Pumpkin Patch Mini Photo Sessions

I'm so excited to announce my Pumpkin Patch Mini Sessions. It's going to be so much fun. You will have a 30 minute time slot set up for your kids and/or family. There will be hay barrels, pumpkins, wheel barrels, scarecrows and lots of fall decorations. I will capture some adorable pictures of your little pumpkins. You can dress them in cute overalls, costumes, or clothing of your choice.

Please call or email to set up your time slot for Oct 1 or Oct 6th between 9 and 3.

Spencer Family Isleworth Shoot

I had the great opportunity to photograph this beautiful couple on the beautiful grounds of Isleworth. It was a combo to create a masterpiece.

And who can resist their precious little girls.

Thank you so much guys for a beautiful evening. I'm amazed at how long the girls lasted at so many different locations. It was one of my favorite shoots to date! I hope to see you again soon!

Mango teething

When Boston was a toddler and starting to teeth I gave him the seed of a mango and he LOVED it. Ever since then it has been my kids favorite thing to teeth on and Sydney followed right along like her brothers. It might be messy but it sure is fun!

Church Shoot

I had the great honor of getting to do photo shoots for all the families at First Baptist Windermere. It was very fast paced and no time to really pose people and get them into the positions I would have liked or I never would have gotten threw the almost 200 couples in a few hours. But they still turned out great and I'm excited to share them with all the families.

Hyperdash

I wanted to share a game with you that we love at our house. It's called Hyper Dash. Not only is it a super fun game for the kids but they can play it by themselves or with others, it makes them active as they run around, and it helps learn colors and numbers. In the picture above I had Asher put them all close together but usually they spread them across the room and chase down the one they need to touch. We have had this game for many years and it never gets old.

Making journaling a priority

Wow life is moving so fast for me right now that it all seems to be such a big blur at moments. People often ask me how in the world I have time to do a blog with everything else going on in my life and the answer is very simple. If I don't make time to do it I feel like life is quickly slipping threw my fingers like sand. And once the sand has fallen there is no way to remember the grains I was just holding onto. Once I have put something into writing it just feels more like it really happened and I'm not as worried I might forget it. Especially now since it feels more and more like I'm losing brain cells with each night of homework. (It's sometimes hard to believe I was once very good at Calculus and took AP classes in high school.)

I saw a notebook at Target that had the cover above. I had to take a picture of it because it summed up my writing in a way I had never really thought about before. "We write to taste life twice." Ahhh....it's so sweet. And here I have been running a race with school starting, new therapies and diagnosis with the kids, my photography business, starting to shoot for Disney, 4 kids (really that one alone is enough).

There's many nights I sit down lately with a stack of things to do that would put anyone on medication and the last thing I feel like doing at the moment is adding blog writing to it. But if I don't the tension builds in me. I can feel the stress strangling me. I worry about losing moments, forgetting the little things the kids do. And then I realize that it's been several days since I've written and recorded the amazing moments in my life. I'm so blessed with so much.

I do hope that my crazy rambling helps you in some way. If you aren't recording your daily moments I really encourage you to do so. If it's only a few sentences each day. You will cherish them in the future.

So write people!

Take the time.

You will be happy you did and one day your kids will thank you!

Get well soon Uncle Hes

My brother is in the hospital right now and in quarantine so we are not able to go visit him so I thought we would make him some cookies to send with my mom. Asher was my precious little chef. I so love cooking with my kids!

And then I made this cute little card with band aids for him to send a little humor his way since he doesn't know when he will be released.

He somehow got some kind of serious infection in his back and had to have back surgery to get all the infection out of his back. Poor guy! And they still don't even know what he got and how he got it. He has been in so much pain we are just hoping he gets better soon!

Being a Disney photographer

While at the beach with the family on vacation I got a call the The Disney Fine Art and Photography group wanted to do a meet and greet with me about possibly hiring me as a contract photographer. How exciting! I drove in for the interview and was excited when they offered me the job. So today was my first day headed out to get some training on shooting at Disney. It was such a crazy day running around all morningin getting everyone dropped off before heading over! I finally ended up at Disney around 10 after dropping all the boys off and Sydney with my mother in law. I met the team out at the hotel they were shooting at and jumped in. I was a little disoriented on a Canon instead of my Nikon and realized it will take me some getting used to. It also couldn't have been a more hot day to be outside shooting. But I'm so excited about this new opportunity in my photography carrer!

1st day of school

It's the first day of school and a super big day in the Whitman household. Not only are the boys going back to school (Boston 3rd grade, Dallas 1st and Asher preschool) but I am going to work as a freelance Photographer for Disney's Creative Event Team.

Getting pictures this morning was crazy but I was still insistent on doing it. My poor camera was all fogged up and didn't have time to deal with it so the pictures look horrible but at least I have some. (Maybe I'll fake some better ones later if I can talk the boys into it!)

Here's my big 3rd grader.

He wanted a Pirates of the Caribbean backpack and I couldn't find a new one so he said he wanted to use the one he used in Kindergarten. That was easy and cheap for me. But he did ask for the lunch box he has been seeing advertised on TV called so I splurged and got him that.

And here's spiderman Dallas himself all ready and excited about heading off to 1st grade.

And my baby boy is now going to school every day for a half day! He was very very nervous at his meet the teacher (the reason there are no pictures of him and his teacher.) But I was so proud of him this morning as he was so grown up and happy as he entered into his new class. And I'm super excited his little friend Jack from church is in his class as well since all but 1 of the kids in his 3 year old class are in other classes.

And doesn't he look so cute in his Mickey shirt.

Girls sleepover!

Friday a bunch of girls from my sunday school class headed out to my parents lakehouse to spend the night and have some good girl time. We had such a blast and I'm so blessed to be a part of such wonderful women!

Here's the crew (minus Lynn who hadn't come back yet) who spent the night. The rest of the crew came out Saturday morning. Of course they were all dressed nice with makeup on and we were all grungy, no makeup, in our pjs sitting at the kitchen table trying to recover from having stayed up way too late! (I think some of us forgot that we were much older than we were in the old days of sleep overs!)

Highlight of the night was playing "Imaginiff." There was a lot of laughter...some more laughter, tears from laughter....and for those that have had kids some might have peed a little in their pants.

Amanda (and her precious baby boy in utero!) and Carmen

Carmen and Heather

We all enjoyed Carmen's reading of the cards which usually included listening to her sing the questions

Yep...Heather laughing again....and for those there notice how she's sitting on one butt cheek!

Carmen got a little high on too much sugar by the end of the night

And Stacey's first night away from her first born...she was a brave woman

I can't wait to do this again girls!!!!

10 things you might not know about Aspergers

1. The conversation around the dinner table revolves around movie quotes and when asked to talk about something other than movie quotes there is a long silent pause and your son responds, "What DO we talk about then?"

2. When I say "Dallas you are smart as a tack" he responds "I'm not a tack!"

3. You cannot serve anything cold or red or smooth.

4. Your child would rather wear their too small, holes on the sides, shoes than change and get a new pair. Doesn't matter how great the new ones are....they aren't the same as the old ones.

5. When playing a game be prepared for the worst when your Aspergers child loses...including but not limited to: throwing, yelling, storming away, and slamming doors.

6. I now know everything there is to know about Spiderman, Star Wars, Roller coasters and Tornado's.

7. It's like pulling teeth to stop the bad habits: picking noses, smelling hands, flapping arms, etc

8. My children have higher IQs than me and I was in the gifted program

9. Everyone at the grocery store, YMCA, church or any other place we go to knows my kids names....even if I never told them.

10. The love expressed by them is so deep and wide that no one can even come close. It's an unconditional love that most people cannot understand. I've been up and down mountains but the joy of this gift from God is worth more than words.