AJ is here!

Missing a leap year birthday by 4 hours, Andrew James ("AJ") Skoog was born on 2-28-08 at 8:03 pm. Jen went into labor early that afternoon, and after a few painful contractions, followed by some wonderful drugs and a fairly easy delivery, we got to meet AJ! And I was there for the whole thing! For those of you who don't me that well, I am very weak stomached - I can't handle ANYTHING when it comes to icky medical stuff. Well, this is the second birth that I've been a part of, and both times the experience was so beautiful and moving, that I never flinched over the icky medical stuff. Bringing a life into this world is such an amazing and beautiful miracle, and we have God to praise for His beautiful workmanship of creating little AJ and bringing him to us! We are so honored to welcome this little guy into our family! Matthew and I now have officially 8 nieces and nephews, and love each one of them tremendously.

Anyways, so the two births that I have witnessed, both went off without a hitch. Both my sister and Jen made the whole thing look totally easy - I'm only assuming that all births are this quick and painless. (Hey, let me stay in this naive place of happiness - it makes me feel better!)

I took plenty of pictures from both the birth, and the second day, when big sister Hailey got to meet her new baby brother. You can see his whole slideshow with most of my favorites here.

Day 1: The Birth

a lot of cell phone minutes were used to tell everyone the good news....

Canvas Print Sale!!!

Hey guys! I just thought I'd let you know that through March 4, any 24x30 or larger canvas gallery wraps are 25% off!! And for the entire month of March, ANY size canvas gallery wrap is 10% off!

Why am I doing this? Because I absolutely LOVE my gallery wraps and want everyone to have one for their own home!! To see what these are, I will post some pictures for you drool over. (I've included a sample from their website in the meantime - but I will take some pictures of my canvases as well). They are your pictures beautifully printed on canvas and wrapped around a 1.5" think board that hangs directly on your wall...no need for a frame! I already have 3 myself, and want more! So if you are interested in purchasing one, just let me know! Also, if you need help picking a picture from your event, I can help you with that as well - I can tell you what works and what doesn't work with a gallery wrap. You can also do custom sizes.

Trust me, you won't be disappointed!

Baby Skoog #2

After Jen (Matthew's sister) started having contractions last week (2 weeks before her due date), we decided it might be a good idea to go ahead and do her pregnancy pictures while she was still pregnant! So at the last minute, I was able to photograph her belly before the arrival of baby Skoog #2! You can see the slideshow here. And here are some of my favorites...

Well, it turned out the contractions were a false alarm, since he still hasn't arrived, but will any day now! We are so excited to meet our little nephew, making Matthew and I an aunt and uncle for the 8th time! And even more exciting is that Jen wants me to be present at the birth to photograph the occasion! I'm very excited! I've been driving around with my camera in my car, on call, so that should she go into labor, I can head straight to the hospital, camera in hand! So stay tuned for more pictures of baby Skoogy in the next week or so!

EDIT: Ok, so I wrote this post earlier in the day, but didn't post it to the blog yet...baby boy Skoog didn't give me any time! He was born today, 2/28/08 at 8:03 pm. Pictures of the birth to come soon!! Stay tuned!

andrew and darci

Last weekend, I spent a couple hours in Greensburg, IN with Andrew and Darci to shoot their engagement pictures. The weather wasn't cooperating early in the day, but thankfully it all cleared up just in time for us to get some great pictures! Darci was a trooper, putting up with some huge gusts of winds during the shoot. The combination of storm clouds and a little bit of sun made for some awesome pictures! This was my first time shooting on a farm, and I could have stayed there all day with the two of them! They were so great and such a cute couple - I am very excited about doing their wedding in July! I have picked just a few of my favorites from this shoot and you can see their slide show here.




















Andrew and Darci, thank you so much for letting me come out to do your engagement pictures! I hope you enjoy your pictures!