Sunflare, a waterfall

and a pretty girl :)
more sneak peaks of this one coming too!

Chris (Senior pic)

I have been swamped this week, so bare with me! Keep checking back for more sneak peaks!
This is Chris. He was SO cooperative, he even agreed to lay on a picnic table and pose the way the girl before him did, till I told him I was just kidding;) haha. Loved working with you Chris! You made my job easy:)

Homecoming sneak peak

This is my "little" cousin Kaleb and his homecoming date. Kaleb was the ring bearer in my wedding when he was like 3, so it makes me feel REALLY old to take pics of him going to homecoming! Aren't they cute though?

So I lied...

I FINALLY finished editing the entire set of Aleigha's pictures and I can't stop with the last image I put up yesterday. I have just a couple more I can't help but share here. This is really it though.
I'll get all of these on a CD for you guys ASAP and put it in the mail! If you need anything else, let me know :)
Thanks again for this opportunity. Aleigha is amazing! So glad I got to meet her.





So sweet! Lovin mama


love how Katie is looking down at little sis :)


And the whole fam... :)

The rest of Aleigha's story ...

Aleigha's dad sent me an update from last November till now of Aleigha's story.

In November 07 Aleigha relapsed. Her Drs. told us that this time the cancer would take her. That hit us hard, but Aleigha she looked at her Dr. and told him he didnt know what he was talking about, and preceded to tell him she would beat it this time too. Aleigha was put on an experimental clinical trial in Nov. 07. She goes to Riley ever 21 days for one day to start each round of chemo. She has 3 chemo meds to take. The first one is only on the first day. She gets that thru her PIC line and then the other are for 5 days and they are oral chemos. Day one is at Riley and days 2 thru 5 are at home. She cant stand the taste of them but takes them anyway. Then once a week we go to Lutheran Hospital here in Fort Wayne for lab work and check ups.
It was very hard to hear that the cancer would eventually take her. We had long talks and decided to live with no regrets. That is to do what ever Aleigha wants to do. That way we never have the regrets of not doing something. We also let everyone know that Aleigha was in charge and we will fight this with her as long as she is able.
The scans started to show small shrinkage in each of the three hot spots. Then in June the scans stayed the same no changes. That was good that they stopped growing and are now stable. In August 08 we went to teh PPB family get together and conference in Bloomington Minnesota and met other PPB families and the top Drs. in the study and treatment of PPB. Aleigha is patient 203 in the world and now there are only 254 cases in the world. We learned both good and bad news, and made connections with the other families and we keep in touch with them. The bad news that we leaarned was that no one with stage 3 PPB has survived after relapsing. We learned that our Drs. are doing an awesome job, and we believe Aleigha will survive this and pave the way for others to beat it too. The trial we are on ends in November 08. We will discuss with her Drs. what the next best coarse will be and continue on that path.
Aleigha has been just amazing through all of this and has maintained a positive strong attitude that she will win. Aleigha is our Hero and has many followers on her web-site that encourage her and the rest of the family to fight on. Thanks go out to God, Aleighas Power of Pink, and all thoughs who pray for her.

Daddy of the Pink Princess


I'll leave you with that and this final image from my photo shoot with Aleigha. I just had her look out the window, but the way she's looking up in this one almost looks like she's having her own conversation with God while I'm snapping away. I love it.

For those of you who are following this blog and Aleigha's story, I encourage you to keep visiting her site and leave her a message of encouragement now and then. After meeting this little girl, I know if anyone can beat this, she will :)

More Aleigha! In her princess attire;)

I brought along this Cinderella costume just in case Aleigha might want to wear it for some pics. She IS a princess after all... ;) She did (obviously) decide to wear it for a bit and she LOVED the shoes that went with it, and I'm not sure they showed in a single pic! Go figure! She kept commenting how comfy they were and you have no idea how hard it was for me not to say "you can have them!" But since the costume is my daughter's (not that it fits her anymore) she wore it on her 5th bday so it's sentimental to her... I figured I'd better show a little restraint. haha. I did at least tell them where we got it. Hopefully they can find some shoes just like them:)





and we definitely had to do some lollipop shots


I know it was killing them to touch each other this long;) haha j/k

One more for today...

Not much diff than the others I posted, but w/out the hat :)

Which one ?

I like parts about all 3 of these... I can't decide which is my fave. Not that it matters, they'll get them all! This one really speaks to me. I think there's a lot of symbolism here.

Aleigha in a tutu

If you go back a few posts to the C family photos, you'll see the awesome woman who made this tutu for me! I LOVE it. Aleigha was my first 'model' and she looked absolutely beautiful in it. Can't wait to use it for more sessions!

Taking a break for a moment just to share...

This isn't a client picture, it's not even a GOOD picture... at least not technically speaking. I just happened to have my camera out and was playing around with my new flash the other night when I saw this moment and couldn't let it get by. Every time I look at this picture, I tear up a bit because I know that these moments are about to get put on hold... I know the next time I get photos like this, my little baby is going to be a big 3 year old. My middle son will be 10 and my daughter will be 11 and a half. It's with a heavy heart that I tell those of you who don't know, my husband is leaving for Iraq again very soon. We're looking at another 18 month deployment when you count all the training beforehand. So even though this isn't the best photo I've ever taken, I'll treasure it every day for the next year and a half, and I wanted to share it with all of you :)

Meeting Aleigha... and 3 more pictures

As most of you know, I JUST joined The Littlest Heroes project last week. The day I sent in my application I got an email back asking me if I could do this session. No, "you're accepted, here's the rules" just an email with a link to Aleigha's caring bridge site. I was excited, but nervous. I couldn't get ahold of anyone from the team to answer my questions either, so it was all on me. I emailed the family and got things set up to meet at Riley on Friday. I was hoping for outdoor pictures, but of course when I woke up on Friday it was raining, and it continued to do so all afternoon. My nerves got even worse! I just got my external flash a week ago and was nervous to do my first indoor shoot with it so soon. I had practiced a lot though, and got pretty good results, so I knew I'd be ok. It just wasn't the ideal situation. I prayed ALL DAY that the rain would stop before I got there. No such luck. It was pouring bad when we walked out of the parking garage and over to the hospital. We (Makayla went with me to assist)walked in and Tom, Aleigha's dad came over and introduced himself. Super nice guy. I relaxed a bit. Then we went over to meet the rest of the family. Aleigha wasn't standing there just yet, but I met the rest of them. Super nice family. Then Makayla and I went to check out the Ronald McDonald house in the hospital where they said we could do the pictures. It looked like it'd work pretty well, but I was dying to go out in the courtyard right outside it. Too bad it was still raining... ha.
So we went back to where the family was and this time Aleigha was standing there. She wouldn't even look at me when her dad introduced me. Uh ohhh. Nervous again! Then I gave her the build a bear that the kids made for her. That seemed to help a bit. She went and showed it off some while her mom was getting her clothes. We all went back to the Ronald McDonald house and the girls went to change. I asked if it was ok if I opened the doors to let in a bit more natural light and whatta ya know, the rain STOPPED! YAY! We got to do the entire session outside like I'd hoped! So anyway, once she changed into her first outfit, Aleigha was not the shy little girl I met in the lobby. She was so cute and sweet and fun. She had a blast changing into all her cute little clothes, and I had just as much fun taking pictures of her. It was an amazing experience to hang out with their family and do these pics. All of them were great. The older girls were super cooperative and gorgeous as well!
As you can see, we are STILL on the first outfit in these pictures. *I've edited more than 5 total. I'm not THAT slow,haha* but these are my faves and there are lots of similar pictures in the same poses, so I'm picking and choosing what to share right now.
Enough of me, here's more of Little Miss Aleigha :)









This is one of my absolute faves so far. LOVE IT.



From the left... Katie, Aleigha with her new build a bear, and Jessie. Such pretty girls!

Aleigha's story... and another picture :)

Like I said, my blog is going to cover Aleigha over the next several days. I won't put ALL of her photos we took on here, but I will put them all in a gallery and link to it when they are all done. I will, however, be putting up a few at a time here as I get through them. I realized this afternoon as I was pulling them off of my camera card that this is going to take awhile! I got a LOT of pictures!
I'm going to paste the story that Aleigha's parents emailed me here today along with another picture and a link to her caring bridge site. Please take some time to read through some of it. Aleigha has overcome a lot. She's such a strong little girl, but she could still use everyone's prayers:)
The next time I post I'll add more than one picture at a time and I'll tell you more about meeting with her myself.
Anyway, enough rambling from me... Here's Aleigha's story from her parents. Her newest picture will be at the end:)


www.caringbridge.org/visit/aleighasweet


"I may have cancer BUT cancer DOES NOT have ME!"
11/5/07- We are once again in the battle to save my daughter the cancer is back



7/23/02 is when our journey with Aleigha began.. She was born at Parkview Whitley 4 weeks early. She had an abnormal heart beat and she did not pass the hearing test. As soon as the heart dr could get us in we were there the same with the ENT.. The heart dr did a dopler on her heart and the PDA had closed on its own (god answered our prayers) the ENT went in and removed some wax covering her ear drum and she could hear(another answered prayer) at 8 months old (3/03) Aleigha contracted Invasive Group A Strep.. and was life~line to Saint Vincents Childrens Hospital in Indianapolis after dancing in the light for 4.5 weeks god answered yet another prayer Aleigha came back and was a normal child, she only had 5% chance of making it BUT she DID..

After all that Aleigha was a normal little girl, except for knowing she was a princess.. After almost losing her our entire family and friends ALWAYS treated her as though she really was one.

On Aug. 11 she told her dad and I that she needed to see her lung dr. her chest hurt, so we called him, we also called his wife who is her ped. they right away sent us to Parkview to make sure she didnt have phemomia.. she had been coughing but a child with asthma coughs alot and that is what we all thought it was the week before.
Tom took her right up to Parkview where our lives changed forever! The CT scan showed it wasnt what the Drs had thought at all it was worse, much worse, it was a mass about the size of a baseball sitting on her lung. Once again her wonderful drs had to send her out to get the proper treatment.. the Lutheran Childens Critical Care Unit came to Parkview and took Aleigha down to Riley Childrens Hospital.. where we waited 24 hrs for another CT scan. The scan showed the tumor had grown and now took up 2/3 of the chest compressing every organ down and to the left. The bioposy showed it was Rabdomyoscarmo.. we agreed to have it sent off to make sure, it was nothing more, Later that same night 8/15/06 Aleigha was sent to ICU to be intabated, it seems that her 2 treatments of radiation, and hr 1 dose of chemo shurnk the tumor enough to let it slip and go over her tracha. Aleigha had already told Dr. Pradhan "I am a supergirl princess with the power of pink so I dont need your stupid medications." so our power besides prayer became PINK!

On 8/18/06 we were informed that her tumor was actually PleuroPulmonary Blastoma ( a rare childhood lung cancer) we were shocked our next plan of action help find a cure and to cure Aleigha. Aleigha was put on 11 different medication to keep her asleep and she fought them off, her nurses never left for the day NOT tired, after several rounds of chemo Aleigha was allowed to wake up.. the first thing she wanted was a potty chair, (9/28/06)

We were able to do surgery to remove 98-99% of her tumor, she has so far had 31 rounds of radiation and 6 courses of chemo.
and still we know she will make it with the positive prayers ( we do know god hears them shes proof) and her POWER of PINK.

Please take time to read our journals life aint always beautiful but its a beautiful ride!! and sign her guestbook she love its!


PET SCAN-8/9/07 100% cancer free still!!! Spots improving on spine.. Spot on lung no change!! Praise God!

PET SCAN-5/1/07 100% CLEAR!! PRAISE God and Pink Power
Currently Aleigha is in remission with (PPB)PleuroPulmonary Blastoma We know that with the positive power of prayer and Power of Pink she will WIN forever! Please join us on our journey

Aleigha

This little princess is going to take up a few posts over the next few days on this blog. She was my first photo session for the littlest heroes and I totally fell in love! I plan on featuring her story here in the next couple of days once I get all of her photos from our session edited, but I wanted to quickly put a sneak peak up for her family and my readers to view. I can not wait to get through these. She had some adorable little outfits and such a fun little personality.
Thank you guys so much for allowing me to photograph your little princess! It was wonderful meeting all of you!

Sharing a few for fun...

Yesterday my daughter's friend wanted to do some pics, so we all went for a walk and took some silly and some good ones! Thought I'd share a few of my faves...

Heh


I love it when kids WANT their pic taken and they just pose however they want... fun stuff :)

They're sisters... what else can I say ? haha

She was being silly, but I love the way this turned out...

Talking about boys, no doubt about it...

Aren't they cute?

Beautiful isn't she?

Senior photos in Metamora, IN

Want something different ? I am contemplating a Saturday or Sunday trip to Metamora to do photos. I'd love to take a couple of seniors with me! There will be no extra mileage fee for this one day shoot! I'll take up to 4 seniors! Even better if you're a group of friends, but not necessary! Basic $50.00 session fee (per person) will apply. Please email me if you're interested! If I get any takers, we'll set up a date for sometime in mid to late October. You're free to ride with, follow, or meet up with me there.

Another new banner, another amazing organization..

As you can see, I've added another banner to the top of my page. I just joined the littlest heroes project as an affiliated photographer. My children mean the world to me, and I don't even want to think about one of my little babies being sick. These people are dealing with it every day, and my heart goes out to them. If there's ANY way I can make a difference for them, I'm going to try! I'm excited to be a part of this organization:)


A little about the littlest heroes project...

The Littlest Heroes Project is a non-profit based organization made up of professional photographers nationwide that provide free photo sessions to our nations Littlest Heroes. This is their way of giving back and taking a stand for these children who sometimes feel forgotten because of their illnesses. We are here to let them know that they are heroes to many, and to share their inspirational stories and photos with the world.
If you have a child, or know a child, who suffers from any type of serious illness we are here to help. The Littlest Heroes Project provides you with a complimentary photo shoot for your hero and family. Please read the information on this site and be sure to contact us so we can help pair you up with a photographer from your area. The whole family ... Super Sibs and the Brave Parents are welcome to participate in the session as well!



Eligibility for the project: Any child or young person (Infant-21) that is currently fighting or has fought or suffers from any of the following: Autism, Alopecia, AIDS, Bell's Palsy, Cancer,Chiari Malformation,Cystic Fibrosis, Cerebral Palsy, CHD,Childhood Stroke, Servere Diabetes, Down Syndrome, HIV,Immune System disorders and diseases, Kidney Disease, Muscular Dystrophy, Neurocutaneous Syndromes, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Shaken Baby Syndrome, Sickle Cell Anemia, Spina Bifida, Tay-Sachs Disease
(If your child's illness is not listed and you are interested, please e-mail felicia@littlestheroesproject.org ... This is just a basic list of illnesses of children we have already photographed!)

Ah what the heck... here's one more!

I am getting ready to put your gallery up, but I wanted to add one more to the blog. I think this looks like it should be the front of a birthday card. So cute!

Smash the cake... more for the C family

Almost done editing this session! I had to throw these ones up. This should be it unless I get going through the cake ones and find something even cuter to put up;)
If anyone has a little one turning one, I recommend scheduling one of these sessions! We can do it before their bday and make invites and everything! So much fun:)

Having so much fun with this session...

Here's another :)

A little bit of vintage and texture ... More for the C family

This one will only be available in a square crop, 5x5, 10x10 etc... I really can't decide which I like best, vintage w/ texture, color or black and white... I am posting all 3 here!
1. Vintage with texture



2. Color


3. Black and white