I love the look of intensity on Erin’s face as she says her vows.  She’s not kidding!

To see more of Erin & Michael’s wedding, click the image below to see a slideshow -

This day has gotten away from me!  I was hoping to get their wedding blogged today but it just isn’t going to happen.  So here’s a little teaser -

We had such lovely weather for this session!  It was such a beautiful day outside and just the right temperature.  I always feel bad for brides doing bridal portraits on warm days because wedding dresses can make you very hot very fast.  Erin did great!  It helps that she’s gorgeous!  She has those tiny little model arms that most girls would kill for.  All of a sudden she just started working it for me!  Check out this fierceness I was so proud -

Look at her getting down with her bad self workin’ it for the camera!

To see Erin’s slideshow, click the image below!

This post really doesn’t have much to do with pregnancy, but it’s a funny story about what happened to me this week in my pregnancy.  I hope you enjoy reading it!

Wednesday I went up to Allen to see my eye doctor for a follow up visit.  I had picked up my new glasses with their new prescription from him the week before and I was having major trouble adjusting to them.  Now my eye doctor is no ordinary optometrist – oh no.  No no.  He calls himself a therapeutic ophthalmologist I believe, but those words don’t even come within miles of describing him.

I have been seeing this doctor for almost 10 years, and first saw him because I was having chronic migraines and although I had glasses, had heard that he was ‘special’ and made people ‘special’ glasses.  Indeed.  I’m still seeing him nearly 10 years later, his ’special’ glasses did in fact solve my migraine issue!  He incorporates what he calls binary optics into his lenses, which somehow some way affects more than just vision.  I really couldn’t explain it to you, all I care about is that it worked for me.  He is very holistic in his approach to eyes, which is always something I appreciate, but let’s be clear, sometimes the things he says to me are a stretch.  It’s so difficult for me to even find a place to begin in describing a typical visit with you.

Once when I had just returned from spending several months in Southeast Asia several years ago, I went in to have an exam.  He was examining the inside of my eyes, which he does by getting about a twenty fourth of inch from my face and looking through some sort of magnifying device.  Suddenly he sat back and said, “I see a lot of rice floating around in your eyes, have you been eating lots of rice lately?”  Why yes, yes I had…

Another time, before that happened I had just come home from my Discipleship Training School with YWAM, which had radically changed my life.  I could tell that I needed a new prescription so I went up to see the doctor.  Same kind of situation, he’s right up close to my face looking into my eyes, and all of a sudden he says, “Turn your glasses around upside down.”  I did, things got much clearer.  “You’ve totally changed the way you think and process information since the last time you saw me.  You’ve grown up and become more intelligent.  You just need your lenses to be upside down from what they are now.”  Sure enough, that’s what did it!

Through the years, he’s had me take different supplements, different eye exercises and told me all kinds of bizarre things about myself that affect the way my brain receives information from my eyes.  He is always trying to solve the root issue of eye problems to make your vision better instead of merely giving a prescription that pacifies the problem.  Those two stories are just to give you a frame of reference for what happened on Wednesday.

Wednesday I went in and explained the issues I was having with my new prescription and he sat there and started right at my eyes to watch their behavior for a moment…  I stared back.  Awkward silence.  He said something about my eyes darting around all over the place and then ran to the other room to put on a mask.  He had a little cough and I’m pregnant so he didn’t want to infect me.  Keep in mind through the rest of this story that all of this is taking place while he is wearing a surgical mask.  It adds to the comedy of an already humorous situation.  He then commenced with a new exam that included sticking various things in front of my eyes while I was wearing paper glasses that had one red lens and one green lens and asked what happened when he did ‘this.’

Finally he decided that I have a prism in my right eye that was caused by an inner ear problem relating to the fact that my body does not distribute water very well to my brain.  Obviously.  He says these things like it’s just as plain as day to everyone else.  He asked if I’d had any ankle or knee injuries because that would of course relate.  Later he asked what time I was born and when he found out, asked about my gallbladder.  I’m laughing as I write this!  I am not making this up!  It gets better.

Next he sat me down to do some exercises with the red/green glasses.  I had to flex my right ankle while simultaneously rubbing my left forefinger and thumb together, and looking at ahead at a stuffed dog and concentrating on my right peripheral vision.  Oh yes.

Just wait.

When he got me forcing my right eye into the correct behavior from said exercises, he told me to me say, “Ooobeedoobee.”

“That’s your magic word.  When it looks right say ‘ooobeedoobee’ to train your brain how it feels when your right eye is relaxed.  He says this with a straight face from behind the surgical mask.

I promise I am not making this up!!!!

At this point the stress of not seeing correctly combined with the added stress of the exercises and going from red and green glasses back to glasses that were already driving me crazy had me reeeaaally stressed out.  Fortunately he completely believes in emotional/physical relationships and he could tell by looking at me that I was losing it.  He even gave me a supplement right then and there of something in which I was (obviously to him!) deficient to help me calm down.  I went home with some exercises to do and the instruction that if the exercises and the incorrect vision really just start to drive me crazy to come back in and he’ll do a prism correction in my lens.

Now I know you may be thinking that this guy sounds totally out there and weird, but let me sing his praises for a moment.  He solved what appeared to be a permanent diagnosis of chronic migraines for me, he has helped people I personally know overcome behavioral issues like ADD, and helped correct extreme near-sightedness (and I don’t mean by giving the right prescription, I mean like they aren’t as near-sighted as before) along with a host of other things.  His strange methods really do made a difference in people’s lives and I’m so glad that we found him when I was 15 and losing hope that I would ever have a day without a migraine.

And since any blog post – especially long-winded ones – are better with pictures!

We had so much fun photographing Stephen and Dana and Libby.  They are fun to be around, and Libby is so dang cute!  And I’ll admit it, since they were the last session on Saturday we definitely went a little longer than 20 minutes.  But everyone was just having a good time and the light was so beautiful, why stop?

Yesterday while I was editing their session, Shep was sitting in my lap saying, “Wibby!  Wibby!!!!” over and over again.

Outfit change!  Love the shades of purple!

I couldn’t get enough of little Libby, she’s such a cute!

Aren’t they fun?  I love how these came out of Dana and Stephen -

I first met Selena this summer (ironically through the same friend that connected me with Sharlie – Holly when am I gonna do your kiddos!).   I walked into my friend Holly’s house and there was furniture everywhere!  Out of a bedroom came Holly and Selena panting and dragging a dresser.  They were preparing to steam Holly’s carpets and Selena had come down with her steamer and proceeded to help move all Holly’s furniture and then do all the steaming while we sat outside with the kids!  And Shep and I had just decided to pop in that day.  We’ve been keeping up through Facebook since then and hung out at a birthday party recently so it was fun to get to meet the rest of her family and photograph them!

Andrew is a little ham.  He would turn that smile on and off like a switch – with a great attitude – it was really cute!

Hehe, that grin kills me!

These guys had a little easier time keeping their eyes open than the Chapmans =)

Selena, I think you may have said not to post any of the family pictures, but I just couldn’t help it, y’all are too good lookin’!

To see more of the Lewis family, click the image below to see a slideshow!

I have to say, all of the families that participated in Portraits at the Preserve last weekend did so well on their styling!  I was very impressed and excited to see all the outfits that showed up that day, way to go everyone!

I love this family!  Every Sunday almost, Esther and Cody run up to greet Shep.  Esther loves to follow Shep around playing with him, and Cody donated the Wall-e costume that Shep ultimately refused to wear.  I started getting to know mom Sharlie earlier this year when we were up swimming with another friend and her kids having conversations about being real.  I always appreciate real people who aren’t afraid to be themselves, so and so does she, so we’ve enjoyed getting to know each other this year.  I was thrilled to be able to photograph the Chapman family, check out the eyes on those kiddos!

Esther is a jumper!

They really wanted to do a cute laying down shot but they all have sensitive eyes and no one could keep their eyes open, it was really funny -

Hehe

These last two are my very favorites!  Look at those eyes!

I love this one because it’s so relaxed, natural and you can tell how much they all love each other -

To see more of the Chapmans, click the image below to see their slideshow -

Week 22

I was not a very good blogger last week!  Last week was a fairly low key week for me pregnancy wise.  But I do have one story and a photo for you.

Jake and I are taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and have put ourselves on a very tight budget while we get ourselves in order financially.  As a result, we haven’t given ourselves very much money to spend on clothes.  Well I have been realizing more and more how much I actually will need more maternity clothes.  Since I was pregnant during the summer last time, not many of my maternity clothes will overlap.  So I set out with Ashley to a couple of stores looking for some reeeaaally good deals on some kind of winter maternity clothes.  Of course the clothes you can get deals on right now are for summer so I couldn’t find anything in my target price range.  I went home discouraged and Jake encouraged me that God was going to take care of us and that it would be ok.  Well I walk into church this Sunday and I’m chatting with someone when a sweet friend walked up to me and handed me a bag.  She had bought me a maternity shirt!  It was so sweet of God, I was so blessed I got tears in my eyes.

So that’s my big week 22 story, and here I am at 23 weeks.  I’ll dedicate a whole post to Jake’s photo shoot of me later on since he did such a great job!

Meet Michael & Christina Perron.  They have just started a new church called Summit Life Church in Addison.  They were needing some shots of themselves to use on their new website which is being constructed and of course I was happy to oblige.  If you’re looking for a church, check them out!  They meet on Tuesdays at 7 at the Addison Conference Center.

Love this one!  Don’t you want to be their friend?

Normally I try to give a good mix of vertical and horizontal pics here on the blog since the horizontals are always narrow.  But all the ones I loved of them were horizontal!  You can click the images to see larger versions.  Isn’t Christina amazingly photogenic?