Category Archives: personal

Nine

He now has an expander and will soon have braces.  I embarrass him, but still loves me to tuck and kiss him goodnight, and sit in the dark to just talk.   He is really into music, now owns and iPod, and loves Green Day, Kaiser Chiefs, and the Clash.  He is an avid reader (thank goodness!) and will stay up way too late with a book.  He has become a big sports fanatic, like his dad, for the Redskins and Caps.   He knows some choice curse words (my bad) and will try them out every now and again;  potty humor and fart jokes crack him up.  He thinks girls are from another planet and covers his eyes with great fan fare when there is any kind of romantic kissing.  He can be moody, cantankerous, and an absolute joy all within the span of 15 minuets. He is gangly, has the stinkiest feet, eats like a line backer, and grows out of clothes and shoes every 4 months.

He is just nine.

Six is Sno-tastic!

Once again someone in our family got a little more than they bargained for on their birthday;-)

Top ten reasons why I love him

  1. He can sing the lyrics to any song, insert his name, and it sounds like it is part of the song
  2. He has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with cars, watches, and grills
  3. He loves nothing more to to play football, soccer, or street hockey with a pack of kids in the back yard
  4. He is my biggest supporter, loudest cheerleader, and a visionary to all my dreams
  5. He gave me the gift of unconditional love and taught me how amazing it is to give unconditional love back
  6. Our kids have so many of his best qualities
  7. He has managed to acquire some awesome nick names over the years: Shlomo, Matty Matt, Lobster Roll to name a few
  8. He throws great parties, even when it is not part of his job
  9. He is still a hot piece of man candy
  10. He is wildly inappropriate, hysterically pee-in-you-pants funny, and lives every day to the fullest

Today is Matty Matt’s birthday.  He is, without a doubt, the love of my life.

Bella - Such special pictures, such special words….my favorite nick-name for Matty Matt is, of course, Fubby! baci e abbracci from Italy!

matthew - awww…what a great post.

Eileen Broderick - So sweet! What a wonderful post for him to read. And adorable pics. Happy B-Day, Matt! (Yes–a few weeks later but…)

kimberly davis - he completes you – that is pretty special. thank you for sharing with your peeps . .

our dog

I think the story of how we became dog owners again speaks volumes about how we operate as a family.

Eli needed a dog.  Being the second kid he rarely gets anything he wants.  Sad to say but sometimes that is the reality of a second kid.  So we decided after 6 years of being without a dog we would start the process of looking for just the right dog to fit our family, for Eli.

It began at Spring Break 2009.  The kids were off and we had no plans.  What better way to keep two kids occupied over Spring Break than look for a family dog.  We knew we did not want a puppy and that we wanted to rescue a dog.   So being the ultimate researcher, I set off to find every rescue group,  shelter, and dog adoption event I could find happening the week around break.

The very first event was at the PETCO in Cleveland Park.  As we parked the car and walked down the street to the the store,  we specifically told the kids “we are just looking,  we don’t want to rush it, we want to make sure we find the best dog for us.  Chances are we wont see a dog that we like right away.”

Yeah right.

Matty Matt walks in, sees Brie, makes a makes a beeline for her and announces “this is my dog.”  The kids and I were doing our part to live up to our end of the bargain.  We blew him off, we walked around and talked to rescue group, asked about their process, and tried to get a feel for the other dogs.  Matt stood by Brie and would barley even look at another dog.

Turns out he was right.  She was the dog for us.

This dog is quirky and nutty, but I think we all like her that way.

I have been on a little mission to document all the things that make her, well her.  Here is a quick little slideshow of out nutty, quirky, family dog we call “Brie”

FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS:

If you are a photographer, this slideshow is one of the awesome new things you can create with a ProPhoto3 Blog theme by NetRivet.  They just released the new version today.  I was lucky, once again, to be chosen to beta test this theme.  And, once again, the NetRivet team has created an amazing theme that is really geared just for photographers.   I am still discovering all the things it can do but my favorite so far is a built-in way to display multiple images and the sliding sidebars on the left.  This theme is incredibly dynamic and allows you customize your blog in a million different ways. But check out all that is new in ProPhoto3 here.

I love my ProPhoto Blog mainly because I feel I was able to create a exactly the blog I envisioned without needing to know a lot about code, style-sheets, or plug-ins.  And I was able to do it in no time at all.

And if you want a little discount…use my code EWEISS232 for $10 off the purchase price.

As always I am happy to answer questions and help out other photographers in any way that I can, so shoot me an email or leave a comment.  Love to hear what you think!

Eileen Broderick - She is awesome! Such a pretty dog and she looks like such fun!

kimberly davis - love the dog and love the story of the impulsive matty matt. the photos are incredible – you really inspire me to greatness. feeling VERY lucky to have you as a friend and as the preferred family artist. can’t wait to create some awesomeness with the newborn photos as well as today’s shoot. xo. k.

snOMG

If you have been living in a cave for the past week, DC got more snow then we typically see in several years worth of winters.    I know my Minnesotan sister would laugh at all of us and how we handle it; it is comical.  But I admit that we dug our our car and have our space carefully saved with our lawn chairs.  Hey, it took me 3 hours and a hearty sum to my local teenager to create that space so it is mine!

We are doing some things to keep us busy

Cal made a makeshift Santa outfit

We walked to the Broad Branch Market for Slush Puppies

And we played with our friends and neighbors

ecweiss - I know, who knew?

Portia Cornell - Santa wears camo pants?

Paige - Great shots! Looks like you all have been having some fun in all this snow. Isn’t it crazy how much we got?

Adventures in trees

This year we decided to go and cut down a fresh tree as opposed to going to a lot to buy one.  Save money and have us a grand family adventure.  And secretly in the back of my mind I was thinking wow this is going to be great shooting, I am going to bring a lens I never use so I can play with it, and  I can probably do a nice photo essay for my blog.

Well not so much.

I typed out the whole adventure, and lets just say that I am not a gifted written storyteller.   While the story itself is somewhat amusing to me, it is probably not so much for anyone else.   So I spare you all the gory details, but the gist of the story is that I had this romanticized notion of what cutting down the family Christmas tree would be like.  And instead it was like a bad Three Stooges version, only not funny.  Selecting a tree was way more painful than it should have been.  The tree we cut down is a scraggly misshapen thing with a few big gaps and we later discovered that it gives Cal, Matt, and I a weird rash if we handle too long.  And I did not get the wonderful rich photo essay I had hoped for.

However, I am trying to embrace the concept, put forth by fellow photographer Matthew Lyon’s in his recent blog post, don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good enough.

Looking back on yesterday, it was still fun and still an adventure, and precious time together as a family.   Plus I got to shoot a goat and a pig and a chicken.

Enough said;-)

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This post was also is inspired by  my good friend,  Divine Miss K and her misadventures with Santa.

First snow

DC saw our first snow for the winter.  Just enough to have some fun, but not too much to create the untold havoc that typically accompanies snow in our region.  Still, my out of the way, one-way street never saw a plow or a salt truck.

Now that the Holiday portrait shooting season is over for me, and I wait for the final last bits of my client’s orders to come in, it is great to get out there and just shoot for me, my kids in the yard doing what kids do in the snow — snowball fight!

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As I start the process of closing out the yeasr I have great plans ahead for 2010.  New prodcuts offereing, new focus and hopfully more blogging!

Competition?

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Just over a week ago, we hosted lots of friends and family for my Mother-in-Law’s 70th birthday.  It was a great party (if i do say so myself) and it was great to have family visiting.

Instead of lugging out my big camera I bought a Fujifilm Instax Mini. It is the new version of a Polaroid camera, and it is so much fun! I charged Eli with shooting the Instax at the party and we now have this marvelous collection of little shots from his level of the party guests.  Needless to say he had Grandma’s friends  eating out of the palm of his hand.  It warmed my heart to see him take his job so seriously, and also have so much fun with it.

Here are a few of his shots

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Portia - I love how they are all from an Eli point of view

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