Happy Easter

About two weeks ago we attempted to do a photo-shoot to be used in some marketing material for the 2 Hip Chics Boutique.
Shelly started getting some of her new shipments in and these cute little aprons and matching hot pad sets immediately jumped out at us.
They are absolutely adorable..... made of vinyl so they clean very easily and the straps are totally adjustable.
Not only do they come sized for children, but for adults as well.


The shoot did not exactly go as planned.... one of our happy bakers came down with a belly ache,
so we bailed on the project. Our other pastry chef did not want to give up so easily and said she wanted to keep the mixer going, so we let her have some fun solo.

The end result... not exactly what I set out for in the beginning, but the pics were too cute not to share.
We staged the pastries to make it look like they were making them and placed them on the pedestals that are also from 2 Hip Chics Boutique. These are the pastries I brought home from the Italian Bakery you saw in my instagram photo, La Dolce Vita.... everything is so incredibly good, but my favorite indulgence is their cannoli.
Remember the no sugar streak?
I broke it that day.... It was St. Patrick's Day and I had to have one of those Cannoli.
I did not regret it.... not one bit. It was worth the cheat!
So much so, that I am headed back there tomorrow and we will be enjoying more of their goodies on Easter Sunday.
We are hosting and look forward to seeing our family and will be praying that the weather holds out and the kids can have an Easter egg hunt outdoors. Looks like some rain is in the forecast, but we are crossing our fingers regardless.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and a Blessed holiday.
~Happy Easter Everyone~

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iPhone Photo Dump

Good Monday Morning!
I thought we might be waking up to snow on the ground, but there is nothing out there....so off to school and work we go.
It has been a while since I downloaded my Instagram stream and shared here, which I like to do from time to time.
Really... if you are not on instagram, you might want to check it out.
It is so much fun and amazing what you can do with a phone camera.

Just a few snippets about the photos above.
At some point very early Saturday morning, Reagan snuck into Sarah's room and this is how I found them when I woke up.
Such a sweet sisterly moment....it totally melted my heart. And the morning light pouring into her room was quite beautiful.....as is the handmade artwork adorned on Sarah's door. Placed (with a lot of tape) by her so everyone would know it was her room:)

You will see various photos of landscape... was hoping that was the last of old man winter,
but it appears more of the white fluffy stuff could be on the way today.
We had Fajitas for dinner last night and the peppers looked so pretty in the sauté pan.
Last weekend we made a pitstop at our favorite Italian Bakery for a few incredible pastries...
you will see more of those later this week. Prepare to drool.
Everyone in the family got hair cuts. The girls and I got trims.... and Rudy made a trip to the groomers.
I snapped this shot of him under the bed in the dark(hence the grain) It took a little coaxing to get him out.... he thought he was going to the Vet, so he wasn't budging. Will have to share an after picture later this week. He does not even look like the same dog.

Okay, gotta get this show on the road and wake some sleepy heads.... but maybe we will all be coming home early?
Wouldn't that be great on Monday!!

Have a fabulous week friends~

Be Still My Heart

This a very special precious little one.
He is one of my cousins...a very distant one, but all the same, he is the newest member of our family.
I did this photoshoot back in January at my cousin's house and it was certainly an event.
Both sides of the family came over to participate and jump in a few shots with their beautiful grand baby.



My cousin Vicki was so gracious about letting "move in" with all of my gear and totally take over and rearrange her living room to make it my mini studio for the afternoon. Even though I was armed with many different baby blankets, hats, and props.... what we settled on was something that Vicki already had in her possession and was a very sentimental item.

It was an afghan that her Mother made.
Unfortunately, Aunt Lulu(that is what we called her) is no longer here to meet her Great Grandson, but I know that she was smiling down on us that day while Benjamin snuggled up and fell asleep on the blanket she made with her very own hands many years prior.

Thank you Vicki and Joe for opening your home and allowing me the pleasure of photographing the family's newest blessing.
You know I have been sitting on pins and needles waiting to share the photos, and now that the baby announcements have been circulated, I knew it was safe to hit the publish button:)

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Berry Delicious

Have you ever tried a Starfruit?
When Pat and I were on our honeymoon in St. Lucia, they had it everywhere.
It has the consistency of an apple and tastes more tart than sweet.
When shopping this week, I saw our grocery store carried them....had never seen them in the produce section,
so I decided to pick up a few to take home.

Reags was the only one brave enough to try it and she did in fact like it....then again, there is not much that child doesn't like when it comes to food. The starfruit went perfectly with our berries and yogurt for our Sunday morning breakfast. Sarah is more of a pancakes and bacon kind of girl.... so she politely passed on the fruit and waited for Daddy to cook her up her favorite breakfast:)

~Happy Monday Everyone~

Super Healing Powers

Today is two weeks from the day that Reags burned her poor little hand and I am just amazed at the progress she has made in just 14 days.
On Monday we stopped wrapping it and just covered it with a special breathable sleeve to protect it.
As of last night, she is free of all bandages and coverings and we are really happy with what we see and so is she:)


Trust me when I say, this is a million times better...
Up until about three days ago, Reagan could not even look at it and cried hysterically every time we unwrapped her hand.
We are in a much much better place now and the sight of it, no longer scares her.
She is brave little super hero:)

TGIF everyone!
Hope you all have a fabulous weekend and to some, a great spring break.
In other breaking news, I officially opened the website, "2 Hip Chics", you might want to stop by and take a look.
www.2hipchics.com

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Someone Lost Her Front Tooth. . .

The girls were putting together a puzzle and all of a sudden I heard Sarah scream, "MY TOOTH"
Reagan went to grab for a piece of the puzzle and bumped her in the mouth and the tooth that has been "wiggly" for some time, just popped out right on the floor in front of them.
I think they were both shocked by it at first because it was so unexpected, but before long, Sarah was giggling and the thought of the money that would be left under her pillow by the toothfairy had her grinning from ear to ear.

There is nothing like a cute toothless grin:)
I remember when Nick lost his front teeth....seems like yesterday, yet it was 10 years ago.

Lost in the Archives... Bedtime Stories

Our nighttime routine has sort of changed a bit and instead of us reading the girls a bedtime story,
Sarah has been the one who wants to do the reading.


Since starting Kindergarten, Sarah has become quite the little reader.
She is very into her books and is always up for the challenge of learning a new word or two.
It makes us proud to see her so interested in reading, writing, and spelling.
When these two are not reading books, they can be found playing teacher!
Guess who is the teacher?
You got it... Miss Sarah:)

I took these photos a few weeks ago and have had them sitting on my computer....
thought today would be a good day to share since my camera has not come out since Alys Beach.
We are headed back to the dr with Reagan to have her hand checked. Hoping to get a good report.

Have a fabulous Friday friends!
xoxo

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Catching Up and More Savvy Photos

I don't even know where to begin with all that has transpired since my last post.
Reags had a little accident Friday evening while we were at my parents house that landed us in the ER around 8:30pm.
Long story short, she suffered a second degree burn on her hand.
They took great care of her in the ER... cleaned it, put medicine on it, bandaged her up, and sent us home.
I was given instructions to follow up with our pediatrician on Monday morning and by Sunday evening, she had started with a fever.
The minute the doctor's office opened, I called to make an appt.
Once we were there, they said they did not want to check the wound for fear of infection and they sent us to the hospital's burn center.
Everyone was very concerned about her high fever, but upon checking under her bandage, there was no sign of infection...thank heavens.
They told us it could just be a reaction to the burn, sort of like shock....since her body is so small.
While at the pediatrician's office, they checked her ears, throat, and listened to her lungs, just to make sure that the fever was not being caused by something else.

Here we are Wednesday night and the poor thing is still battling this fever.
I am pretty convinced she has some sort of viral thing running through her system.
The timing is just coincidental and for all I know, she could have picked this up while waiting in the ER Friday night.

Anyway, we have not gone too far from home since this all happened and obviously she is not going to school this week.
I just hope she is feeling back to her happy go lucky little self here soon.
It is not fun watching her like this and those bandage changes are tough on her....and on me.
Friday morning we head back to the Burn center at the hospital so they can re evaluate her hand and make sure we are still heading in the right direction.

I have so many things on my to do list but everything has pretty much taken a backseat.

There is a new website coming here in the next week or two at most.(that is why you see the 2 Hip Chics watermark)
A few months ago I started a 2 Hip Chics website but have never liked it enough to get it out of the draft mode.
After attending the Savvy Workshop, I came home inspired ready to get back at it and so I can get that baby up and running.
I will be unveiling it very soon. Things are finally coming along...finally.

I don't have any new photos of the girls to share, but I did finish up more of the workshop photos.
We had some incredibly beautiful models to work with.... and we were not going to let a little rain get in our way!










Aren't they so beautiful?
We were so lucky to have these wonderful and outgoing models all weekend.

They were not the only ones that had to step in front of the camera though...
All of us who attended the workshop had our photos taken too.

That is right, I actually had to put my camera down and let someone else photograph me.
(Eeeek.... I am much more comfortable behind the lens)



Thank you to the fabulous and super talented Kara May for taking my head shots.
I typically hate having my photo taken and am very self critical, but she worked some serious magic behind the camera and probably a little photoshop magic too because I am not sure this is exactly what I see when I look in the mirror, but I love the photos and will proudly display them where I usually post the photos of me with the camera in front of my face:)

Well, I think that was quite an update and enough for one post.
Thanks to everyone who has been checking in on Reags.
We have certainly appreciated the well wishes and the prayers that were sent her way.

Our Savvy Weekend

I am just getting my feet back underneath my from our fun and fabulous weekend in Alys Beach at the Savvy Workshop!
It was a jam packed trip filled with lots of valuable information and I left feeling completely inspired and rejuvenated.
The accommodations were top notch.... I felt like we were living in the lap of luxury for a few days.
Marsha spoiled all of us and left no detail unturned.
She escorted us to our rooms upon arrival and our swag bags were on our beds waiting for us.
Lots of great goodies in there :)

The speakers all knocked it out of the park with their presentations.
It was wonderful to hear how they approach the marketplace and they all shared what led them to be the successful photographers they are today. Each one of them shared the do's and don'ts they learned along the way.

We had two photoshoots scheduled with some super gorgeous models that live in the area.
Unfortunately the weather was not as cooperative as we would have liked and we never made it to the beach for photos.
All of our shoots were done in our houses or on the patios......
and a few times we dodged the raindrops and made it out to the courtyards to snap a couple.

In addition to all of that, our talented speakers, took head shots of all of us so we could use them for our websites.
I will share those when we get them. I was so excited, not only did I get head shots taken, everyone there knew the special bond and friendship that Marla and I share, so they took beautiful photos of the two of us together as well. I am so glad that Marla came along with me.... the trip would not have been the same without her.

Our time together seemed to fly by and before we knew it, we were all saying goodbye.
I hated to leave Marla and my new friends, but hope that one day we will all get to meet again.
There is already rumor of a Savvy Retreat for all attendees..... hope that is more than a rumor:)

When I arrived home, I had to jump right back into work mode which left me little time to edit or play with the photos.
Last night I edited just a few of these little cutie pies.
There are many more to come...






Thank you Marsha and the rest of the Savvy team for a wonderful weekend full of photography talk and friendship.
I am so thankful I was part of it. I also want to give a special shout out to my sister in law, Mary Pat who came to town and stayed with my husband and the kids to help him hold down the fort while I was gone. It definitely gave me peace of mind to know that there was an extra set of hands at home to help out. Everyone was sad to see you leave yesterday.... we hope you will come back to visit again soon.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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