Has anyone ever heard of a spaghetti squash?  I had not, maybe I’m the only one, but according to Baby Center, that apparently is about the size of my baby right now.

It looks about right to me.  All of a sudden this past week, I felt like I looked pregnant for the first time.  It was when I was getting ready for Brecka’s wedding last Saturday that I first got that by looking in the mirror.  By Thursday I was getting ready for a party and I put on the same pants I wore to Brecka’s wedding.  On Saturday I had been able to zip them a little bit, but Thursday I couldn’t zip them at all (Bella Band to the rescue!).  I’m pretty sure that when I walked into church on Friday night for a volunteer dinner that there were people who know me staring because they didn’t  know I was pregnant and then BAM belly outta nowhere.

I was showing Shep an illustration of what our baby looks like right now and trying to explain to him, “This is our baby, and this is Mommy’s tummy.  See the baby is inside of Mommy’s tummy!”  He thought about it for a second and says, “Babay house.”  Yes, Mommy is a baby house.  Then we were pointing to the baby’s eyes, ears, mouth etc. and he stands back and points to the picture and says, “Nekked babay!!”  I just sit around and wait to hear what he’s going to say, because it’s always adorable and comical.

For Halloween we couldn’t resist dressing up as the football player and the pregnant cheerleader.  From the Christian school.  Hehe.  Or Van and Cheyenne from Reba.  I’m not going to lie, I got up at the party we went to and did a preggo dance to, “Doncha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me.”

Hehehe, David was dressed like a monk so of course we had to take advantage of that!

But what about our adorable two year old you may ask.  What did we dress him as?  Well, that two year old had a cute little Wall-e costume from his friend Cody, but he flat REFUSED – I’m talking kicking screaming and tearing it off of himself – to wear it.  So he was dressed as himself.  We took him over to Prestonwood’s fall festival and let him play some games and get candy.  All he wanted out of the evening was to eat a Tootsie Pop, so it was pretty easy to to make all his dreams come true.

Dave and Brecka had beautiful weather for their wedding day!  We had never been there, so when Jake and I showed up to Farmer’s Branch Historical Park, we were so excited at how beautiful everything was.  The park has several buildings including a chapel, a historical home, a gazeebo and an old train car.  Brecka was getting ready in the old house which was so charming!  For those of you who received an email about this blog post, I apologize if you received it several times!  I thought it wasn’t working so I hit send about 16 times…

Ceremony: Farmers Branch Historical Park

Reception: Space Studio (above Hal Samples Gallery)

Catering: Seven Loaves Catering

Florist: Madison Adams

Wedding Coordinator: Ashley Shuck

Love this shot of Brecka and her mom putting on the veil!

A couple of shots of the gorgeous bride-

And the groom-

Dave and his best man.  This was right after I’d asked them if they’d been getting in trouble together for a long time.  They said it depended on my definition of ‘a long time.’  I was like, “But not my definition of trouble?”

Brecka and her maid of honor,  sister Bliss.

Brecka and her Daddy =)

This reception was so much fun!  When the Eckerts throw a party, you know you’re going to have a good time and you’re going to be dancing – which is exactly what happened.  Here are some detail shots from the reception-

Father Daughter dance -

To see more of Dave and Brecka’s wedding, including but not limited to – some fierce dancing and a friend of the couple belting out “Let’s Get it On” click below to see their slideshow!

People ask me all the time what to wear for their photo shoots.  I tell people to coordinate but not match.  Pick a color scheme of about three colors (preferably one that goes with their living room, office, bedroom or wherever they will hang their final prints) and build outfits from there.  I have put together several different outfit combinations based on different color schemes to show you as examples!  I chose to build outfits from affordable stores like Old Navy, Forever 21, and American Eagle so you can see how easy it is to look cute on a budge.  Click on the photos to see purchasing information, or just use these outfits as inspiration and shop in your closet from what you already have.  Think layers and textures.  Hats, scarves, jackets, vests, tights, shoes and jewelry all make outfits more visually interesting.

This first set is comprised of clothes from Old Navy and accessories and shoes from Old Navy and other places.  I just loooove aqua!!

This set of outfits would be great for my family (if I had three kids =) because it is using the color scheme of my living room!  My walls are sea green, my couch is brown and we have a blue chair with white shelves.  Next to the living room is the kitchen where you see my red chairs.  And these outfits are all from Old Navy.  It doesn’t have to be expensive to buy great outfits!  This set includes an outfit for a baby boy as well.  Moms, this sweater is nice for you if there are any areas you may want to hide

This set is made up of outfits from different stores.  Mom’s outfit is from Forever 21, with shoes by Jessica Simpson, Dad’s is from American Eagle and the kids’ outfits are from Old Navy.

These sisters’ outfits are from GapKids’ Himalaya and Leopard collections.  The first set is a  Girls outfit and a baby outfit.  The Leopard outfits are both baby/toddler.  Every piece is available at Gap!

These two sets are both from Gap Kids. Great for brothers! The first one is Boys and Baby/Toddler. The second set is both Boys.  And every piece is available at Gap.

I hope these outfits inspire you!

Danielle was the winner of my very first contest!  It was so fun to get to meet her and photograph her and her sweet family.  It was great practice for me to follow around two little boys since that’s going to be me soon!  Danielle gave me her potty training tips and told me about how they picked their sons’ names (Pierce and Heath).  And she completely validated my complete and utter loss at coming up with name #2.  It was a challenge to get two small boys to look at the camera and be happy at the same time!  But I think we got some cute shots that show the love this family has for each other.  It was so nice meeting you Nowell family!

LOVE this one.  Such a cute brothers shot!

Pierce is going to be a pirate for Halloween and was carrying around his pirate telescope while we walked around.  I love this shot of him being a pirate!

A sweet father/son moment on the steps.

Click the image below for a slideshow of the Nowell family!

I’m so excited to announce the Above and Beyond blog by Debi Chapman.  I photographed Debi for her blog last month because as she put it, “I realized the most recent picture I had of myself alone was taken by the Department of Public Safety…before that, it was my bridal portrait.”  I’m so excited to read her blog so I wanted to share it with you too.

I had such a great time and positive response from the first Portraits at the Preserve session that I decided to host another just in time for Christmas pictures!  Those sessions are back to back 20 minute mini sessions costing $50.  With a mini session you will get between 10-30 images in a private online viewing and ordering gallery available for two weeks.  There are five sessions available between 3:00-5:00pm on November 7th.  Email me today to reserve your spot – they’re going fast!  beth@bethdreyer.com

Week 20

It’s official, we have ourselves another boy!

I am very excited about this for a number of reasons.

#1) I was right.  I thought it was a boy, and there is great validation in being right, am I right?

#2) Since we already have all boy stuff, I will only need to register for a few things (see below).  If it was a girl, I would want to break the bank buying all the cute pink girl stuff I could get my hands on!

#3) I have always said that my ideal lineup of kids is boy, boy, girl.  I think it will be fun for Shep to have a boy buddy and I am praying that they will grow up being each others’ best friends!

I mentioned that we will only need to register for a few things.  The first of those things is diapers.  I used these wonderful cloth diapers by BumGenius with Shep for about his first year and a half.  At that point I realized that all this time I had been using the high-heat setting on my dryer, (hellooooo) which had caused all of the elastic to wear out around the leg holes of all but one of my diapers.  Sad day!!!!  I heart cloth diapers, they are so much better for your baby and the environment and they save you SO much money.  There is a bit of an investment up front, but in the long run it’s a huge saver.

I also need to register for a breast pump.  Let me take a moment to go over the finer points of why you should buy a breast pump if you’re a stay at home nursing mom.  I had read online that if you planned on being at home with your baby that you probably wouldn’t really need to make the investment in a motorized breast pump (another steep investment) because you wouldn’t really need to pump all that much.  “Save yourself the money and just get a manual one!”  That was a lie from the pit of hell.  I have this pump, but instead of the tubes connecting to a nice little motor, they connect to a hand crank pump.

Although I have been a stay at/work from home mom, I did not ground my social life a halt and as a result, all of my close girlfriends had to pump my breasts at one time or another.  One time I was walking in a fashion show modeling my friend Leah’s designs, and in the big open dressing room where all the girls were getting ready, there I am, getting pumped by Ashley receiving some interesting stares.  Jake and I would go to parties and have to excuse ourselves, “Sorry we have to go to the bathroom together for 20 minutes…together…to pump.”  How sexy.

Leah and I – she designed that amazing coat!

Ashley, who was modeling her sister Madison’s designs.  Picture Ashley and I all dressed up, huddled in that corner – pumping my breasts.  Or don’t if it grosses you out…

We also never bought a Pack’n’Play and a few other things which we’ll try to get this time in addition to the dreaded double stroller.  I do agree that there is a whole lot of baby gear out there that you really don’t need, and I guess that’s why I never got the items I mentioned.  But I have learned that some things really are worth having, and I think that breast pumps, Pack’n’Plays and cloth diapers are worth it!

This was a quick shoot – Erin and Michael aren’t big fans of pictures of themselves and kept telling me over and over that these were probably going to be horrible pictures (but that it wouldn’t be my fault =)  I hope that these photos change your minds you two!  I’ll be photographing Erin’s bridal portraits and their wedding next month, so stay tuned for more of Erin and Michael.

Click the image  below to see a slideshow -

I am so  in love with Christmas and SO in love with getting Christmas cards in the mail.  I love to see how people’s families have changed, hear what people are doing, and see what kinds of cards people go to the trouble to create.  That’s why I’m so excited to offer these beautiful press-printed cards to my clients this year!  They start at $45 for 5×7 folded cards or $30 for 5×7 flat cards and come in several paper choices including *pearl* which is my favorite because it’s *shimmery*  They were originally designed that the elements be black and white but all the swirls and curls can be any color you like!  The cards themselves are customizable as well.  If you like the front of one card, the middle of another and the back of another, I can put together just the card you want!  What you are seeing are spreads.  The first image in the spread is the front, the second two are the inside and the fourth is the back.  Click on a card for a larger view.

Email me – beth@bethdreyer.com for more information or to order your cards today!