Q. I don’t live in Wahoo… can you drive to my community for a porch session?
A. If you can recruit more families in your neighborhood, I’m happy to make the trip. Otherwise I need to charge $0.58/mile for my time.
Q. Is supporting the food pantry still a thing for this next round of porch sessions?
A. The first wave of porch sessions resulted in over $1400 donations to our wahoo food pantry! SO awesome! However, this next round I am no longer donating to the food pantry. They DO accept donations anytime, however, if you feel led to give.
Q. What forms of payment do you accept?
A. Cash or check to Stacy Ideus, please. A portrait agreement will be emailed prior to our session for you to print off and hand in with payment at the time of your session.
Not sure about you all, but we are pretty darn excited to have our veggies planted! We went a little nuts this year…. carrots, spinach, cauliflower, lettuce, chives, tomatoes, pole beans, onions, cilantro, basil, rosemary, habanero, and dahlias! (yes I know dahlias aren’t a veggie, but they have been planted with them so I wanted to make sure they got a note. lol)
52 Porch Sessions and a donation to the Wahoo Food Pantry in the amount of $1,420 … WOW! Together we can make a difference!
The #1 thing I’ve learned from this project… some people are more affected by the pandemic than others. For some families (like ours, for example), life hasn’t looked all that different since COVID-19. But it’s rocked so many people’s worlds (unemployment, illness, homeschooling, etc…) and we are praying for you daily.
*I’ve had so many people message and I am no longer offering these sessions for the food pantry. If I decide to donate more, I’ll post here! And please know you may always make a contribution to our local food pantry at any time.*
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts (Why Mommy Drinks) from a couple weeks ago and it was so interesting to me listening to them talk about their perspectives before the quarantine actually happened. It was just hitting the news at the time they recorded and and it’s crazy how it’s escalated and been affecting the whole world/country since then.
It’s definitely a marker in history — to experience a pandemic first-hand and how it has effected everyone’s lives. I hope this finds you and your family healthy and feeling productive and purposeful in this weird time. And speaking of weird….
******PORCH SESSIONS ARE NO LONGER OFFERED to benefit the food pantry. If you would still like a porch session, contact me for info******
And the reason why I say these are weird is because we just assume everyone has ‘the cooties.’ I’m a hugger and not that I hug EVERYONE, but family photography is just such a personal experience I usually hug my clients at the start or end. And share pens. And that just doesn’t happen currently and it just feels weird. But necessary and I get it.
Our long-time friends Morgan and Randy are having themselves a baby! We couldn’t be happier for them and their sweet bump. Isn’t Morgan’s dress FANTASTIC?!
I don’t have much to say about this, but What the HECK?!
Such a strange situation to be in. I’m glad I have a new found love of jigsaw puzzles. I hope everyone is staying healthy and productive during this uncertain time. Prayers for everyone’s health, sanity, and any economic strife you may encounter. Technology will be our friend for the next several weeks!
Life is moving SO fast! Is it really the middle of March already?!
Here’s what life looks like for us right now…
M-W-F Violet and I are together. She’s 5 1/2 and starts Kindergarten this fall. (seriously cannot wait! I’m excited for her and she will totally love having somewhere to go and kids to play with everyday). Usually on these days, she’s just my shadow. I try not to schedule shoots and meetings, but if I do have something scheduled, she’s pretty go about following along and having a little screen time. I’m huge into volunteering and have several irons in the fire at all times: Wahoo Chamber, Wahoo 150 steering committee vendor coordinator, and new President of P.E.O. Also shooting a ton of video lately for a couple community projects. I love love love my job and it honestly rarely feels like ‘work.’ And I was so honored a couple weeks ago to receive the Macel Hoppe Volunteer of the year award! I hope that dragging Violet around to everything I and her Dad are involved in will rub off on her and she will feel inspired to plant herself into her own community someday.
This feeds my soul.
T-Th Violet has preschool all day so those are my office days. I work best in total un-interrupted quiet when I’m working on bookkeeping/editing so I savor these days and am an expert time-blocker. I turn my phone on silent and do power-hours. But, of course, when I’m shooting the louder the music, the better! Working on some fun commercial shoots lately… love partnering with strong women.
The evenings consist of meetings (for Ryan and I) and Violet is slowly getting into some activities… dance, gymnastics, soccer, and her bible study every Wednesday eve (which Ryan and I go to have wings just up the street for date night during that). Weekends are for shooting and family. And my hope is to get to work on our master bedroom renovation again now that traveling has settled down.
And can we talk about supper for a hot sec? My favorite time of day. I love to cook. I find grocery shopping a very happy and relaxing experience. I love menu planning and cooking for other people. We play ‘sad, mad, glad’ at the table (we share with each other what made you sad, mad, glad that day…). For example, here’s mine for today:
What made me sad… our grill is out of commission.
What made me mad… this chef camp I really was saving for is going on hiatus this year. Such a bummer!
What made me glad: I have some delicious butternut curry soup for lunch.
So yup… lots going on! Moving and shaking. And Ryan decided to run for city council to boot. Fun times.
What are you looking forward to this Spring? I’d love to hear!
Here’s the extremely talented and lovely Gabby Goc of Sonnenblume Studios. We met through Professional Photographers of Nebraska and she is just a sweet sweet human.
She shot me and I shot her in my studio.
We let our guards down.
It’s a very strange thing that we photographers have… an aversion to having our own photos taken. It is so important, though… to get on the other side and experience all the things. (I don’t need to tell you… the stress of what to wear, how to smile… where to put your hands?!). Gotta have empathy for your clients! So as much as I hate it, we gotta do it from time to time. And for me, it’s been, like, 3 years since I did it. So yeah. I was due. You’ll see me trickle what Gabby shot on social media. But for now, here’s a visual eye snack explosion of the hottie pie, Gabby.
When was your last set of headshots? If you can’t remember, maybe we should chat…
10 of us moms (who have 24 children under the age of 11 between us) found a cheap flight to warmer weather and split a huge air b&b. Last weekend was magical! Until I got the strep, that is…
We hit up Wal Mart as soon as we landed to get our food + drinks… I was in my total happy place having the privilege to meal plan and cook for us all. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m kind of good at it. Lots of practice I guess! I got our bill to be just $50 per person for all our meals AND alcohol for 3 days. Not too shabby!
The pool was a perfect 91 degrees. And the house? Perfect kitchen to fit a lot of moving bodies with no one feeling cramped.
we LOVED having bikes to ride! The beach was just a quick 10 minute ride away.
…and good thing we had bikes, too. 2/10 moms had torn ACL’s from playing 3 on 3 volleyball and surgery scheduled for right when we got back to Nebraska.
Florida gulf sand is sooooo soft. And it was hilarious that the second we set foot on the shore, everyone immediately started collecting shells for their children.
Have you ever been to Naples? or where is on your bucket list to go with your best girlfriends? Would love to make this trip annual!