mother's day shoot

This photography thing is a lot of fun for me.
I am still trying to figure it out, what's the right exposure, is my shutter speed okay? My picture is too dark, move it this way. It comes with time and practice, so this was great! My friend Jason wanted to do some Mother's Day photos for his wife for her first Mother's Day. Perfect time to take out the new camera and snap some photos!

After looking at these photos, my heart melted with the two of them. She normally loves spending that time with dad, he's always the one to easily put a smile on her face but this day, she was not having it. We had the hardest time trying to get her to smile for us, this is why children's photography is not my thing hahaha. Her grumpy face though, the cutest thing ever. The eyebrows are key. But really, the two of them are the sweetest pair.

We tried to have her hold the letters 'M' and 'O' so we could spell MOM in picture frames. Again, the grumpy face is hilarious. We'll have to try again later. I blame the sun and the random protesters that were standing behind us as I was taking these photos. Yes, random political protests in our tiny town exactly at the spot we wanted to take the pictures! Also, the entire day was cloudy and perfect for snapping away and when we started, the sun in her eyes. HUZZAH, that's what happens on outside shoots.

I can't wait to take more!

reading list | 05

Writing book reviews would not be my daytime job, I don't have a way with words like some people when they write reviews. Imagine the people who write and choose the New York Times bestseller books. Not me.

I have been reading on and off, some books really keep me going and others I only keep going because I started already. Book #5 in series of 2017 is All the Light We Cannot See. It is based in back in history during wartime. It walks you through two characters and their stories as they grow up to present day. I loved the short chapters, it kept me reading.

There was a great storyline.
Marie-Laure is attempting to make it through the war with her father and uncle, walking blindly through a new city. Werner reminds me of Liam, curious and full of technical capability. As I read Werner's dialogues, I would tell Liam how they were similar. This was another book in the time of Hitler, surprising that I have read historical fictions and enjoyed both!

This is a must read for the summer. It is from a few years ago, but worth going back to.

happy may

Tis the season for beautiful florals and a bunch of birthdays.
May is one of my favorite months of the year because it begins the warm weather and my birthday! In less than a week I turn 30! I don't feel 30, nor do I remotely look 30, which everyone tells me is great. It's great to an extent but when everyone believes you are a teenager, it's a struggle. Celebrating with friends is my favorite part about birthdays. The best part of my birthday is that I get to share it for the rest of my life with Liam.

Now that the weather is getting nicer, we are prepping to get back to working on the house and fixing her up nicely. We have a ton of projects to do, I don't think it ever ends when you are renovating. It's the beauty of it all. The pollen is getting to me, I make sure to carry around my life line of Zyrtec. Anyone else having these issues?

Some plans for May.
We have our first wedding of the year. One of Five. Yup. We thought it was less but we added two more. Cinco de Mayo wedding! I love weddings! Love love love weddings. We haven't done much planning for our wedding and ended up changing the date to a week before so we could get our photographer. I absolutely love her and wanted her badly enough to switch it.

Since ROCtheSHOT I have been wanting to shoot more and was so excited to participate in the Styled Shoot. I will definitely post about it soon. For my birthday, we bought a new camera! I upgraded to a full-frame Nikon D750. After the shoot and seeing all the people with full-frame and how easy it was to shoot, I craved it! YAY FOR BIRTHDAY GIFTS! I want to get into photography and start shooting people, maybe second shoot for a wedding. My goal this year is to shoot at least one wedding, even if it's a second shooter or a small five person wedding!

It's going to be a good spring! Well, once the weather gets nicer! Hopefully where you are, it's spring weather!

updating the driveway

We had a 3-day weekend for Easter and nice weather so it was a win win situation to do some yard work! The previous weekend we spent raking all of the dead leaves into bags, which we realized was not a good idea. We found out that our neighborhood will come to pick up the leaves if you leave them in a pile in front of your yard. So we will be dumping them next for next Monday's pickup! The weather cooperated for the most part with some showers in the middle of the day. You can see by the bright sunny skies to the gray hues it turned later. Poor Liam in the rain, this is why he's so awesome.

We also found out that our truck needs a real hitch.
The former owners, or even the ones before them, attached the hitch to the bumper, which we bent last weekend when we were trailering the stump grinder. We took it to our local shop and it was recommended not to trailer because our bumper would be ripped off! Oh god. So we were able to get the help of friends with trucks to trailer stuff for us. It's so nice to have friends!

Before it looked like the pseudo driveway there, we had a pine tree and two bushes that created our driveway. You can get a glimpse of it here from when we started the renovations. Whenever it rained, we had a huge mud pile and the truck would get stuck. We went from 1-car to 2-car mud pit. So we wanted to make it better and here we are with this past weekend!

Now we have a driveway!
Semi finished. I saw semi because we need more rocks to have it completely flush with the sidewalk. Also, the yard is now in shambles with soil and rocks scattered throughout. This week it will rain and we will be gone for the weekend in New Jersey. The last few days, Liam has been fixing the shed roof, which was leaking. Liam was enjoying all the heavy equipment he got to use during this excavating. Look at how different it is! So much of our greenery removed to clean it all up. I wish I had a better picture of the house before we did all of the removals.

I love being able to park our cars here without sinking into the mud. We also have a large driveway on the other side of the house where his dad parks and we park our other car. Yes, we have 3 vehicles, sedan, SUV, and a truck- we're all set! I can not wait until we clean up the grass and put some surroundings around the driveway and create garden beds.

Projects on top of projects on top of more projects now that the weather is getting nicer! Yay for moving toward completion! From anyone who has done home renovations, it's never complete haha.

life lately

Seriously, I am still loving the photo session from Roc the Shot and just signed up for their Styled Shoot. Super excited to see that shoot and meet the girl boss who made the planner I mentioned before. It is going to look so awesome and I will probably be jealous that my wedding won't look like it!

We went to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago and I have yet to upload photos and chat about the awesome city. We had such a good time there and plan on revisiting when the weather is warmer. The reason we visited was to see a concert from a singer who I loved in high school, not a solo artist and still amazing. I can definitely say that concert was unlike any I have ever been to and loved it.

Wedding planning has not been happening. I think we understand that we have so much time left to plan things that there is no real rush for us. We booked our venue as I said before and we could not be more excited. I have been searching for photographer, videographer, caterer, bakery, you name it but nothing is set in stone. Plus, we are still trying to save money for everything. Weddings ain't cheap!

Spring cleaning is happening in full effect around here. Last weekend our friends rented a stump grinder and brought it over and helped us with the yard. We bagged 9 bags of leaves and still have a few more to do. This weekend will be yard work and housework. WOO!

The weather around here is getting warmer and it has been super nice to take the dogs for a walk. There is more light and we don't have to bundle up to walk. I especially love the walks when the two of us get to have our little family back together and enjoy some alone time. It becomes relaxing and gives us some exercise.


Enjoy the weekend, I hope the weather is nice wherever you are!