Appreciating life

So many things have happened in the last few months. Some things cause struggle with the day to day, other things rejuvinate us to keep working towards our goals.

After losing an aunt and uncle in a rollover accident and another uncle to a fatal heart attack our family is reminded of how precious and short life is; I am prompted to increase my community contributions, hopefully making the tiniest difference in the world before I leave. Talk about feeling good and reaping benefits!

So back at the farm:







With most of the updates on the house complete, we took in a little baby named Sterling. It didn't take long for him to love us. He now is twice the size of when we first brought him home.

He is very photogenic but seems to care less! He puts up with the photoshoots and puts on his best smile but he is happiest when he gets to go on the patio with daddy after patiently waiting for dinner to be over.

In my next edition, I hope to share images of my brother's wedding which is keeping me very busy at the moment!

Time to get busy!

I know, I know! It's been forever since I have been here.

We finally got moved in to the new house but there is always so much to do! We just had a water treatment system (aka water softener and RO) installed which will hopefully keep the orange well water a little clearer. Jim's white shirts, well actually what used to be Jim's white shirts, are now a light orange. Hopefully we don't have to worry about that anymore.

I am now in the middle of painting the half bath off the livingroom. Since it's the one that guests will see most (especially guests that don't spend the night) I really wanted it to stand out.

Jeana, Jenn, and Matt came for a visit around the same time and it was very nice to have them here. And of course I had to shoot them while they were here! It was fun driving to different places that make excellent backgrounds and then I have even more fun enhancing the images! The railroad tracks were probably the most fun but there were some excellent images at the abandoned business center too.

Poating a few makes me realize how many I haven't finished yet! I'd better get busy!

Next week, I am shooting 70 year old Robert with his family for his birthday as well as shooting the Dragon Boat festival! Hope to see you all at Tempe Town Lake!

6 month old Ryan still loves the basket

Remember baby Ryan at 4 weeks of age? Well at 3 months he had a blast in this basket!

Well, now Ryan is 6 months old! He's still a doll and still loves the basket!

While Ryan had fun with the basket I had the most fun finding ways to capture his amazing expressions at play with a basket! All I can say is Ryan is still a cutie, basket or no basket!

Images of a 7 day old

In an earlier blog I wrote about images of Stephanie and Kevin's engagement/pregnancy. Well one of the expectations has arrived!

Here are the images of the 7-day old and his parents!

As usual, I tend to gravitate towards the black and whites...

but the colored images are just as moving!

Yesterday was a beautiful day to play hooky from work! About a hundred men and a few women did it so they could Drive 4 Doug! This is the second annual event benefits The Douglas F Wininger Cancer Research Endowment Fund (The Scottsdale Clinical Institute, The Virginia G Piper Cancer Center, Scottsdale Healthcare).

There were many volunteers that made this event a great success!
Including the guy that created all the banners!

Oh, and yours truly's poster as well!

The teams were ready to go before the 8a tee-off time.

Group photos were a must and a lot of fun!

Lunch time was at 12:30 - definitely time to get out of the heat!

If you participated in the event yesterday, thanks for playing and giving! If you would like to view more images of the event, or purchase any, please log on to http://apm.dotphoto.com -user id is apm - password is photos. The proceeds benefit the fundraiser so thanks again for giving!

Shooting Gavin and his parents

Gavin just turned a year old! Mommy was really nervous about the photo shoot but Gavin did great!

Gavin has so much energy! Everytime we tried to sit him down, he sprang up and walked away from the scene.
We had such a good time shooting beautiful images at Gavin's house. He's such a cutie and is developing a cute little personality! I know the family is going to love the images!

Stephanie and Kevin

Stephanie and Kevin are having a baby soon so met at the Wigwam and took some maternity photos.

They're also getting married next year, so we shot some announcement images as well.

We took advantage of the mirrors for several of the maternity images.

And the gardens for the engagement images. Stay tuned soon for images of the baby!