My friends at  The Family Journey brought this play to The Tap Room here in Fort Collins last year, which featured a troupe of actors from the Denver area. I loved every moment of the play, the energy the actors brought to their characters, and the empowering script.

I laughed and I cried, and nodded and shook my head throughout.

I’m even more excited for this year’s play, for several reasons:

• some of the actors are my friends
• it will take place in a larger venue (Lory Student Center Theatre)
• being that it will be at the CSU Campus, I’m hoping that there will be a larger audience of pre-motherhood women

After the performance, there is an interactive discussion. Last year the panel included members of our birthing community and some of the actors. It was an interesting and entertaining discussion, and I feel an integral part of the entire experience.

This year even the interactive discussion is going to be more exciting than last year, because the panel will include Peggy O’Mara, the editor of Mothering Magazine.

Soooo, you can imagine that I highly recommend seeing this play, if at all possible. I think everybody who attends, whether they’ve been through the birth experience or not (and even if they never will) will learn something and come away feeling empowered.

Please share this information with all your friends! I think it’d be wonderful if women’s groups (including sororities and young women {i.e. teenagers}) would attend this play; in my opinion it can only be a positive experience.

Here’s all the information you need; get in touch with The Family Journey if you have any questions at all.

Northern Colorado is BOLD again! Karen Brody’s critically acclaimed play,
Birth, returns to Fort Collins on September 26th, and YOU are invited!

Crafted from over a hundred interviews over several years, Birth tells the
story of eight modern, educated women and how they experience childbirth
in America. Entertaining and enlightening, this is a show you won’t want
to miss!

In addition to an incredible performance, The Family Journey and get born
magazine are producing a BOLD evening that will include a vendor fair and
an insightful post-show discussion featuring Peggy O’mara of Mothering
Magazine, as well as local birth professionals Karen Strange, Kim
Lenderts, and Katie Godfrey.

The first 250 people to be admitted will receive a reusable shopping bag
from Vitamin Cottage, along with other information and products from our
sponsors.

Tickets are on sale now. Plan a girl’s night out, a unique date, or an
educational evening with friends and join in the fun at the Lory Student
Center Theatre on the CSU campus! Tickets are just $20, and at a reduced
rate for students and paid members of The Family Journey. (See this post
for details http://thefamilyjourney.org/?p=216).

Visit www.thefamilyjourney.org today to purchase tickets and learn more
about the BOLD movement.

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

This is from a session I got to do on Saturday.

I like to start out a session with some “beauty shots” - close-ups of the face. This helps us to ease into the session, as clients are typically nervous having boudoir portraits made.

I *love* the fake lashes - I think they add so much to the shots! I’m even hoping to wear some myself one day! I think they’d make me feel like a movie star. What do YOU think?

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

But my oldest son begged me.

And because I can use this to my benefit (getting him to sit for me when I want to practice ), I’m doing him a favor.

B. is a huge fan of ROBLOX, an online place for kids of all ages to create characters and build places. He describes it as “a really fun multiplayer game”. They have a new “Ambassador Program”, which allows them to earn more “tickets” which members can then spend to purchase clothing and accessories and such for their characters.

Sooo, I’m helping him to earn more by posting the links here. Whether you click on it or not, he’ll get 2 more tickets a day.

I am warning you, ladies (since most of you *are* women)… don’t introduce this to your husbands!. Unless you want to give him something to do while you watch a chick flick, or better yet, while you peruse Fig Leaf Studio without giving him a heads-up about your secret plans to have boudoir portraits made.

*As this post can be construed to be a bit sexist, I just wanted to warn you to be careful, too. I’ve only heard of men falling in love with playing at Roblox (and children of both genders), but I’m sure there are many women who enjoy it just as much. I’m just not one of them.

** Roblox admin: The links are here a couple of times! However, I changed some of the wording to make the post applicable to the blog. Here’s the official link for you, in case you need it to be EXACTLY as you have it.

Free Games at ROBLOX. Check out what I have been building lately!

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

This first thing is something that a many photo editing software programs can do, but it’s made super easy by being able to do these online. Plus, it goes beyond what many editing software programs can do, unless you want to spend a lot of time in those programs.

BeFunky.com is free and easy to use, and really just super cool! You don’t even have to register, which I really appreciate (it saves time not having to do so, and sometimes you just wonder what they’re going to do with your information).

Here’s a photo I made of A. the other day - he was being so patient and tolerant of me as photographer, but pouted for one second wondering when I’d be done. I loved the photo I got!

Here’s what I got when I used “inkify” at BeFunky

Pretty cool, eh?!! It’s totally befitting of the photo.

There are a bunch of fun options, and I know my kids and I will have fun turning them into comics and such.

Okay, if you thought *that* was cool, you’ve got to see this next thing. Even if you have photo editing software of the highest caliber, you are unlikely to be able to do this, at least without a lot of skill and time.

Isn’t that amazing? It is to me, especially that it took me less than 5 minutes and about as many clicks of my mouse to create that heart collage! I just selected all the photos in a file - didn’t even have to add them one by one (there are 35 there), selected the heart shape (it’s perfect for sweet little L., isn’t it?), and a few seconds later it was done.

Wanna do it yourself? Of course you do! Head over to Shape Collage to download the software. Not only do they have fun templates for you to use, you can create your own.

I can imagine so many fun uses for these applications: personal blogs, avatars, sharing with friends and family, even using them for your Facebook profile or Twitter avatar and such! Since you can do letters and words, you could do your child’s first initial or their name and fill it with photos of that child. If you’ve got a child learning their alphabet, you could fill a letter of the alphabet with photos of things starting with that letter…

If you use it and post online, I would love for you to post the link in my comments (or at least sent to me personally) so I can see the amazing things you’re doing with these.

Have a wonderful - and warm - weekend!

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

I just couldn’t get over how peaceful he was!

How willing he was to just lay where he was set and sleep. Or at least *really* relax.

I don’t think I heard a peep out of him after his initial disrobing.

Once he was full on momma’s milk, he was a happy guy.

Ready to stretch out and take a long nap.

Eden, I’m so glad we were able to get these done! Thank you, big sister L. and little 16 day old L. for allowing me to capture these sweet, sleepy moments.

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

I thought the light was perfect for our session - cloudy, yet bright. That was fine during A.’s session, but as soon as we started B.’s session (10 minutes later), the sun came out.

As soon as we were done, however, it started snowing. I was wishing it had started during the session; I thought that would’ve been fun!

However, by the time we got home it was snowing hard - huge, heavy, wet snowflakes! Less than an hour later, it had stopped and the sun was shining again.

B. has such a hard time looking at the camera. It’s as though it’s the sun shining right in his eyes! We had to play a few games to get any with him looking at me *and* having his eyes open enough to look normal.

Oh, and he found a $1 bill right when we got to our location. It was like a birthday present from God/Universe/Whateveryoucallyoursource!

Happy Birthday, my babies.

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

I want to build my portfolio and I’m discounting big time for the first three two one woman who sign up and pay!

You can read all about it here at my boudoir photography blog.

Here’s a fun photo I haven’t even shared on the boudoir site!

"Want your shirt back, Honey?"

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

It’s even more awesome when you watch The Making of T-Mobile Dance.

Have a beautiful day!

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

It’s a difficult time for so many people right now, so in light of this I’ve decided to make some changes to my pricing structure.

The fee for a session with me will continue to be $150. However, $100 of this will now apply toward prints, digital images or a collection. It will also apply toward the $250 minimum order, so in essence you will be saving $100!

I will be adding smaller digital collections as well, so watch for those… I’ll be sure to post when I’ve got them added to the website.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Just to make you smile, here’s a recent photo of my little one (already almost 4 years old, I can’t believe it!) made a few weeks ago before a haircut.

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.

Orchids have been my favorite flower since I was 12 and worked in a little flower shop on base. The owners were friends of my mom, who worked on base and frequented their shop. When they needed a bit of help, they asked my mom if one of her daughters would be interested.

Of course I was interested in getting some pocket money, and the work wasn’t going to be frequent, so I jumped at the chance.

My first day working there I walked around in order to familiarize myself with the offerings. For some reason I was particularly drawn to the vases, especially the curving shapes and fragility of the stem vases.

I poured boiling hot water into a bucket and plunged the stems of baby’s breath into it! No way, I’m sure you’re thinking - I must be remembering wrong. But I’m not… I was amazed back then, too. This is the secret to getting those little closed buds to open, and quickly. It was fun to watch them just pop open, one after another.

I swept the floor and cleaned up the other debris, and on a break I got to look around some more. That’s when I discovered the orchids.

I was amazed at their beauty, their colors, and their unique shapes. I imagined that one day another flower would replace them as my favorite, but in the 27 years that have passed I’ve only grown to love them more.

I’ve wanted to own my own orchid, but several things have kept me from doing so: their expense and their complicated care.

I’ve been slowly applying the principles of feng shui to my house and decided that I wanted to have something “luxurious” in my Prosperity Corner. An orchid plant fit this description perfectly for me, and having read so much about their care (I’ve even taken a class about orchids at a local nursery), so I knew I could care for one if I was just willing to pay attention.

I hinted to Dave that an orchid might make a nice Valentine’s Day gift, if he was inclined to give me one, but didn’t really expect one. What I mean to say is that I knew that my desire for one was strong enough that I would be getting one soon, but that it didn’t need to come through Dave.

Yet it did. I was overjoyed.

Use the form on the contact page to schedule your session or to get more information.