What leads me to Visions...

Whenever I find myself sinking into a dark mood, I try to surround myself with things that feed my soul. Spending time with God, and my two boys is always my first go to but something that always moves me and lifts my spirits is art and beauty. I know I've mentioned this before. Last night I found myself slipping into a funk. We had gone out to take some photos of Jax at sunset and I really wanted to be in some of the photos. This is REALLY hard for me. I hate being on the other side of the camera and always have, especially post pregnancy but I really want to be in photos with my son. As I had feared, the result had me in a sour mood. I tried really hard not to get snippy with Todd or be too hard on myself. I can be very self judging and sink into very self destructive and hateful thoughts towards myself. It usually just spirals down from there. I think I did ok for the most part though. I was a little quiet for the rest of the evening but tried not to allow myself to worry so much about my weight or the way I looked.


Instead I put on a dvd of some inspiring photogs and sunk myself into my passion. I spent the WHOLE night researching for my next editorial shoot and found some AMAZING photogs that I really admire. I am never satisfied with myself as a photographer (which in my opinion is a good thing!) and know that my potential is even greater than where I am at right now. It's frustrating to be held back by a budget. The camera industry is ever changing and with it comes equipment upgrades which we would really like to do. I was online drooling at an 85mm 1.4..... *sigh* someday. I can't even imagine being able to drop $2k on a lens! I try not to be jealous of those who can. Haha. In the mean time thank heavens for borrowlenses!

I stayed up until 7am having a blast just looking at things online for inspiration. It made my heart happy. I have so many dreams that I feel are just stuck. I want so badly to be one of those photographers that has the amazing lil boutique studio and takes dozens of photos of cute lil faces and families and then have my boudoir studio as well. It's so frustrating to know exactly what you want but be unable to make it happen. Hmmmm. I sense God is trying to teach me something. While it would be wonderful to be more financially stable than we are right now, money is not what drives me to do photography. So I've decided to just let go and do what I love even if the business isn't booming. Don't get me wrong... we do have business! It's just not enough to support us fully... yet.

So I am going to just have fun and create up all these fun shoots in my head and make them happen! I'm always wishing I had the client who was willing to be as vintage/chic/eclectic as my visions, so I've decided to just create it myself! I love clients who step out of the box and are bold in their style. I'm hoping I can inspire some friends to come play along with me and play "dressup" in my photoshoots. I wish I had a live in hair and makeup person that just wanted to play dress up with me. I'll have to find someone who wants to just play as much as I do and not worry about money or getting payed... which is so hard to find these days! Anyone interested?? Haha. Taking applications! =D

So even though I don't have the camera or lens I need or want at the moment I will make do and be thankful with what I have and still move forward! I know God made me to do this and I will do it as long as he allows and I hope to be able to bless people with my work. I have some exciting things planned for Gardner Photography in the next few months! 

Enjoy some pics I took of my lil man and his daddy!

Katie

P.S. For the fam that's not on facebook.... Jax learned how to say Dada! =)

 

January & February Happenings.

I'm having such a hard time keeping up with blogging the last few weeks. I've decided to just blog about some more recent events in one post...... so here goes!

We were on crazy home prep mode for showing our house to sell. We stayed up many late nights, organizing, decluttering, painting and decorating. My body finally shut down and we ALL ended up getting a nasty cold. Thankfully all at separate times. I had it first and was literally out on the couch for the most part of two days. Todd was so sweet and took great care of Jax so I could just sleep and relax. I felt like a zombie!!! A few days later both of my guys were sick. Thankfully no fever for Jax. He handled it well. He's such a good baby!

His newest "trick" is only taking Two, 30 min naps!!! Ugggg. Needless to say I am not getting too much done. I've tried everything to try to get him to take a longer nap but he wont have it. I'm sure it is just a phase but it has lasted for two weeks now. Thankfully (knock on wood) he is still sleeping great at night. Since he is napping so little we have been putting him down for bed around 730 or 8.... which is normal for most kids. He was used to staying up a little bit later but our whole night would be consumed with his bedtime routine and it was getting to be a 2 hour process! I'm really trying to make sure Todd and I have some time to ourselves at night so an earlier bedtime is my goal for Jax. Thankfully his lack of nap time hasn't effected he's sweet disposition. He is never fussy unless he wants to eat. And when he wants to eat... He wants to EAT. He goes from 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. Haha. It's really the only time he gets super worked up about something. I mean he has his moments but that is his overall daily attitude. He is such a happy lil guy and is so sweet. I can tell he is going to be a sweet, loving lil man already. At his 6 month appointment he was 17.12 lbs. He's a tall, skinny lil man.  Not crawling yet. Just scooting and rolling EVERYWHERE. He is trying so hard to crawl but I think it's going to be a little while. He cracks me up when he's laying on his tummy flailing his arms and legs around like a stuck turtle. It's hilarious. He loves playing with daddy. He thinks Todd is hilarious and Todd can make him laugh the most along with some help from Marley the dog. He's definitely into mama though and has started reaching for me all the time now. It melts my heart. He loves to snuggle and lovingly touch the face of whoever is holding him.

Today we met up with Vickie and Nicole at Peets and had a great time chatting and drinking coffee. I love them! Nicole held Jax pretty much the whole time and he loved her! Vickie fed him his bottle and he was a happy camper. He tries to grab everything within arms reach now so we played a good game of move the coffee cups and cell phones as he tried to grab/chew on it all.

For Valentine's day I woke up to a a teddy bear and a bag of dehydrated strawberries. =D I was on Daniel fast so Todd was trying to be sweet and get my something healthy. My mom watched Jax that evening and we went to Pleasanton for dinner at Alberto's downtown. It is where we had our first date. =) After dinner we couldn't think of anywhere for dessert that sounded good so we drove around aimlessly and ended up at a ghetto bakers square type restaurant and ate pie. Haha. After not having sugar for 21 days my body was in shock!!!! It was good though.

Date... as in the fruit!

I have been meaning to make this recipe for the last two weeks since I started Daniel fast, but never took the time to actually do it until last night. Here is the recipe! I pitted 36 dates and put the messy goop into my blender. It was seriously impossible to blend it without adding the water to the blender so i just did that. It was extremely thick so I ended up adding more water than the recipe called for. Quite a bit more. My stove is lame and even on the lowest setting it is not a "simmer" at all! You would think that a volcano was going off on my stove. It was pretty comical. You have to heat it on the stove for an hour and stir pretty frequently so Todd and I took turns stirring it so I could eat dinner (finally at 930pm!) and sit for a minute. It was so bubbly we would use the lid of the pot as a shield from the splatters! It smelled pretty bad while it was on the stove. I think that was from what splattered onto the stovetop mainly. I thought I had burned it but it didn't taste like it at all. After it cooled a little i put it into a glass 2 cup measuring cup and put it in the fridge over night. I just made oatmeal with golden raisins and put a spoonful of the date syrup in my oatmeal and it tasted fabulous! Dont let the word "syrup" mislead you while cooking it. It's thick, comparable to applesauce. If you are looking for an alternate sweetner I would totally recommend this!!

Our busy busy days...

Wow it has been crazy busy!! Life the last few weeks has consisted of packing, cleaning, purging, photoshoots, edits, baby..... on repeat!!! Prepping the house has had me a little bit overwhelmed. Ok... a little more than a little but somehow we're managing to get through it. It seems like there are more messes than when I started, but that is due to the fact that I HAD to purge every cupboard, drawer and shelf before I could actually organize and pack things. My goal for this year is to get REALLY organized. I am just so used to throwing things in drawers. So for now there are a bunch of piles all over the place but I am finally seeing the end of it all. The nice thing is that once our house actually sells it will be so much easier to pack because we've already done the purging part! We took down most of the studio already. That was sad. But I will keep shooting, it just isn't as fancy.=( I have to take down my pretty red damask paper this week too. =( Sad! But thankfully we didn't actually apply it to the wall. It is just tacked up.

This week I had an amazing photoshoot! It was such a blast! It was a really chill shoot and I got to play around with some lighting and a natural light boudoir setting. It was gorgeous! I cant wait to post some of the pics on my boudoir blog but I have to wait until after Valentine's day! The client was nice enough to let me share her images. =) Can't wait!

Today I didn't get anything done that I should have but got a ton done that I needed to do. I am swamped with edits and album designs, plus working on the house, but today my mom drove out to see me and Jax and we went and ran a bunch of errands. I had to drive to antioch to pay my car registration at the AAA DMV. Thank goodness I am able to pay it there!!! Going to the actual dmv would be a nightmare. Antioch AAA was bad enough. I got that all taken care of and then had to go get my car smogged, went to trader joes, the bank and then home to do a photo premiere with a client. I am becoming obsessed with Trader Joes. I love it! I have been on a modified Daniel fast for almost two weeks and I feel amazing! I got so addicted to fast food during pregnancy and gained so much weight. Eating a all natural diet has changed how I feel. I am not eating processed junk anymore and I can already tell the difference. I've lost 6 pounds already and besides the physical I can just feel myself letting go of some very unhealthy eating habits and emotions attached to eating. It has been so great. After two weeks of eating this way I can say that I am in it for the long haul. I mean, I'm not going to swear off sugar for all eternity or other food items but for me, cooking and only grocery shopping this way helps me control what I put into my body. I dont even crave the junk food anymore. I will drive by a taco bell or in-n-out (my two pregnancy addictions) and think "nah i can make brown rice and black beans and some frozen mango at home." I never thought I would think that way. I am enjoying cooking, even if it is mostly just for me. I really want to teach Jax good eating habits and cook healthy meals for him and not just throw some microwaved over processed crap at him for lunch. America is such an unhealthy country and it is sad to see so many children struggling with obesity. I wish I would have been more aware of this growing up. I am learning now and that is all that matters.

Jax decided to go back to waking up a bazillion times a night this week. I am so tired!!! He is waking up hungry all night. I just don't think he is staying full from milk through the night anymore. He is a week and a half away from his 6 month bday so I decided to start him on rice cereal tonight. He totally loved it! He ate so well and kept grabbing at the bowl for more. I just started him off with a tiny amount and am excited to see what foods he will like. It's fun and exciting and sad all at the same time to see him growing up and doing big boy things! Here is a pic and the video of Jax trying rice cereal for the first time! I love his face on the first bite!!!

Today was pretty chill. Slept in until 11. When I finally woke up a little I watched season 1 episodes of Veronica Mars while playing in bed with the baby.

Once Jax went down for a nap I went downstairs to make "breakfast" which was really lunch... It was noon. Made oatmeal with banana. Since Jax was sleeping I decided to tackle a project I'd been meaning to do all weekend. Clean my fridge out. Boy was it messy!!! I don't even want to say the gross things I found in there. Yuck!! I didn't just clean out old food though. I cleaned out pretty much every processed food item with the exception of some of Todd's things. while his support in my food habits is appreciated, I don't force it on him. :) for more reasons than 1, I am trying to stop eating processed foods and eat all natural. I've given up white flour and most sugar except found in some yogurts. I've been doing it for 1 day and I already feel amazing physically and spiritually. Cleaning the fridge helped. I think having a clean fridge makes me more likely to eat better. I even rearranged it so that fruit, snap peas, yogurt and my almond milk were on the top shelf, easy to access. Most of the time we put all the healthy stuff at the bottom shelf level and well.... out of sight out of mind. here is a pic of my fridge....

Kinda hard to see but it's sparkly clean and I can see everything in it!

After I cleaned, jax woke up, fed him then we loaded up and went by the post office, babiesrus, then trader joes. I had fun hauling him around in his seven sling. He loved it until he'd been in it about an hour. Just enough time to get what I needed done. It was fun picking out produce and to stay conscious of what I was buying instead of just throwing in junk. A friend posted on her blog that she was only going to shop at trader joes from now on. That really inspired me. The food quality is so much better! How many of us have been guilty of saying "oh I still need to go to Safeway for such and such processed junk" So from now on if it's not at TJ's don't get it!

Here is a pic of us getting ready to sling around town.





Gnite!

Bubbles!

This is what we did this sunday. =)

10 things I love about...

My day!

1. Waking up next to my amazing hubby.

2. Morning Snuggles with the baby.

3. The Jesus Culture Cd.

4. Lunch with friends.

5. Mint Brownie Shakes shared with a friend.

6. Target.

7. 99 cent bubbles.

8. The beautiful Sunshine!

9. Bath time watching bubs splash around.

10. Snuggling in bed watching Glee!!!


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