids and babies. There were indeed a lot of adults there, but they are just not that cute.

xoxo stacey

Well, baby is probably already here, as this is a shoot from over a month ago. I am still plugging away and getting a ton of photos up on the blog! It does not help that Amelia now has a stomach bug-poor baby. I was up all night with her. You know those nights-where you are just rocking them, rubbing their backs, and doing what you can to get a little water into them. And the laundry! It was never ending before, but now, forget it, we are going to be behind on laundry for a week. She seems so much better right now, though. I am thinking this was just a 12 hour bug. Thinking? Maybe the right word is hoping.

We had a great weekend though. We went to the air show in Longmont, we watch Goonies in the Park with the kids (north Boulder has outdoor movies every weekend), we bbqed, as always, played outside, and Adam got his tattoo finished (finally after two years!). It was a great weekend and the weather was perfect.

Anyways, loved these gorgeous maternity photos and wanted to be sure to post a few. Here are a couple of photos I posted right after the session. Love all of Lily’s personality!