I can’t believe that summer is almost over. I admit its been a bit of a blur with the busy hub bub and everything we have been up to around here. I also admit I have managed to epic fail with taking photos of my sweet children.. again. Last year when I set out on my journey and got VERY busy I was super grateful to have so many amazing and willing clients but I also finished off the year wondering where time had slipped away to. Now the kids are due back in school in a couple of weeks, there is a month missing in photographs..again and I am feeling the worst kind of mommy guilt. I am kind of missing our lazy summers, our fun impromptu car trips and eating out at various burger joints till I couldn’t stomach the thought of another burger.. oddly though craving one right now. Figures.

Fall is coming quickly. I am preparing for school shopping, permission slips, parent teacher conferences, doctor appointments for the kids (and me! I have been nursing a tooth ache and need to stop procrastinating) and other things such as work (hello gorgeous fall sessions) and my wedding anniversary. Add to that my mother is getting married at the end of the year, we are saving to buy our very own home the beginning of next year and trying to manage taxes, proofing galleries and housework and its enough to make your head spin..or fall off.

I don’t know what my point is. Guess I needed to ramble. I am in the midst of a new release, 5 photo galleries behind, 5 sessions coming up and absolutely no motivation so GOD help me lol!

For now I am thinking its a great note to get in bed to though!

Hopefully next post will definitely yield some much over due photos!

Ciao!

I haven’t posted here in so long! I thought I could just use my photography blog as a personal blog but really I am realizing there are things you really do not need to share on your business blog. Some things are lighthearted and really I just don’t post to avoid over sharing or boring the lights outta my poor unsuspecting clientele. Others are a bit more brooding or down and I don’t want to share only so that people don’t have to be exposed to my sad ramblings.  I am kind of a dynamic person and I don’t mean that in a chauvinistic or conceited manner.  Really its not all cupcakes and rainbows though and sometimes it just feels good to get it out. On one hand there are times I am hesitant because this is the internet and EVERYONE has access and you really want to delegate what the world sees or how much people know about the ins and outs of your personal life. Privacy is HUGE. On another note its okay to be human and not always cheerful and peppy because WHO in their right mind is happy 1000 percent of the time?!

I struggle sometimes. I struggle like others with businesses and family, especially big families. I do not just mean my own four children and sweet husband but my WHOLE family. My mom and sister and brother and my sister in law and my nieces and nephews and in laws in general. Everyone wants to see us (understandably) but there just isn’t always time. And because I am my own boss people expect everything to come easily. To be able to make my own hours and tell people I can’t do this or I should be able to be here on x given date. People don’t understand that while I LOVE what I do and am blessed to do what I love to do this.is.a.JOB. YES. Its a job. Its another means to pay our bills, its giving our children a better life. I book my sessions months in advance in some cases. I can not renig on my obligations to go to a family party or show up for a barbecue or make an acquaintance. It does not work that way. Just as someone can not merely call out of work I can not just cancel with a client. Its unprofessional. Its also presumptuous in my opinion to expect someone to totally gravitate and work their business around last minute plans of any kind but especially a random gathering. We aren’t going anywhere. And while life is short my husband and my kids come first (after God of course) so if I do get a spare moment during my busy season chances are I am going to want to be with them. I am going to want to covet that time because it is precious. Its not that I don’t love or cherish my extended family. Only that I love and cherish my immediate family more.

Being a natural light photographer things can be a hectic, a bit unplanned. I have to be able to reschedule on a whim if it rains. I have to be able to think of the big picture. I also get a lot of out of state clients and I really need to be able to make sure if they are coming this far out of their way to see me for photos I can more then accommodate them. Its a lot of pressure. Its a great amazing thing and like I said I am blessed. But it is also a business and I have to do what I can to make sure that it is managed well. Taxes, equipment, location fees, website hosting, babysitter costs and even just the cost of gas also all add up. It isn’t for the faint of heart. But if I am sacrificing my time and hard earned money to keep my business a float I am not about to jeopardize it for a family party. Its nothing personal. Its how I help feed my children in this insane economy.

Anyhow I just needed to “unload” I guess. This blog really does have a purpose and I plan to keep it updated now and again even if its not on a total regular basis. I am a total subscriber to good karma and positivity but I am also human. Everyone needs to rant sometimes.

And now because I have a million things to do I better get off here and go do something productive LOL!

Yep that would be me LOL! You know strangely this post I admit will be a bit therapeutic! I call it my Gemini tendencies. Life gets insane fast around here. With four small children the days tend to blend into one another. Which you know isn’t a bad thing. Busy is a VERY good thing! I do wish we had more time in the day though. Especially with day lights savings time. I love the extra daylight. Don’t love the lack of sleep! Me and sleep deprivation are NOT friends! Wesley working till 4:30 at night doesn’t help either. Well I guess night seems a bit melodramatic but once he gets home and we get out its already usually 6 pm and that is certainly night time! AND add to that a full fledged photog business and the fun photographer’s shop I have on the side and I am amazed I find time to shower. But its a blessing. A whirlwind. A crazy crazy crazy whirlwind and I love it! I just wish we could get organized.

So lots has been going on in the C household. For one we have decided renting is no longer the way to go. We are trying to buy our very first home. It is a roller coaster ride for sure. We haven’t even began financing or attempting to finance. For now we are slowly paying off each and every debt. I want to go into this mortgage with a great credit score as debt free as humanly possible. I am kind of sad our kids will have to move schools because the homes we seem to have our heart set on are in a different town (way better prices and WAY lower taxes not to mention closer to family) but I can not begin to say whatta relief it will be for us. I feel like we are finally in an adult place in our lives where this is the right and responsible thing to do. I feel like God is really pushing us in that direction! If you are reading this and you pray PLEASE say a prayer. I am just ready to give our kids SO much more! More space, plant roots and get ready for the next big thing in life! We are still fairly sure Sophie is the “baby” of the family. I am actually really at peace more and more with the idea of not having any more children. Four is a lovely number and I think it will work perfectly for us!! We are outnumbered as it is around here lol! Plus Noah and Sophie still pretty much cosleep (more Sophie then Noah) and I have NO more room in my bed lol!

Anyhow Im rambling. I am gonna go for now but I will be back! I am taking the pressure off and letting go of the guilt! I think I will be able to share LOTS more that way!

I hope everyone is doing wonderful!! I would post a photo cause it feels weird blogging without it but my photos are on my desktop and Im on the laptop!!

Sarah

Wow over a month in on this project! This weeks theme was food and I knew exactly what I wanted to do! I have been fairly good with my diet eating salad and drinking lots of water but these little suckers here seem to be my weak spot and I could eat an entire bag to myself. For some reason they don’t seem like cheating because they are so small but when you can’t eat just one I suppose thats where your problem stems from lol!

They also happen to be EVERYWHERE because Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! I am so excited for my kid’s to bring their Valentines into class because I did them custom this year and I am so happy with how they came out!

I bought the template from Oh Snap Boutique and then tweaked the fonts etc to my liking mostly on Lily’s! My husbands a bit iffy about Wesley’s card saying be my sweet Valentine for the boys in his class but that has to be a man thing cause I thought nothing of it till Wes brought it up lol! I know you hate me cause I never divulge where I print and I prob wont tell you if you ask LOL! But a girls got to wear her business hat sometimes right?! I did print them through my pro lab though!

Anywho I have lots more to share but I promised my kids a trip to Toys R Us today (long story) so I need to get in the shower!!!

Ciao’

Sarah

Yikes. Where to begin. Well in the past weeks we have done a bunch of renovations in our humble little home of ours including painting and recarpeting, faced countless snow days including lots and lots of time off of school, stomach bugs and yes bugs as in plural, took a trip to New York where I photographed a bridal shower for a client turned friend, dealt with hour changes at my husbands job and the beat goes on. We have a few doctor’s appointments coming up for my daughter’s JRA including blood work so we can get a refill on one of her medications and I have a regular check up of my own. That is life in a nutshell though and with four children we are always busy. And honestly I don’t mind the chaos. I don’t mind the chaos because there are so many blessings and things to be thankful for among the craziness.  I am just hoping we can find a way to get back on track. We are a bit disorganized right now and I am going to admit I don’t know up from down. We will get there though! I just have to remind myself to put one foot in front of the other.

Miraculously amidst all the exhaustion and chaos I have remembered for the most part to take a photo or even in some cases photos every day!  I feel so blessed to be able to record these moments and little things so I can look back one day when my children no longer need me for every little thing. As exhausting as it is I admit I am SO glad they do need us. I am going to miss the day SO much when that isn’t the case any longer. I feel so incredibly lucky that these sweet amazing children are mine. Even if just temporarily all mine, they are mine. Well I suppose they are actually God’s but he has chosen ME. ME of all people to take care of these miracles, these four beautiful blessings and that I am going to do to the best of my ability. You know as a mother you always carry guilt. You lay awake at night and dwell on things. Things that are trivial. Things that sometimes are totally out of our hand. If you are anything like me you may even talk yourself out of the fact that you are indeed a great parent. Its incredible. I lose sleep over the stupidest things. But the truth of the matter is the fact my child went an entire 24 hours without a serving of vegetables has no bearing on the fact that you are the mother that wakes up every morning and sings the same song 2934839 times a day because thats her favorite, or spends two hours combing your daughter’s hair because you don’t want it to hurt when you snag a snarl, or that you spend 40 minutes looking for the other half of your son’s favorite shoes despite the fact they own five other pairs because that is your son’s favorite pair of shoes. You remember things like the fact you forgot to do your son’s homework with him or spent an hour to long on the computer but forget things like you spent half the day baking cupcakes with your children and then half the day cleaning the mess because it was worth it and they enjoyed themselves, you forget the fact that you sing at the top of your lungs with your children because its their favorite song despite the fact there is a car full of teenagers staring you down like you have a third eye and a eleventh toe. I guess I am rambling. I am just reminding you as well as I that there comes at time when the small things DO matter but its quality over quantity. Its okay to worry, to feel guilty because as mothers its our job to feel. Its human nature to feel. I guess when I was making my resolutions for the year I should have put that one at the top of my list though. I should have remembered that my children don’t expect a perfect mother, they expect a present mother. From this moment on thats what I intend to be. Amazingly enough though when I go back over the photos I have managed to take I see a VERY present mother. A mother that loves he children more then life or words or things or herself. I see something special and I am going to go ahead and give myself a break. I hope that you enjoy them! I know I am going to print them all huge and surround myself with them as a reminder of how blessed I really am.

Photo overload, didn’t I tell ya?! lol! Honestly though I really wanted to share a bit of my world! I think I am going to just post photos in spurts mostly to take some of the pressure off because I do really want to continue on this project!! I also still owe a bunch of New York photos! I didn’t forget!!

I hope you have a wonderful night!

Sarah

Today is Friday, which means another project photo! Its been a blast thus far! I usually like to take my photos on Friday or the night before because its kind of a kick in the butt and I admit I am a procrastinator. With four small children there is never a shortage of things to do! I have also been editing lots and lots of photos from a Bridal Shower I photographed in New York a couple of weeks ago and have been up to my eye balls in that. Miss Lisa the bride emailed me last night and asked if I had one on hand of her and her mom that she could share with her mother because her mother had a rough day with her chemo and everything else going on so it was the push I needed to finish today. I am just about done yay! That will be a whole different blog post on my photog blog though soon! I need to get off this computer and get some housework done.

Anyone with small kids know it only takes a minute. You sit down for a minute to catch up, check your emails etc and you realize that your chldren are being extremely quiet. Tooooo quiet.. Well that was today. Except I was sure Sophie was being good cause she was sitting two feet behind me. I smelt peanut butter… Noah had snuck up a king sized jar of it and Sophia had managed to pry it open and smear it all over my carpet and her toddler bed. Needless to say that has set the tone for today and I need to get up and get to work!

The theme for this weeks project photo is Faces. My face is of Miss Sophie from this morning! I actually was trying to get little Wes to let me take a photo because I want him in my project more but he wasn’t having it! Noah was knocked out and Lily was in her own lily world lol! So heres miss Sophie!

Now please head on over to Meghan Boyer’s amazing blog!! http://meghanboyerphotography.com/blog
And some sad news about the project. I am going to continue to post a photo every week and continue with the themes as well but I won’t be able to participate in the blog circle any longer. I am finding that its becoming another thing to try to maintain and the mornings are so hectic here already with small kiddos in the house! I def can’t wait to watch everyone else’s though and enjoy their photos!!!

Off to clean!!!!

I am back with my photo for the week. It has been buzzing here still but I am happy to report the kids rooms are almost done finally and we are getting ready to start up on my bedroom! We have the new carpet being installed this Monday and the furniture comes on Wednesday so I am super excited!

This weeks project photo is of Miss Lily out in the snow. The theme is Black and White and I had planned on trying to do something creative but took this out in the snow and pretty much fell in love.

We have been HAMMERED with snow this year. Its insane. We had either delays or no school just about all week. I can not even believe its Friday. Anyhow gonna have to post and run because I am still disgustingly behind on work so here goes!

Anyhow I am going to hopefully get these kids down for a nap so I can start proofing photos but I will be back as promised VERY soon with lots more photos to share of my little trip in New York and more details on that as well as some personal photos from the past couple of weeks to catch me up on my p365!

You should so totally check out the next rockin photog in our Blog circes as well. Miss Renee’  http://www.reneepopat.com

Hugs!

Oy I have been busy. Busy Busy Busy.I actually just got home from shooting a Bridal shower from a client I have the privledge of have gotten to photograph over the summer. People like here are NOT a dime a dozen. She is something special for sure! I have SO many images to weed through. We had a blast though. We stayed in Jersey and commuted into the City for the actual shower. My husband had actually never been to New York before and took downtown Manhatten in our Dodge Durango like a CHAMP! I was proud! It was fun! We seriously never get away and we had a babysitter so we got to do it all as a duo. I think that reconnection is SO important in a marriage and we are def honeymoonin a bit more since we have been back!

We are also all recovering AGAIN from another nasty stomach flu. It was bad.. Lily seems to be on the tail end of it now and everyone else (knock on wood) is doing pretty okay. That is honestly one of the reasons for my delay. This photo was actually supposed to be posted on Friday. Told ya I am a loser!

The theme this week is Pinka and Reds. I happen to have a LOT of pink around because we are renovating and my daughter is as girly as it goes. Well my oldest daughter I should say! I snapped a couple of photos of some of the things we have for her pretty room make over!

I have loads more photos tos hare but will have to play catch up when its not almost dinner time!

And Please don’t forget to check out Renee’! Her photos for this week are divine!  http://www.reneepopat.com/

Night Everyone!

I can easily sum up our weekend in two words. Lazy and Exciting. You are probably thinking that makes absolutely no sense lol!! It kind of doesn’t however! We didnt do very much but lounge and that was fabulous. Both my project photos actually almost look like they were taken the same day lol! They seriously look like they could have been! We did head out for a birthday party at chuck e. cheese on Saturday for my good friends princess but poor little Wes wasn’t feeling to hot and we didn’t stay long. Juggling four kids meant I didn’t even have the chance to really get my camera out! My photo of the day came prior to the party when the little ones were just hanging in bed watching Netflix. Netflix is super popular in our house! I am totally addicted. I am currently totally engrossed in The First 48. I am a sucker for TV shows! I especially love it when they have many many seasons available too!! I watch them all beginning to end!

Anyhow the exciting part next! I finally upgraded to the Canon 5d Mark II! It should be hear next week! I also purchased a new lap top so i am not chained to my computer when I want to do anything other then edit photos. We are heading up to New York as I am shooting a bridal shower for one of my sweet clients so I am going to get to play with my new camera officially then yay! I also got a Gazelle which is basically another piece of exercise equipment doomed to an unused dusty corner of the house lol! And some other small things I probably didn’t need. It is gonna be a great mail week this week though!

Anyhow I won’t talk your ear off to much! I have to feed these kids but I LOVE all your comments. Thank you so much for indulging me! It really might be the push I need to keep this project going!!

Lily is infatuated with Cake Boss and is making play doh and nail polish figurines to top her pretend cakes lol! If I can summon up the energy I may need to take photos lol!

Blah okay time to get motivated! I shall be back tomorrow! Adios!

Had to come back and add this really quick cause I can’t believe how little Lily was! Man!

Phew so.. Where to begin! In the few short days I have neglected to blog we have had two feet of snow, a day off of school, home renovation plans, a massive amount of housework accomplished, plans made to head to New York next weekend for a bridal shower I am shooting, fussy kids, and a bunch of stuff that isn’t coming off the top of my head right now. Its been pretty insane. I haven’t been on the computer much at all which is refreshing but playing catch up has seriously been a bit overwhelming! Life is good though!!

Anyhow I am going to try not to ramble on to much as there are a ton of photos to share so I hope that I don’t lose ya LOL! It will be good to get these up here though!

Day Eleven:

Oh what a day. We were waiting on quite a storm here in Connecticut. It was all over the store. We like everyone else were totally last minute in our preparations and waited in disgustingly long lines with our snack food and sleds lol! It was exciting though! I also anticipated the kids and even my husband having the next day off of work! Its such a treat to have them home. I also decided to start weaning Miss Sophie. We are both just kind of getting to that point. It is extremely bittersweet. I am SO sad. She is a bit too I think. Shes just such a big girl. I would honestly nurse her longer if it were up to me but it feels like honestly I am the reason I am still not nursing and I promise myself when we got to that point it would be time to give it up. She gets a bit confused at nap time and so I am afraid to sit down during the day because I don’t want to upset her. I do still nurse her at bedtime though. It is our last feeding left! I also got all my gear in the mail for my OCF (off camera flash) that I plan on tackling and am so excited about! My first attempt was lame (Yeah so not even sharing photos lmao) but I can’t wait till I get the hang of it all!

My photo of the day is me looking out for snow. it was about eleven and it had officially started! I couldnt believe how heavy it was right off the back!

Day Twelve is us all reveling in all the snow and not having to hustle and bustle. It also made me realize we do not get enough family time in! Often times we are all so engrossed in work school and everything else we don’t genuinely just hang and enjoy one another! There will be LOTS more of that around here I promise!

Day Thirteen Photo:

Yesterday we headed to Lowes to check out paint and carpet samples! We scheduled a carpet install yay! We decided to just do downstairs and we rented a Rug Doctor which has seriously done wonders for our hall way carpet so I have faith that the rugs in the kids and our bedroom is salvageable! We are getting the paint when we return the carpet cleaner! I am So excited! Lowes with four kids was an adventure. They all fought over who got to sit in the carriage (it was the kind with the steering wheels attached so they could “drive”) and then the computer wasn’t working properly and they took a while to get us in there. I still feel totally accomplished though! On the way there the sun was setting behind the trees right in front of us and it was seriously SO pretty! I had to take a photo!

We got home Fairly late and ended up ordering dinner. While we were waiting I broke out the art supplies to entertain the kid’s and keep their minds off their grumbling tummies and I got some cute photos including my project photo!

Day Fourteen (Today):
Still wight me?? Bless your heart lol!
Today is fairly unintresting. I have been catching up on work since I haven’t really been online! My photo is basically going to totally show ya that we are all in a lazy state of mind around here loL!

Pssstt used one of my new soon to be released textures on this squeeee!

Phew didn’t I warn ya?! LOL Okay better get off this computer for a little while!
Hugs!