Behind Amy's Lens

Welcome Baby C!

This family was just wonderful! I really enjoyed talking with mom and dad. Big Brother H was a BLAST and just as cute as can be. And then of course, beautiful Baby Girl C. Ah, so sweet! I look forward to showing you the rest!

Helen's Butterfly

I don't post a lot about what my daughter Helen is up to, but this I just have to share.

Helen received a bug vacuum and bug habitat for her 4th birthday from her Uncle Steve. Helen loves to collect bugs. A few weeks ago Helen found two monarch caterpillars in our yard and decided to keep them. Every other day we would go out to our hedge and pick fresh milkweed leaves for the caterpillars. It was really neat to watch them eat, and they ate a lot! On September 10th Helen's largest caterpillar began to turn into a chrysallis. It attached itself to the top of her bug habitat and formed a J.

By the next morning it was inside the chrysallis.

    

Then this morning we woke up to find this.

Around noon the butterfly came out of the chrysallis.

 

Then by about 2pm it was getting ready to fly. It opened and closed it wings for a while. We were finally able to find out if Helen's butterfly was male or female - it's a boy! You can tell because males have the two little black dots on the bottom set of wings. Also there are some liquid droplets just below the butterfly in this image - that is from its wings.

 

So it flew around a bit, but really was not very good at flying yet. It also did a lot of resting. Helen held the butterfly on her hand for at least a half an hour.

And then she let the butterfly hang out on the sunflower she helped grow.

Finally she decided to leave it on some flowers.

 

Strange Folk Festival Special

So here is my deal for the Strange Folk Arts Festival...

Book a session with me on Saturday at the festival and you will receive a complimentary 5x5 mini book with images from your session. This is a smaller version of the beautiful coffee table book that I offer. I'll have the 10x10 on display at the show.

Your session fee is due upon booking.

See you there!

If you can't watch...Tivo it at 3!

Helen and I are going to be at the window today on Show Me St. Louis on Channel 5. We are joining Autumn the fabulous organizer of the Strange Folk Art Festival to promote this excellent event.

Tomorrow I will be announcing my fabulous Strange Folk special - check back here!

Congratulations M Family!

These 3 cuties are the winners of my September Cover Contest!

Thanks for voting!

The September Cover Contest... (it's about time!)

Goodness I have been busy and am rather late in posting this month's cover contest. But here it is! The poll is on the side of my blog - if you reading this through a blog reader or email you will have to actually go to my blog to vote. The poll will be open through Tuesday the 18th.

Happy Voting!

Strange Folk Festival

I am very excited to participate in O'Fallon's Strange Folk Festival. It is sure to be a great event! There will be vendors displaying their awesome goods from all over the country (including yours truly!). The Discovery School will be doing a Children's Art Exhibit. You can check out the Artist Trading Card swap, participate in The Ceiling Project, win cool stuff, be a part of the American Red Cross blood drive, enjoy tasty food and even tastier music. Of course you can come say Hi to me and tell everyone that you see there how awesome my portrait sessions are :)

Here are the details: Saturday Sept. 22nd from 10am - 6pm at the O'Fallon Community Park. Check out the website at http://www.strangefolkfestival.com/

Look at this sweet baby!

I don't know if I have ever seen a big sister so totally in love with her new baby sister before. Big Sister M was so much help setting up for our session and was all about giving Baby M lots of love and kisses. Baby M was just as fabulous - she went right along with everything I suggested we try and she even fell asleep at the end. There are so many shots that I love from this session! Here are just a few...

Family

I really enjoyed meeting this family. They were in town visiting cousins (also clients of mine) and spent some of their time with me. I hope you guys got to spend the rest of your day at the zoo and had a safe ride home!

Senior Rep

Meet K. She is one of my senior reps for this year! We went to some great spots for her session. Here area  few of my favorites...