Take a Picture

Just a heads-up for Alderman Photography clients - check out the "New Developments" button on my website for all the fun stuff I'm rolling out. First is a "Onsie" session, where I print your newborn's birth information on a onesie and then use the resulting photos to design a totally unique birth announcement card. The package includes 25 cards and envelopes to get you started. Also coming soon are 3x3 accordian photo books and 5x5 photo brag books, both of which make great gifts for family and friends.

School has started and that means school pictures. If yours didn't turn out as well as you hoped this year, ask me about my fall special. It's a great value and alternative to the packages offered through school.

Enjoy the last days of summer!

That Woman

I am that woman. You know, the one you see in Target at 9am on a Thursday morning pushing the giant cart full of kids who are beaming each other with Pop-Tart pieces they pull from the opened but not yet paid for box while their mother continues to meander through the clearance aisles drinking her massive cup of Starbucks while blissfully unaware of her screaming children? Yep. I am that woman.

Sorry, Target, for the disturbance. And all the crumbs.

Recovered

The company we contracted with to recover our hard drive was successful in their attempts to extract our files, and last Friday we received the new drive containing almost everything the old drive held. Luckily the damaged files were ones we didn't really care about, and all the pictures of the boys that we feared were lost were recovered. Now everything is triple backed up and I'm looking into online storage for my business files.

FYI - the above photo is Connor at 3 weeks. It's hard to believe he was ever that little (or that quiet!).

Baby Shiny

I can hardly believe that six months have passed since Riley joined our family, but its true. And although I whine a lot about her not being a good sleeper, not taking a bottle, and just being high maintenance in general, she is still an absolute joy and I am trying to enjoy every minute of this delicious baby stage. Right now she's all smiles, and is so generous with her silly grins and giggles. She is equally fascinated and amused by both of her brothers, although she already (wisely) regards Connor with a bit more caution than Casey. She's still a girl who knows what she wants (and, yes, that often includes not wanting to nap or be held be anyone other than me), but she also seems to be developing a very sweet personality. We still refer to her quite a bit as Baby Shiny, and I think it might be a nickname that she'll be stuck with for awhile. Which is OK, it seems to fit her just fine.

Baby Love

One of the victims of the "Hard Drive Crash of '08" was a newborn photo session I had almost finished editing. Luckily, the client was a neighbor and was super gracious about the problem and we quickly scheduled a make-up session. I couldn't resist sharing this one - so sweet and so cute!

P.S. The latest update on the hard drive recovery is that initial attempts to recover any data failed, but they asked for another week to keep trying. Everyone keep their fingers crossed for us.

Fair Game

I loaded up the kids this morning and joined some friends for a trip to the Indiana State Fair. I haven't been to a state fair since I was a junior in high school, and I have to admit that I recall the motivation for the visit was to gawk at all the rednecks. But it was a beautiful day here, and I knew the boys would get a kick out of the animals, so off we went.

And I was right, they did love the animals. Connor was especially taken with these baby chicks, and Casey was greatly impressed with the World's Largest Pig (to which he exclaimed, "That's the biggest pig I've ever seen!" as though he's spent a lifetime on a farm caring for livestock). As you can tell from the photo, the aroma of the fair animals offended Casey's delicate palate, and Connor hardly seemed to notice.

Casey's other favorite part of the fair? The rides. I cracked up at how serious they were riding these motorcycles - it was as though they had suddenly become junior members of the Hell's Angels. Fair rides are serious business, folks.

And of course, we indulged in some fair food. A pork tenderloin sandwich for me and a massive corndog for the boys. Riley had mashed pears, but I noticed when we got home that she still managed to somehow smell like a BBQ sandwich. All in all a good day, and I was so busy watching the kids that I barely noticed the rednecks.