Reptile-sitting -- meet Henry, Rock, Leaf (the turtles) and Dan (the dragon)

So this is what happens when your kid is allergic to cats and dogs and most domestic pets -- you end up with reptiles to fill that void. In a strange way, I have come to love these funny and precious creatures -- yes, I sound like a Steve Irwin groupie but truth be known, some of these 'things' are beautiful!

This is our story.

A couple years ago we bought Jackson a bearded dragon for his 6th birthday -- why? how? Well, it stemmed from our vacation in St. John, USVI where there were tons of anoles (tiny lizards) on the island and he fell in love. So why not. We purchased the $60 thing from PetSmart and learned shortly after that decision that we needed another $200 in UV lights, heat lamps, bedding, a 20 gallon terrarium, things to crawl on and just bearded dragon 'stuff'. Sheesh. So fine. And just when I thought we were done spending so much, when I thought the hard pellets sold in PetSmart were enough food, I come to find out from the REAL experts on beardeddragon.org (yes, I ended up subscribing and reading the forums regularly for info) that they needed LIVE insects for proper nutrition!! Are you kidding?! Well therein lies the insane cycle of life. A couple weeks later I ended up buying a 66 gallon sterlite container and 500 crickets (the right size of course b/c the dragon could choke on them if they are too big) at a time! Jack patiently made the screen top for the darn things to breathe and I purchased them every few weeks from a cricket farm (oh, yes they do exist) in Tennessee. But wait -- it doesn't end there. The crickets needed to be fed too and dusted with calcium. OF COURSE THEY DID! So I had weird gelatin food in their container and water and geez, I could go on. So there you have it -- our little pet, became as expensive and time-consuming to maintain as any ordinary domestic pet! I even had an exotic pet vet who I visited 3x (at $100 a pop!) and a leash and hammock for our dear "Mac" as he was called. It became a slight obsession -- not b/c I don't like to do things well when I do them but b/c it required daily attention! He was a baby after all!

So sadly, fast forward about 9 months, he didn't make it. After antibiotics for a parasite infection (we know b/c I had to take a stool sample IN to the exotic pet vet) he was too small to fight the infection -- a common killer of the bearded dragon. It was crushing. All that attention, effort, love and madness. We buried him rightly in the woods behind our house and still think fondly of Mac.

So just when I thought we were done with reptiles -- our good friends found 3 baby box turtles last fall and when we were there over New years marveling at their tiny shells and heads, they ended up asking us if we wanted one. How could we say NO? The boys begged. And we didn't. So we have added "Henry" to our busy daily life. Heck, we had the terrarium and lights and I know reptiles, so it's been cheaper this time! I'm happy to report, they are much easier to manage than the dragon-fest world. Tho, they are much more boring to watch! An occasional mealworm (yes, I buy those and feed that to them too) gets them going and that 10 minutes is pretty exciting. So this weekend, we are turtle-sitting the other two while our friends ski for the weekend.

Ironically, an hour after our friend Steve called to ask if we could turtlesit, Jackson's best friend from school asked us if we would dragonsit his new bearded dragon. They knew we had all the know-how and confidence to take care of it, so we have "Dan" here too.

Meet them all and I know you're all jealous of my incredible ability to learn about something other than photography or cooking. I mean how many people do you know that can tell you details about dragons?

Baby Leah -- Session #2 of three

I have been slack! I have stuff to post but it's funny how the more work I have the more work I do, the faster I do it and the more I blog. And the same (or would it be opposite?) is true with the less work I have! I am enjoying more time to read novels, getting in bed earlier, watching TV (which I don't normally do) such as American Idol auditions and just not having pressure to turn my edits around as fast after my fall. But I know this is only for the months of January and February as once march rolls around, I have 2 weddings that month and portrait inquiries are already starting for spring in addition to other weddings. So it's fleeting!

Baby Leah is now about 7 1/2 months old and was crawling by the time she came in for her 2nd portrait session of her 3 -- as part of my "Bebe Collection" (3 portraits sittings at various intervals/milestones in the first year for $400). Leah's mom, my friend Amy, is planning on putting together a little 5x5 book of selected photos from each session after the 1 year portraits. In any event, I told Amy that she needed to bring Leah in AFTER she started sitting up but BEFORE she started crawling! We all know that window of time is short, but KEY for indoor portrait photographers!!! Naturally, it was hard to schedule that session b/c of the holidays and Leah was indeed crawling when she came in! She was all about crawling left, right or towards us and all we could do was laugh b/c we were sweating, picking her up and putting her back, coaxing her to stay still, everything possible! And I'm happy to report that despite that, we succeeded after reviewing the images! I did shoot a lot and have a bunch of fun photos so there is plenty for Amy to pick from. I am posting a lot here -- maybe making up for the time that has elapsed since my last posting! Or because Leah is a peach!

Post a comment here and let me know what you think!

Not looking 9 months prego!

About 2 weeks ago I did a maternity session with Jen. She is a colleague of Jack's from his former CNN days and currently at XM Radio. While I don't do maternity sessions frequently, I have done enough to know I love doing it and want to do more! So here's to the future of big bellies! Jen's water broke about a week after our shoot -- talk about great timing, but Lord if she doesn't look 9 months prego here! And for those of you who are looking at her and saying "must be her first" -- well, it's not. This is her 2nd pregnancy. She just had her 2nd girl last weekend. Congrats Jen!

I had so much fun with this shoot b/c Jen was uninhibited and was self-confident enough with her figure to bare her skin! These postings are G (okay, PG) rated but I promise you the others not posted are gorgeous too! Her skin was luminous and smooth -- tho she may disagree, but there was very little editing here. No stretch marks and just a beautiful pregnant body.

This weekend I'll be doing another maternity session. The gal who has hired me was one of my 2006 brides so it's fun to move from weddings to portraits with my clients. She is less interested in showing skin so we'll be doing more of a lifestyle session -- at her home, photos in the nursery, with her husband and the like. Stay tuned for those images.

The Corrado Kids

The holidays put me behind schedule as the Corrado Family came to me for their shoot in early December! Normally I would have posted this sooner but they knew I was under the gun to get holiday orders out and they were not in need of products before so I have been able to take more time with editing their shoot. Moreover, Alexandria Hospital has now called me twice in the past week for my NILMDTS shoots in addition to Arlington the week of Christmas. I try to crank out those photos for the families given their unspeakable circumstances. And with that, it puts my other work on the back burner for a bit.

In any event, Christian was 4 weeks old for this shoot. Welcome to the world Christian!! He has 2 big sisters who were doting on him the entire time. Additionally, they were quite the posers for me on their own. No attitudes here. I enjoyed them immensely and enjoyed my time getting to know them!