Still here!

So we're still here. At the moment I'm getting over a rather nasty cold/bronchitis/pneumonia/losing my voice thing that has lasted longer than I would have liked. This is my second time getting really sick in the past two months. I'm thankful that it's happening during my down time and that I have the time to actually rest and take care of myself, but it still sucks nonetheless! So I haven't been spending too much time on the computer and will be finishing up a wedding tomorrow since I've been stuck on the couch sleeping these yucky germs away for the last week or so. I'm feeling better tonight even though I'm still having difficulty breathing, but I'm thankful that Dan and Lillian are okay as of right now (knock on wood.)

In other news, Dan was busy this past weekend knocking down the wall in the kitchen. I'm sure it would be a heck of a lot easier hiring someone to do it all for us, but I don't think it would have been as rewarding and since Dan likes working with tools, I think that it's been a lot of fun making this house our own. The cabinets were ordered about a week or so ago so they should be coming in soon and we're getting a quote for solid granite so we'll see about that. We're going to hire someone to do the drywall for us since that's the thing we stink at and they can get it done a lot sooner than we can! Then Dan will be sanding the floors while I'm in Syracuse once my sister goes into labor with her second little one. I was also able to convince him that we should just get the downstairs bathroom done so that the whole downstairs can be completely done and then he can just focus on the garage this summer. We've decided to not get a shower stall for the downstairs bathroom and just add a sink (which it currently doesn't have btw- yuck I know!) and make a nice little laundry/coat/storage area instead. He'll be moving the doorway and we really don't have too much to do in there besides drywall, new floor, move the plumbing and new sink and toilet.before

I'm just really ready to have the whole downstairs completely done and I know that hiring someone to do the drywall is the way to get it done quicker. The other stuff we don't mind doing ourselves. So here's a pic of what Dan was able to do while we were gone. The cabinets will be going under the windows (where the butcher block is currently located) and on the other side of the stove and next to the microwave. We're waiting to see if we need the pantry or not once we have those cabinets installed. The heating duct is being re-routed through the bathroom wall (which is why I suggested to Dan that we just get the bathroom remodel over with since he has to tear into the wall anyways.) We'll be putting a wood inlay in the floor where the gap from the wall is and the two floors will of course be stained the same color. The new windows will be installed in the spring and we'll most likely be looking into a new door as well.after

I'm just really excited that I finally have my table back. The dining room was far too small before so we haven't eaten at the dinner table for about two years so it's nice to finally have it back. Thankfully Lillian has made the transition easily since she was a baby the last time she ate at the table. I can already tell that I'm going to be spending a lot more time in the kitchen and I look forward to when it's all done!!

I'll be back.......

So my year has finally come to an end! I had my last session this past Sunday and had a shoot on both Saturday and Sunday. I never thought that I would have been working this late in the year, especially in this area but I'm forever grateful that I was able too and got some amazing photos to boot! I feel like I've come such a long way and yet I still have a long way to go. Next year is all about growing not only my business, but my family as well. Then after that my goal for 2011 is to open a studio space so that I have someplace that my clients can come too to meet me and to separate my business life from my personal life as much as possible.......and it of course needs to be space in Arlington so hopefully something will be on the market during that time with great light coming in through nice large windows (a girl can dream right?!)

Lilly is doing well. We finally scheduled her second evaluation with the speech therapist and this one will be a little more intense for her and she'll be observed in pre-school as well. She's really doing a lot better than she was when she first started school, but still no where near where she needs to be for her age so we'll just continue to work on that. She's on the waiting list for the pre-K program at her school for next year so I'm hoping that she'll get in not only because she'll be able to go to school with her peers but also because the school is like less than 2 miles away and the 20 minute drive to Cambridge is starting to wear me down.....though I know she'll miss Ms Jane and Ms Carol, but you never know.....she could end up going there again!

Dan is doing well. He's been taking a break from remodeling until he gets his Christmas present and then we'll get to work on the kitchen. I do the taping and mudding and painting and he does everything else! We have to figure out what we're going to do with the heating vent in the wall that we'll be tearing down but at this point I'd rather just tear the wall down and deal with the heat that goes up through the hole for now......I just want to have the major part of the remodel done so we can put the cabinets in and refinish the floors.....oh and a ceiling would be nice too! He did such a great job on the outside though so this break is well deserved!

Anyways, me and Lilly decorated her gingerbread house yesterday. I realized while it was drying that I should have glued it to a plate rather than that ghetto white plastic thing but oh well. She tries to steal the candy off of it but I told her she has to wait until Daddy gets home from his business trip tonight so he can see it and then she can have some. Here's some pics (we did it in the living room since the table is covered in Christmas stuff at the moment!).....

Fall

I love the fall. I love mums. I love the smells outside and hearing the leaves fall off of the trees (though I hate the mess they leave on the ground!) I love going to the pumpkin patch and watching Lilly run around and watching her enjoy her surroundings.....


I love watching her find just the right pumpkin....


I love taking walks with the beautiful fall colors around us...


I love hearing her laugh....


I love fall! In other news we have lots going on here at the Bombria house! Lillian has been doing well in school. Me and Dan are doing well with work. And of course the house is doing well! Currently the valleys in the slate roof are being replaced in the front part of the house. There's a lot of labor involved since he has to remove like 3 or 4 rows of slate to be able to replace the metal and each slate tile has it's own pin holding it in, but thankfully Stanley is really good at what he does and we decided to have him do both valleys even though we were only planning on doing one because he's so quick. He'll also be replacing all of the broken slates and putting some protective stuff on the back valleys until we replace them in a year or two since they don't need to be replaced immediately. At least now I can repaint the spare bedroom and cover up the water damage! Dan has also been very busy and is getting close to done with the outside for the year. As you'll see in the below picture, he replaced all of the decorative moulding on the front of the house since it was rotted out and cleaned up the slate roof (you can still see the spot where he was standing that still needs to be cleaned up but it looks SOOOO much better now!) We also have a brand new storm door that he installed. Right now he's putting in two layers of insulation in the attic so we'll stay nice and toasty this winter and we'll be replacing the front windows in the coming weeks as well. The only thing left to do on the front of the house is the lattice work which he has contructed but just needs to install. Thankfully he agreed that repainting the garage needs to be put off till next year......time to focus on the kitchen!! Anyways, here's a pic of the house......can't wait to do the landscaping next year to complete the look!!!

Just a pic

I'm trying....

really I am! I know that our family blog has really been neglected since business has picked up earlier this year. I'm doing an even worse job with my photography blog which REALLY should be updated more often so people don't think that I'm just sitting around twiddling my thumbs all day long! Anyways, here's another pic of Lillian from the other day.....

Another quick update!

Well today was Lillian's first official day of pre-school and I think that it went rather well. I started to cry while we were walking from the car to the entrance but I pulled myself together before any one caught me.....not that it would matter or anything! There was a sign on the door telling us to just show them where the hook is for their coat and backpack and to make it a quick good-bye. I wanted to stay so bad you don't even know, but I knew that she'd have a good time and I knew that we both needed it so I did just as the sign said and left! Anyways, I said I'd make this quick since I'm getting ready for a session, so here are a couple of pics (which are unedited)....

totally bad pic from right before we left....

and her totally cheestastic smile......I swear this cracks me up......this is why you should never ask a photographer's kid to smile......she'll say cheese (which she's totally hearing from other people) and give you this....


and out in the backyard last night...

Been busy....

just a quick post.....will be back later Sunday/early Monday with updates on Lilly and some pics, but in the meantime this is what I've been busy with lately.....senior sessions!!

It's Official!!!

We have a completely potty trained 3 year old and the timing couldn't be more perfect! She sleeps through the night with her underwear, wears them throughout the day (as compared to running around with nothing on the bottom) and pulls them down when she goes on the potty and pulls them back up. She wears underwear in public as well and even wore them all day yesterday at the fair without having any accidents. She doesn't like being told when to go the bathroom and when I ask her if she has to go, even if she hasn't gone for a long time, I've started to realize that when she tell me she doesn't have to go, she really doesn't have to go! So I no longer ask her (and right now as I'm typing this she just ran to the potty on her own and is going) She'll have accidents I know, but that's life! Yay.......NO MORE PULLUPS!!!!!!!!! Anyways, that's my major news and I'm so happy that I don't have to worry about her for preschool anymore! Here's a photo that I took of her this morning when we went outside.....she was going around smelling all of the flowers along the river.....


Dan is back to painting the front of the house and he should have it all painted sometime this week and then he just needs to replace the woodwork he ripped out and we'll be all done painting (not that I did any of it or anything-he wouldn't let me!!!) The kitchen is at a standstill until the plumbing is done and then once it is we need to get a second opinion on the wall we're going to rip out (it's coming out no matter what.....just a matter of whether we need to put up a microlamb or not for support!) and then we can get that out of the way, measure for the other cabinets and start ordering them.......I just want to have a normal kitchen so that I can one day host a pampered chef party, see the river from the couch and have someplace to eat (we haven't eaten in the dining room in a long time since I tend to be claustrophobic)

Time is starting to slip past me and my little girl is becoming a big girl.

We're still here.....

we're just busy! I've been in the middle of a busy wedding season and now senior portrait sessions are starting to kick in so busy is certainly an understatement. It's a lot of work for sure owning your own business, but the pluses certainly outweigh the negatives! I just need to do a better job with capturing Lillian. She's in Syracuse right now (which is probably why I have a moment to post!) with Grandpa and Grandpa (she can't say grandma!) Dan has the next three days off and we're busy working on the house while she's gone so we don't have to worry about the mess. I was planning on doing more and had a large list, but with me being so busy, my list has grown a lot smaller and I think that some of the things will just end up being cold weather projects when business starts to slow down. I've been thinking about the possibility of renting some studio space within the next two years. I'd love to be able to add a second floor and bathroom above the garage, but I have a feeling we're not zoned for it, but since I'm in no rush I'll wait to find out! Anyways, it's just a thought since it's kinda hard to shoot outdoors (which I love the most) with 2 feet of snow on the ground.....it's a ways down the road at this point, but I think it's good to have goals and I've already surpassed my goals with where I thought I'd be with this business so I'm content at this point. It's just still so strange for me that I own my own business......nothing I ever thought I'd end up doing but I love it!

I've decided to limit the amount of weddings I shoot each year, not only for my sanity, but also from a creativity standpoint. Wedding season is starting to slow down for me for the year and I already have 6 weddings booked for next year which still surprises me (I guess I'm somewhat good at what I do!)

So onto the house and some updates on that! Dan is sanding the front today. He had to rip out a bunch of woodwork since it rotted out. Tonight he'll be ripping out the kitchen sink cabinet and replacing it with our beautiful new cherry cabinets.......they're a really dark stain, almost black and I just love them! We'll also have our new dishwasher installed which will be like heaven since I haven't had one in over a year. Then there's the black granite tile and the granite sink that he'll be doing as well. We decided to invest in the cabinets this year then in a few years we'll do solid surface counters......not sure on the granite or soapstone but we'll see. I'm just so excited for the ball to get rolling on this again and get the darn room done....though we still have a wall to rip out, new plumbing for the upstairs bathroom to replace and sand the wood floors but I'd like to hope maybe we'll be done by the end of the year!

Lillian is doing well! She'll be starting pre-school in a few weeks......so hard for me to believe still! I bought her some new dresses and still need to get her a few more and some new shoes and a backpack but other than that she'll be all set. She'll be going to Cambridge this year and then next year she'll be going to the program at the school so that she'll be with her classmates. She's been doing really well with potty training and is probably 90% there and even sleeps through the night in her underwear. She's been sleeping in the spare room since Dan has to go in and out of her room with the sanding and stuff but once that's done we'll be buying her a full size mattress and she'll officially be a big girl. I'm just really looking forward to her having new buddies and hopefully watching her speech blossom. She's such an amazing little girl and I love her to pieces!

Anyways, that post was way too long and I need to get back to work. Here's a pic of Dan sanding the house....
the only thing left to be replaced on the front of the house is the front door/screen door and the windows and then the house itself will officially be done besides a few repairs to the slate roof!!

Sick

That's what we've been in our household for a little over a week. Dan started feeling sick when he went on his fly-fishing trip and then I started feeling sick when he returned. I wasn't as bad as he was. We figured it was just some sort of bug. Come Tuesday of last week and a notice on our back door from the water board- we had E. Coli in our water from the excessive rain. We're still sick- Dan is very fatigued and I'm just plain sick all over again. Lilly thankfully hasn't shown any signs which I'm thankful for. I thought I was better, but everything started all over again tonight and I'm back at square one. I did some more research when we got home and a lot of what we're reading says to stay away from antibiotics and to just rest and drink......a lot! We picked up some Gatorade so hopefully we'll start feeling better soon. Anyways, I know I've been doing a bad job at keeping up with updates and what not, but I'll be sure to be back later in the week with some new pics and updates on Lilly. In the meantime I'm just going to edit and rest! Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend.......oh.....and I finally hit the big 3-0.......scary I tell ya!!!

Three Years ago....

Three years ago today, my Lillian Grace was brought into the world. I had spent the two days prior in a hospital bed as they gave me steroid shots in hopes of strengthening Lillian's lungs for her early entry. I've never really thought about it until now, but my OB/GYN basically saved Lillian's life and for that I'll forever be grateful. If she hadn't sent me go to the hospital, the sono tech said we probably would have lost her since my next appointment wasn't scheduled for another two weeks. Scary to think about now for sure.

I didn't sleep much during those two days as you can imagine. The morning she was born though, I was finally able to catch some zzzzz's. I awoke to Betsy grabbing a nurse because Lillian's heartbeat was dropping.......and of course with Betsy being a nurse she wasn't taking no for an answer. The nurses were in the middle of a shift change and they had initially wanted to wait until the next shift came on. Lillian wasn't in the mood though. So off we went.

I had a hard time breathing while I was on the table. Maybe it was my nerves kicking in, I don't know, but I felt sick to my stomach throughout the procedure. They informed me once they were inside that they were going to have to make two incisions, therefore forcing me to have a c-section with the next kid. And then she came.

My sweet Lillian came into this world weighing 3 lbs 1 oz. I was so scared when they showed her to me. I know that there would be babies in the NICU far smaller than she was, but when you're expecting an 8 pound baby, a 3 pound one can come as quite a shocker, especially when you've never seen a baby that small. I saw her briefly and then she was whisked away to be taken care of. After they were done with me, they sent me back to my room. It was then that they told me the worst news ever......I wouldn't be able to see her for 24 hours because of my blood pressure. It was still really high and I was at risk of having a seizure so I had to stay put. I started doubting myself, doubting how I'd be as a parent if I couldn't even carry her full term. For 24 hours, this was all that I had to look at.......



And now here we are three years later. She's happy, she's healthy and she's what I am most proud of in my life. She has the most wonderful laugh......her dimples can bring a smile to anyone that sees them......she makes the best funny faces........she's mine. Someday soon she'll have a sibling to go through life with, but in the meantime, I'm going to treasure these moments with my three year old.......my sweet Lillian Grace.

Great Sale at Pink Ink

I'm soooooo excited to be traveling to St. Louis next week you don't even know!!! I need a break, a mommy break to be exact. I love my job, don't get me wrong. That being said, I've been in mommy mode for 3 years and everyone needs a break from reality every now and then! This will be my first "me time" since Lilly was born. I'm a little nervous about the whole plane ride thing considering I've only flown once and that was from Syracuse to NYC so that almost doesn't even count! I've requested an aisle seat cause I got a little sick to my stomach when I looked out the window the last time. I think I'm just nervous about the unknown......like layovers!!

Anyways, the whole reason for this post is that myself, Amy and Holly are having a great sale to celebrate at Pink Ink. Maybe I'll even spend the extra couple of bucks on a cocktail or two.....something I haven't had in a LOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGGGG time! So if you're a photographer and you need some new stuff, now is a great time to stock up! Everything in my store is 50% off and you can buy my whole store for the final price of $50 (will show up as $100 initially until the 50% discount is taken at the checkout!)

You can pick up the Buy My Store options here in the Special Offers section at Pink Ink!

Big Weekend

I'm so busy getting ready for this weekend but wanted to post a couple of pics of Lilly playing in the backyard....

On Saturday I'm shooting a wedding and on Sunday we're having Lillian's birthday party. I usually like to hold things on Saturday cause I consider Sunday a day to spend with your family, but since I'm working and Sunday is her actual birthday, it was the way to go this year! The kids will be making some crafts and I'm hopeful that it won't rain out, otherwise the kids will be in the garage and everyone will be stuffed in my construction zone of a house! Today we're headed to the wedding location so I can check things out and to the grocery store for the rest of the stuff for the party and then back home to clean and do some laundry......which makes me remember that I really need to have Dan put up a laundry line outside......it's been so beautiful outside and I haven't had line dried clothes since I was a kid!!

The house

So it's been awhile since I gave an updated photo of what we've been doing with the house! Dan started working on the outside a few weeks ago and he just finished most of the painting besides a few touch ups for the bottom portion of the front of the house. He still needs to refinish the floor and install the new light fixture and we plan on getting a new storm door cause I think the style that's on there now hides too much of the newly painted maroon door!


As you can see, we're getting closer to a fully painted house! This year we're focusing on finishing all of the painting, fixing the leak in the slate roof as well as cleaning it (it's a slow leak so it's nothing major at this point but still needs to get fixed), repairing the woodwork on the outside of the house that needs to be replaced and painting the garage. He needs to tear out the lattice and replace it but that's nothing too major. We'd also like to re-grade the driveway and put down some crushed stone since it was a complete mess this spring. Dan was a landscaper in college so he knows how to put all of the stuff in so we're going to wait until next year to do that so that we can invest some money into it since we'd like to get some more trees and have some permanent plantings in the front of the house.

So while Dan figures out how he's going to paint the top of the house, we're moving onto the kitchen. We received our new sink base which is lovely and we've changed our plans a little. We were planning on waiting a few years to start the major demo, but I'm at the point now where I don't want to go through this all over again! So, the plan is to tear down the wall, refinish the floor and buy the cabinets piece by piece and then install them. We're still up in the air about the countertops, but we can always do granite tile for now and then upgrade them down the line since the cabinets are going to be a decent chunk of change. We're going to leave the bathroom updates for next year, but in the meantime we'll be installing a fan and new light fixture in the upstairs one which will be great since there is basically no proper lighting in there right now!

It's going to be a busy summer for sure, but I' m ready for it to be over with and I'm glad that Dan feels the same way.