Little Baby Caroline

I'm in love! :) The moment I met little Caroline, my heart melted! The other day I went over to Resha's house to take some long-overdue newborn portraits of her first baby. Caroline is beautiful, sweet, gentle, alert, aware, and as cuddly as could be! I had so much fun taking her picture! By the time the session was over, however, Caroline had had enough of me and let me know it - haha! I'm sure she'll be glad she let me stick around a while one day when she can understand how darn cute these pics are! :)

Raul & Carolina: Engaged!

Whew, it has been a busy last few days! I can't even keep up on the blog, but the good new is that there are TONS more portrait sessions, weddings, and fun to blog, so things are going to be hoppin' around here! :)

Speaking of hoppin' . . . Raul was such an amazing sport for these pictures! Literally just days earlier, he had major knee surgery, but he didn't complain even once during our time together - what a champ! These two are terribly cute together and they are also really funny! At the end of our session, they took me over to one of their favorite hang spots - Hills Cafe - to take a few pictures.





My favorite:




Don't ask. :)


Not sure how/why I made this one so big, but why not!

Sarah and Neil: Engaged!

Stan and I loved our time in South Carolina for Thanksgiving. Every year Grampie rents a huge beach house on James Island and the entire family gets together to enjoy the holiday. Since Grampie met and married Bebe 3 years ago, we have had the joy of sharing this holiday with her entire family, too! This year we were hanging out after our huge Thanksgiving dinner and I saw how gorgeous the beach looked with the sun setting in the distance. So, of course, it was time to grab the camera and get busy! Bebe's granddaughter Sarah had just gotten engaged to Neil, so I figured we might as well do an impromptu Engagement session. I literally whisked them away from the rest of the family and FORCED them to stand in front of my camera. It was, after all, my first beach engagement session, so I went a little crazy! :) Anyway, here are a few fun pics from our spur-of-the-moment engagement session - Congrats, Sarah and Neil! Call me about GA '08! ; )

Wedding GUESTs! :)

Last Saturday Stan and I actually had the opportunity to attend the wedding of one of his best friends from high school as guests - it was so fun! Mark and Alicia were absolutely beautiful together and Stan had the honor as serving as a groomsman in their wedding. I could not have been more proud of my husband in his handsome tux! :) Here are a few of my pictures from the wedding. I promise I took very few and stayed FAR out of the way of the real photographer - haha!

PS- for those who would be interested in this kind of thing (photography nerds), I shot all of these pics as Jpegs, but I normally shoot my weddings in RAW. I prefer to shoot in Jpeg when I'm not planning on messing with the pictures much and I LOVE the way these came right out of the camera! :)

Mark & Alicia being welcomed to their reception


The ring bearer being introduced - he was sooo adorable!




Fun dancing shots




This beautiful bride got to dance with all of the cute boys ; )


I am telling you very seriously that everywhere Stan goes - I mean everywhere - he is always the one asked to give the blessing. I think it is a huge honor and that it says a lot about what people think of him. Here's my man giving the blessing for the meal, and lookin' fine! :)


On to some friend and family pics . . .

Stan and his sis Beth (who also happens to be one of my best buddies)


Stan, Mark, and their high school football coach, who I am told is a really great dude


Zack, Stan, Mark, and Stan's BFF Brian - all high school football buds and best friends


Stan and I and the better sides of Stan and Brian

Let's try this again! :)

Cari & Joel are engaged - yay! I really really love these two. No, it's not because they're smokin' hot (they really are) or because they know how to work a camera like nobody's business (they really do) or because they're too cute for words (again, the ARE)...

it's because they are GOOD to each other. Nothing makes me happier than when I see a couple that treats each other well. Say what you want about all the keys to a successful marriage, but I can tell you right now - truly respecting and caring for your partner is THE key to bliss. Hard times will come - they always do - but if your relationship is based on true, honest mutual honor, this one thing will see you through those challenging times. Trust me - I have see this in my own marriage to my wonderful Stan. :)

Anyhoo - as promised, I got my stuff together, was able to figure out the problem I was having with posting these images, and am now sharing them with you! Thanks for your patience!

Before I share, though, I have to tell you the FUNNIEST thing! We just spent all week with Stan's family in South Carolina where his Grampie lives and it was so fun! I plan to share more, but that will come later this week. Anyway, Grampie and I have a really awesome relationship and it is a huge blessing to me, since I lost my Grandpa and Grandad, both of whom I was very close to, within 1 month of each other, when I was 10 years old. Grampie has been one of the best things about inheriting this AWESOME family when I married Stan over 4 years ago.

Grampie is the kind of grampie who just tells you how it is and I love that about him. We were talking about photography last week (which he is also very into and VERY good at) and he seized the opportunity to tell me what he thinks about my pictures.

"Stacy, do you know what I don't like about your pictures on your website?"

"No I don't Grampie . . . please tell me."

"I don't understand why those people have to be slobbering all over each other all the time. Why can't you just take a nice picture where they're not huggin' and kissin' all over each other? When I was your age we would never be caught dead in a picture like that!"

I chuckled a bit and said "I understand your point. Everybody has their own style. Mine is to show people as they are - in love - with life and with each other. And if that means they're hugging and kissing, so be it."

"Well I think it's terrible."

I loved Grampie's honesty and I got a huge kick out of his directness. :) I tried to explain that we always get plenty of pictures of the couple just hanging out. We began to look at my pictures from Cari and Joel's engagement session, so that he could tell me exactly what he likes and dislikes.

"You probably hate these, don't you?" I said as I showed him the pictures below:





"Yes, you see, that's just too much!" he exclaimed. "Why do they have to be so close?!"

"Well, these are a little milder . . . what do you think."






"Those are a little better, but I still don't like them. They're touching each other too much."

I dug a little deeper to find a picture I thought he would like. Clearly he wanted one where they were not touching at all.

"How about this one?"

"Okay, now I like that one. That's very nice."

Ah, Grampie. How great is he? :)

Email and Website Issues

Hey guys!

Just wanted to write a quick note from my Thanksgiving Vay-cay that I am having huge email and website issues. I just received email for the first time in over a week yesterday and then my access immediately went down again, so I am unable to even return any emails at this time. If you have an *emergency*, please give me a call and leave a message OR you can still send me emails, but according to my web guy, I may continue to have intermittent email and website issues for the next 3-4 days while my stuff is being moved to a different server.

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Hugs,
Stace

Joel and Cari: Engaged!

Wow, what a week! :)

I have blogged every day (TWICE yesterday, BTW), have been feverishly preparing to move out of my home(Wednesday), take an exam (yesterday), leave town for a wedding in Fort Worth (today) and go to South Carolina (Sunday) ALLLL at once! I am thrilled to say I not only survived, but I THRIVED this week - I was so worried that I would not be able to make it emotionally or mentally and I did. Thanks to the Lord. :)

Here's my last blog post of the week and my last post before leaving for Thanksgiving. First, let me say, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you all know that I am thankful for your friendship in this life. Love ya!

Second, I want to say that we are truly ending this week well - with a couple that I absolutely adore and respect so much. Cari and Joel are such amazing people who work with the youth group at their church - and those kids are so lucky to have such wonderful examples of two really beautiful people! I am privileged to be their photographer and I cannot wait for their wedding!

Much love,
Stacy

*UPDATE* - UGH! I am having major problems uploading their pics - there are like 10 here, but only two are showing up! I will work on it! But in the meantime, here's 2 pics! :)

Wow. I don't know what to say.

Apparently my blog's written content is on par with a Junior High reading level. Niiice.

Honestly, I do keep it pretty simple around here because when I'm blogging, I'm usually in a huge hurry and do not have time to sit and think about something flavorful or profound to say. :) I actually really love to write and would like to incorporate more writing into my blog entries, but I just haven't had time!

So, in the spirit of making my blog "smarter", here's a few vocab words that I am studying in school that I want you to memorize:

1) Agranulocytosis - decreased production of white blood cells
2) Confabulation - making stuff up (for real)
3) Corpus Callosum (oldie but a goodie) - the large bundle of nerves running between the right and left hemispheres of the brain

How could I forget?!

I just realized that I left my FAVORITE picture from Sarah and Michael's wedding off the blog on accident- woops! :)

Here it is:

Out of the Office

Hey guys!

Just wanted to let you know that I will be leaving my house today and will be out of the office from now until Monday, November 26th. I will have limited access to my email, but will still respond to emails when I can.

We're moving ourselves and all of our stuff out of our house for the remainder of our home remodeling! We will be staying with friends for a few weeks, but this weekend we will leave for South Carolina for a week to be with family for Thanksgiving.

As soon as we return, Stan and I will be shooting Nicole and James's wedding on Saturday the 24th, so that will be fun!

The best way to reach me at this time will be by email, but please have patience with me from now until Friday returning emails, as I am not 100% sure what my internet situation will be. Starting on Saturday, I will not be able to return emails (most likely) at all next week.

Hopefully I will still be able to blog a couple more things before we leave for SC. :)

Hugs,
Stacy

Eugenie & Starr: Engaged!

Ah, Eugenie and Starr. Starr and Eugenie. They. Are. Cool.

Actually, I think they're a little too cool to hang out with me, but I am thankful that they do. :) I enjoyed the heck out of these two the other day during their engagement session . . . so much so that I came home beaming. Stan said "Good session, huh?" Yes, it was really good. These two are just SO right together. They really love each other and they know how to make each other laugh, which I know from experience, is very important in marriage! :)

Here's a few pics of these fabulous (Starr said I am allowed to call him fabulous, BTW) people:











And, I hope Starr doesn't kill me for this, but I thought this picture was so funny. :) He's like "Kiss me, girl!"

Michael and Sarah's Wedding!

On Saturday Stan and I drove down to San Antonio to photograph Michael and Sarah's wedding, which was really great! Michael and Sarah are both so laid back and fun to be around - and their family and friends are the same way! :)

The best part of all (other than the fact that they got married!) is that Michael and Sarah decided to see each other before the ceremony so that they could get the family and group pictures over with before the fun began. It was SO incredibly beautiful to get the opportunity to capture their first look at each other as they shared a private moment together.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from their wedding day:













The gentlemen


The ladies


















The dancing at this wedding was phenomenal - and you know how much I LOVE dancing!












My favorite part of almost every wedding is when someone comes up to me and says "Hey, we need to take a picture of you - give me your camera!" And then I argue with them saying "Oh, no, don't worry about it . . . nobody wants a picture of me . . . my camera is really hard to operate . . . well . . . okay!" I hand them my camera, knowing this is not going to be pretty, and let them do their best to get a great picture of me. This one is my favorite picture of this kind in a long time:


Thanks to all of you guys that were at Sarah and Michael's wedding! We had so much fun with you all! Since I know many of you are now blog readers (yay!), I hope that you'll leave me a shout-out! :) If you would like to view ALL of the pics from their wedding as soon as they're available, go *HERE* and search for "Michael and Sarah San Antonio". Sign the guest book and you'll be notified when all of the pictures are online - I hope you love them! :)