I caved.

I know I said I didn't want baby contraptions taking over my tiny house, but it happened. I now have a swing, bouncy seat and jumperoo taking up the remaining few square feet I had in the living room and dining room. Drat. I just really needed something to put Aven in while working, which is at least half the day every day on the computer. And are you wondering what that pink clam like thing is in her seat? It's called the hugga-bebe deluxe and it makes babies that are too little for things like this be able to fit. And her head will still make a fast flop every now and then and at least I know it will just flop into the pink squish. 

Pinkler

A few months ago, before Kylie mastered the word "sprinkler" she was saying "pinkler"  This is what they want to do when Blake gets home from school. They fill up cups, run around and play with umbrellas. The poor man's pool. 

3 Months and highs and lows

I'm probably going to bounce around from topic to topic in this post since it has been a while since I have written anything. We have had some highs and lows lately, lows being the death of my grandmother Mama C and owing almost $10,000 to the IRS, and highs being seeing lots of family in town for the funeral and spending time with my brother who is in town from Santa Barbara. This is our first year to not get a tax return, welcome to business ownership. The studio is also almost done. Zach is out there tiling the bathroom as I type. We are over budget, I think that almost always happens in home improvement projects. So I chose the cheapest 84 cent tile at home depot and cheapest laminate floor I could tolerate. It is a really cool wood pattern and I think it will look great in photographs. It better. I did splurge on a really cute vanity so at least I have that to fancy the place up. 

So Aven is now three months. And what a little doll baby we have! I have been doing little photo shoots with her here and there and by little I mean like ten minutes. It doesn't take long until she is hungry, tired or shoving her thumb in her mouth. I will continue this shoot this weekend, I have a few more ideas but she just can't do much yet besides lay down. Here are the shots I have so far...

She is just pure bliss. At three months she is still sleeping great! She still sleeps all night long and wakes up around 7 am for a feeding. Her nap schedule is not a schedule yet. She is still nursing on demand and sleeping whenever. If she starts to fall asleep while she is nursing or is irritable, I put her to bed, simple as that. Sooner or later I will take note of what time she is sleeping during that day and all that, but as for now the on demand stuff is working just fine. She wears 6 month clothes so I know she isn't a tiny baby, but I have no idea what she weighs. I will get all that info at her 4 month check up. She coos a lot and I have found her in her crib on her tummy twice, but I haven't seen her actually roll over, it has only been while she is by herself. Lots and lots of smiles, but no laughing yet. I love baby laughs and can't wait to hear Aven's. Her personality is exploding, they really start to wake up and become aware of the world so much more after that "fourth trimester" is over. You can see her growth in this rinky dinky little picture below.

GIVEAWAY!!

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The Last Few

I hope I'm not wearing you out with all these bluebonnet pictures. I personally am worn out with bluebonnets in general after having nine sessions out there. In case you don't look at my photography blog for my business, which by the way is www.paigewalkerphotography.com, click on blog, then you can see them here.

A Little Peek

here is a look into Aven's room. She still has no bedding, but that should be done any day now. I am really excited about how nice the chair looks. It was brown and blah and Dayme got it recovered for me in this great fabric.

This part is done at least.
More to come later, well hopefully sooner.

Easter

I feel like we just celebrated Easter. Maybe it was the lack of a winter this year or maybe time is just flying faster as I get older. Anyway, we hit up the annual Colonial egg hunt again. And again it was the same scenario, seersucker, smocking, john johns, pastel polos, big huge fancy cameras, the rich people stuff. I have to admit, I did look around and take note of what all the young successful guys are wearing so we can get Zach's wardrobe up to speed. He likes to go shopping about twice a decade and right now he has the 9th year college Senior look going on. We need to transition him into the distinguished young professional look. Quickly.

The egg hunt lasted all of about 4 minutes and we went and checked out the petting zoo. Kylie said "no thanks" to that activity.

But, luckily Blake isn't nearly as timid and frantic as she was in her younger days, so she jumped right in.
But was still a little shy around the sheep. Heck, I wouldn't go in there, but I'm a huge weenie.

Easter morning was chill. The kids woke up, played with their Easter goodies and we just had a lazy morning. No church this year. We didn't get tickets and definitely didn't want to start going back to church on the busiest day ever. We just did a little Easter lesson for the big girls out of a toddler workbook I have and sang some Easter songs.

The big family gathering was rather small today. Mama C is in the hospital sick so that kind of threw the whole thing off. It was just us and my parents. My mom cooked a fabulous meal as she always does and I ate two and half plates. Never mind that I have 7-10 lbs left to lose, I will worry about that tomorrow.

The girls had more Easter stuff to open at Ommy and G Dad's and loved it all. It kept them busy the whole day.

Kylie and I modeling the Monarch masks.
I've said this before, but it is so hard to have Aven away from our house right now. Every time we take her anywhere, which really is only my parent's house, she is miserable thus making me miserable. She can't get comfortable and gets so overtired and irritable. I was finally able to get her to sleep on me and that meant I had to sit there in silence for about an hour while she got her rest. Thank goodness for my phone, water and Easter candy within arms reach or I would have lost my mind.
And the best we could do for a family picture. I AM DYING TO GET MY BRACES OFF!! Just wanted to get that off my chest. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter spending time with your families and with our living, loving awesome God.

Suck

I have never had a baby who needed/wanted to suck so much. Aven spends a good chunk of her day trying to suck on stuff, my shoulder, her hand, a blanket, most anything that gets near her mouth is fair game. She takes a pacifier sometimes, but gets really frustrated with it. Now I think she has entered thumb sucker territory and I'm really not sure how I feel about that. Blake and Kylie did not take a pacifier and did not suck their thumb, so this is a new thing.

Bluebonnets

I was sort of dreading the bluebonnet pics, but it had to be done. It's hard work, not that fun, but so worth it when you have it all finished. I will take pictures of other people's kids all day, but something about your own kids is just downright frustrating.

I am so happy with the gorgeous images though!!

Long Bob

I'm not really thinking this is the best picture to show off my new hair cut. I went with the Gwyneth Paltrow long bob. It's not that short, but waaaaaay shorter than it was. I love the lighter blonde color.

Studio Update

A lot has been done in a short amount of time on this studio project. As you can see...

It was designed with lighting in mind as well as resale. A lot of people rent out their back houses around here so we wanted it to be set up for that for the next owner.

The french doors let in a lot of light, I am trained to do newborn photos in both studio and natural lighting so it will be fun to be able to pick which one for each shoot.

On the left is my prop closet, and let me tell you I have thousands and thousands of dollars worth of props, furniture, backdrops, hats, headbands, wraps, blankets, fabrics, rugs and equipment and it will be nice to have a proper home for it. Not smooshed on a shelf in my laundry room.

On the right, a bathroom. This is where clients can change, check their hair and makeup, I want it to be really cute. The laundry area is somewhere in there too. Maybe it's in the closet, not too sure about that.

This is the back wall, windows to let in light, but they won't be in the way of my backdrops and won't be blasting light in right behind the subject.

Side wall, just a couple of windows up high.

Here is a sample of the gorgeous lighting. I love how natural light can bring out colors in eyes that you normally can't see. Pretty, pretty!

Going Vertical

Basically I'm just livin the dream. I have a husband that rocks, three awesome kids and a job that I am obsessed with. Call me a bragger, but I am one happy chick! I just keep looking outside and can't believe that my studio is being built. What started as a little idea, bloomed into something incredible. I just booked a session today for AUGUST! It's hard to imagine that I am that much in demand, but I am so thrilled to be. It's a good lesson for me to teach my kids someday, if you love something and want to try it, go for it! If it's meant to be and you work your butt off, you will see more success than you thought possible. If it's not meant to be, at least you tried and have no regrets.

The framers got this thing almost framed today. Just a few interior walls remain on my bathroom, closet and laundry room. Yes, laundry room! As a newborn photographer there is so much poop, pee and spit up laundry after every session. Tomorrow the doors and windows go in and I will try to take pictures along the way to document the progress. I chose really large windows and french doors to let in the most light. So I only have one more glorious day of a borderline elderly shirtless man hammering and nailing boards together in my backyard.

The kids played in there for about an hour, they thought it was so fun. Blake was Grandma Butterfly and Kylie was Baby Butterfly, but they were acting like they were on the show Team Umizoomi, I don't understand their games most of the time.

Aven! Take note that my two month old is wearing a size 6 month outfit. Fats Domino.

Kylie on a mission

Why is it so hard for Blake to follow the two simple directions of 1. look at the camera 2. smile. I mean, she will either look at me with a weird blank face, or look away and smile an unnatural smile. If I happen to catch her both looking and smiling it is shear luck and coincidence. I don't get it.

Yum!

This weekend we had family in from Illinois. My mom hosted a big shindig at her house and I was asked to bring the desserts. I love to cook and try new recipes. One of the desserts I brought was Paula Deen's banana pudding. OMG. So good. It doesn't help that I'm on weight watchers so every dessert seems awesome, but this was really delicious. You should give this recipe a try! Very easy!

zzzzzzzzzzzz

You forget about all the struggles of the day when you see your angels sleeping. I snuck into all of their rooms to snap a pic. Kylie was the only one that noticed and her eyes are open in the picture.

Aven always sleeps with her little arms up like this.

Kylie always sleeps off her pillow and sometimes even sleeps sideways.

Blake sleeps normal.