A Bittersweet Realization

Today is just like any other Monday morning, waking up and getting Maddie Kate ready for school, all the kids I babysit coming in, having breakfast and checking email and myspace and all those things I do first thing in the morning! But today I realized that Maddie Kate will only be a kindergartener for 3 more weeks! Her graduation is Friday May 18th. This year has flown by, and it feels like she just started school yesterday, not 8 months ago! I also realized I will only be babysitting for 4 more weeks, (May 25th will be my last day) because my first wedding of the season is June 2nd, and then I have 2 more in June, I can't be babysitting and doing all that editing and album work! So, I guess I'm just a little sad today, thinking of all the big events coming up in May, including Maddie Kate's 6th birthday. Wow.

Last week on Thursday I went with Maddie Kate's kindergarten class on a field trip to the Rend Lake Visitors Center and helped supervise the planting and mulching of a bunch of flowers and also watched them release butterflies they had grown from cocoons.
It was fun, but keeping track of Ava while I attempted to help was a bit crazy. Even the Rend Lake workers knew Ava's name by the end of the day! Here are a few pics from the day:




















This last one is my favorite. I love the way MK is standing back watching with her little gloves on!
Too bad I'm not a digi scrapper like my friend Kellie. These would be great scrapping pictures. Kellie is an outstanding digital scrapper, and she and I are great buddies, both in life and photoshop! You can visit her blog at http://www.the-penns.blogspot.com/

It's also time for another Ava story! She is not just the destructive queen, but she is now also a BULLY. On Friday the kids were in the playroom, and I hear Caleb screaming and crying. So I run in to see what is wrong, and there's Ava, laying on top of him and scratching his face!! She is so mean! She knew how to hold him down, and apparently, he wasn't going to fight back, even though he is bigger than her and could probably whip her if he decided to. She got in big trouble, and the fun part is explaining wounds to parents. But Caleb's mom was very nice about it, she actually laughed, so hopefully she wasn't just hiding her real feelings of wanting to beat up Ava! Today Ava has already been taking toys away from Caleb, making him cry, and getting in trouble for it. I hope he decides to pop her, maybe that'll teach her! It's weird to me, because Caleb has always been her favorite little friend, she is always so excited when he gets here in the mornings. She used to call him "Sissy", I'm assuming since she doesn't have a brother, so I was trying to get her to call him "Bubby", and it became "Cubby" which is a combo of "bubby" and "Caleb". I just think that's adorable. Now she calls him "K-Dub" which always makes me think of Britney Spears' ex, K-Fed. No offense, Cubby! ♥

Check out this new purse I got! I am loving it!
I have recently discovered these leather purses, which I will be offering through Jessica Hollis Photography. If you have a session or a wedding with me, you will be able to purchase one of these to show off your special people or special day to everyone you know! The best part is, the picture is actually a snap on panel, so when you are ready for a new picture, all you do is order a new panel and snap it on! How easy is that! Plus you don't have to buy a whole new purse that way!
This is the large one, there is also a smaller version, which I will order one of soon to have an example.

Have a great day!!

1st Engagement shoot of the season!

I had my first engagement session of the new wedding season on Saturday. This couple is such a joy to work with, totally fun and willing to participate. It's always good when you get a guy who's cool about having his picture taken and has fun with it! Here are a few of my favorites so far!

Aren't they cute!?

I love contrasty Black & White!!


This one might just be my absolute favorite! If it was Johnny and me, I would have a huge one made and hang it on the wall! They had a boat and were going to paddle out into the pond for some fun water pics, but the boat was stuck in the mud, and then we discovered it was covered in ants! So the boat was a no-go, but I think we got some great shots. Thanks guys, I'm looking foward to your wedding in June, and I'll call you with the finished products soon! :)

Medicine, Messes, and Milestones

So it turns out that I was probably so sleepy last week because my new Dr. had allowed generic Synthroid on my prescription, and the generic is not strictly regulated. If you take Synthroid, make sure your Dr. always prescribes the real thing, because I noticed the effects of the generic IMMEDIATELY! My heart would race when I first woke up and I was very sleepy for a few days! I'm back to normal now that I'm back on the real Synthroid. Thank goodness, because I was having shades of last year and how awful my Hashimoto's was, and I don't want to experience that EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!

Ava managed to destroy or mess up something almost everyday of last week. Monday it was my blush, she dug into it with her fingers and got it all over herself and 2 big spots on the carpet in 2 different rooms. Tuesday, as you have already read about in last weeks entry, was the black Sharpie all over the couch cushion and her hands. Wednesday, she squeezed a bottle of hand lotion out all over the coffee table, and Thursday she ripped a page out of my Bible! Everyone always gasps when I tell them that, but somehow, out of all the pages in a Bible, she managed to rip out the blank one in the back that says "notes", so all was okay! Saturday she got an old lipstick dug into it and rubbed it all over her jammies and her belly! It was an old one I never use, but it sure did stain! I had to give her a bath to get the stain off her belly and I have washed the jammies several times and they still have red spots! I can't keep up with her, so I'm sure there will be lots more on the antics of Ava in the days to come. Despite all her trouble, she is a cheerful little girl, all morning she has been going around saying "Happy day!" which was the first 2 words that she ever put together on her own a few months ago.



Sunday afternoon, I took some pictures of Maddie Kate to use for her birthday party invitations (above) next month, and I'm so glad that I did get one last little photo shoot of her before that evening, when she passed a growing up milestone that I had been really dreading. She lost her first tooth!
(Of course, Mommy is worried about Maddie Kate entering the "morphing" stage, when kids teeth are falling out and they start to grow a lot and look funny for awhile, Mommy wants to keep her little girl little!) It had been wiggly for several weeks, but the new tooth had already begun coming up behind it about a week and a half ago, so her Daddy had been really after her to wiggle it and get it to fall out. Well, on Sunday evening when we got home from church, he asked to see it and just popped it right out! Maddie Kate started to cry, but I started cheering and doing a happy dance, and so did Johnny, and then she was laughing through her tears! It was so cute, I wish we had a video of how silly we all were! And then I held her and I cried for awhile! She was so excited about the Tooth Fairy coming! Most of her little friends at church and school, some of whom are younger than her, have already lost teeth, so she knew all about the tooth fairy and what goodies the other kids had been getting!

Tomorrow I will post some pictures from my engagement shoot on Saturday! Hope you have a great day!

"It's on, SUCKA!"

No, that is not a quote from the latest action movie. Ava actually said this to me yesterday, though I am going to take it out of context! When Ava said this, she was telling me that her show was on TV. She calls me "Sucka". Isn't that WEIRD? It never ever occurred to me that the end of my name, Jessica, is actually "Sucka" if you don't pronounce the "i" sound. If you haven't believed me before that Ava is a wild one, here's a story to prove it! Just a little while after she said her now infamous quote, somewhere she managed to find a black Sharpie marker and proceeded to scribble all over the cushion on the chaise of our sectional.



Unbelieveable! as Johnny would say. When we bought the couch, we had a teflon coating put on it to help protect it from the kids and all their messes, but this one takes the cake! So I'm scrubbing and scrubbing, because the only thing the info I have says to clean it with soapy water, and of course that's not working on the insane black permanent marker. I go digging and find the tags that were on the sectional when we bought it, and call the Teflon people, who proceed to tell me that my warranty doesn't cover ink stains! What the heck, it was expensive enough, it should cover ANYTHING my kids do to it! That's why we got a warranty!! After this frustration, I figure I have nothing to lose, so I get out the SpotShot, which I use on the stains on carpet. So I attack the cushion with it and scrubbed for, I'm not kidding, at least an hour! My arm was burning! Amazingly, after it dried, it looks pretty good. You'd have to know what you were looking for to be able to see the stain. But unfortunately, I spent the entire time she was napping working on that dang cushion! So the next time Ava yells, "It's on Sucka!" I will be ready!!!

Jessica Hollis Photography is joining the 21st century! I am becoming an official blogger to assist my business and just for some fun, too! Check back for posts from recent sessions and for information on current specials and offers! Looking forward to having a great 2007 with you! The link to my website can be found at the top right of the page. I'll have to figure out how to link them together so you can view the blog from the website....have to get my brother the computer guru to help me out on that one!

Sleepy day!

Today I am so sleepy! I have tons of work to do, things for the business, and things around the house, but I am too tired. I couldn't sleep last night because I have a bad cold that I keep wondering if it is now a sinus infection. I have had it all week, and it seems worse today. I also started a new "meal plan" (as my friend Dana likes to call it) and this is the third day of it, and she told me to expect loss of energy, and I think that may be setting in today. I am zonked! But I am determined to stick with it because I want to fit into my summer clothes!! :)
I am trying to work on a sample wedding album to show to my customers, but my brain just isn't working well enough to be creative! I'm on my 2nd cup of coffee!

Wow, I'm a blogger!

This is weird. I'm always reading blogs, not posting them! I'm going to give it a try though! Will I even have enough to say? I don't know!
I am a stay at mom mommy of two of the cutest little girls that I know (of course, aren't everyone's kids the cutest kids that they know?!) and I babysit, and I have a photography business. I am going to quit babysitting though, at the end of May to concentrate on the photo business, which I am VERY excited about! I adore kids, but I have wanted to be a photographer ever since I had my Senior pictures done, and so I'm chasing my dream!!
My oldest daughter is Maddie Kate, and she is in Kindergarten, learning to read pretty well, and has several wiggly teeth that I don't want to fall out! She has a big month coming up in May. She will graduate kindergarten on May 18th, and turn 6 on May 21st. It's kind of interesting to me that the dates this year fall the same way they did when she was born, except that year, it was Daddy who was graduating college on May 17th, and Maddie Kate was born on the 21st. I can't hardly stand it that she is that old. She is supposed to be the age of Ava!
Ava, my little A-bomb, is 2o months old and so full of life and so mischievous! It's crazy how ornery she can be! Everyone tells me that she's just normal and that Maddie Kate was just exceptionally good, but I don't know!! I do know that even with all the kids I have babysat, I had never had to have cabinet locks until Ava came along! She is talking quite a bit now and will repeat everything you say, and is starting to ask questions! Yesterday I was arranging the DVD's in the entertainment center (that she had dumped out, or course~still need a lock for that one!) and she said "whayadoin?" and I just about fell over! Then when we took MK to her baseball practice she said "whereyagoin'?" and I was amazed again!
Well I think this is good enough for a "first practice post" so we'll give this a try!
Have a good one!