Last month I heard about Katie Roth and her family from one of my clients. In early March, Katie was experiencing severe stomach pains and bleeding and masses of cancer were found in her intestines. Katie had major surgeries to remove this cancer — all without medical insurance. On April 29, 2008, Katie passed away, leaving behind a beautiful young family. Katie had just recently had a baby boy. From everyone who has spoken about Katie to me, I can tell that Katie was a kind and caring person . . . an angel on earth. She is adored and cherished by so many people.

To find out more about her story and to contribute to the Katie Roth Foundation, please visit: www.caringbridge.org/visit/katieroth

I know her family appreciates your prayers and support.

Today is one of those days where I have every intention of getting a bunch of work done, but instead I have to sit at my computer and clean up messes. Today, I am cleaning up my e-mail inbox because the address “info@shawnakstudio.com” has been “spoofed.” I’m annoyed to say the least. I get extremely irritated with mass forwarded emails (spam) that tell me useless bits of information like that my shampoo is going to give me cancer or that I am going to have a heart attack if I drink cold water before going to bed. I KNOW that Microsoft has no intention of sending me $50 and I know that my salvation depends very little on whether or not I forward my emails to 10 of my closest friends!!! But the result of all of this garbage is that it now appears that some spammer has gotten a hold of my email address and making it appear as if “info@shawnakstudio.com” is sending out offers for some seriously pornographic material. I found this out because when the messages were sent to people with full mailboxes or good anti-spam software installed, I personally received the automatic reply in MY inbox. Imagine my horror!

I have now researched this topic and apparently there is very little I can do about it at this point. They have my email address. Hopefully they will just move on to someone else’s address soon.

In the meantime, if you do happen to receive spam from my address . . . please, please know that it wasn’t from me!!!!!!!!

Thanks!

-shawna K

Well, I think you can tell from all that I’ve been posting lately that I’ve been VERY busy. I haven’t even gotten to the pix of my cousin’s triathlon yet . . . or to posting Michelle & Marc’s e-session. It’s just been a whirlwind. But I had some things to share, so I thought I’d write. I’ll be posting more images tonight.

In twinland, Tyler is taking over as reigning champion of the Miss Perfect competition. [I’m totally kidding of course, because it is my hope that NONE of my children will be perfect — I’ve never met a “perfect” person that came across as loveable and likeable . . . so . . . humanly IMperfection it is!]. But we did always joke that Jordyn was Miss Perfect when she was born. Rarely ever fussed, never spat up, never leaked in her diaper . . . all of those sorts of “perfect” baby things. Tyler, OTOH, was fussy, rarely slept, and spit up all the time. Since she was so different from Miss J, Miss J just got labeled Miss Perfect. haha! WELLL . . . . Little Miss Can’t Do Wrong has turned into trouble, trouble! She has figured out how to climb out of her exersaucer/bouncy things–BOTH of them. She has figured out how to climb out of her swing! She hits. She steals toys. She even figured out how to climb over the gates, so we had to go buy new gates last week. She has really turned into a lot of work all of a sudden! She’s also growing molars like mad.

My little Tyler has just been darling . . . sleeping like she’s supposed to, eating really well, taking naps. She doesn’t fuss as much as she used to. She doesn’t try to escape every single “safe” place we try to put her. And lately she’s just been FUNNY. She dances like crazy, laughs, makes lion sounds. This whole stage is so much fun! Not that Jordyn’s not fun . . . she actually sings for a LONG time and she giggles with this belly laugh that is hysterical. I could listen to the two of them giggle all day.

In Devynland, everything is about reading and taking care of the babies. She wants to do everything for me: she makes their food, she wants to feed them. Unfortunately, she’s also taken to picking them up, which is STRICTLY forbidden around here. It’s a constant battle. But the twins do think she’s the cat’s meow, so it’s all good. Devyn read her second story (something about Dan and Pat at bat — it’s a baseball one), and she’s SUPER proud of her reading skilz. We are too. Beyond proud. It’s so fun to watch them grow. I wish I didn’t get sad about it, though. I am genuinely happy for them and I want to grow and do their best . . . but man, it goes so fast! I think my clients who have their children photographed regularly REALLY and TRULY understand this. Childhood is so fleeting.

Oh, I should mention, too, that Tyler is getting her surgery next month. This is going to be extremely difficult for me emotionally, because she’s so tiny and I’m so nervous about it. But I know it will ultimately be the best thing for her kidney problems, so we’re forging ahead.

In sans Diet Coke-ville, things are going REALLY well. It’s been over 2 weeks now and I’ve stopped craving the stuff entirely. I think I mentioned that I tried it once and the stuff tasted nasty, so I’m pretty sure I’m over it. Don’t they say it takes 21 days to break a habit? Yeah, well, I’m fairly certain I won’t have any problems with it between now and Friday, my 21-day point. It’s all good.

In studio news, I just got in the most DELICIOUS line of frames. I am so amazingly excited about them. The corner moulding is here, so as soon as I get my first few frames in, I will photograph them and post them to share with everyone. They are gorgeous. This is the first time I’ve offered in-studio framing, so I’m sure I’ll have some kinks to work out, but I think this going to be so beneficial for everyone in the long run. I love delivering the complete product . . . that way my clients don’t have to worry about finding frames or taking their images to a frame shop. Everything will just be ready to hang!

I also have some new and exciting changes coming to the wedding side of my business. Pretty soon I will be featuring new work, a new website, and some exciting things for brides and grooms in terms of album options and services. It’s going to be sooooooooo fun! Stay tuned!

Well, my to-do list is staring me in the face and I think there are two little mouths begging for food. I better get to it!

-shawna K

I have recently had the opportunity to photograph “B” for the second time. She’s a drop-dead gorgeous actress and singer with just this amazing personality that lights up a room the moment she walks in it. I know this youing woman is going to go FAR, very far, in life. I last photographed her when she was just entering high school and we had so much fun. When I was contacted to photograph her again, I was soooooo excited for the opportunity. I have only just scratched the surface of processing her images, but I thought I’d share a sneak peek. I know there will be more to come.

We’re having quite a few “firsts” this weekend . . . first Devyn’s softball game and then later in the afternoon we went to my nephew’s very first race! It was sooooo cute!

A warm-up lap:

Cruisin’!

Taking the lead:

Ahead of the pack:

Panning is not my forte!

Super happy to see all of his adoring fans!

It’s very hard to believe sometimes that these two are first cousins . . . haha!

Devyn had her very first softball game today. It was an early call to get all 5 of us down to the field, so Mike took Devyn on ahead and I met up later with the twins. I was bummed because I missed Devyn’s first run around the bases. Apparently Devyn likes to take a few shortcuts along the way and runs approximately 4 whole feet in front of the bases! Woops! They told her to touch home plate, so she reached down and touched it with her hand! haha!

I can’t share one of the cute images of the catcher tagging her at home because, as you know, I only post images of children whose parents have given me permission to post their likeness on the internet. But here are some really fun ones that I can share.

Devyn getting instructions from Coach Mike:

Waiting to bat. Her little hands still look so baby-ish. It’s so cute!

Getting some batting tips:

Looking for reassurance during warm-up:

At bat:

Running home:

Good job Devyn!!!!

Getting some instructions . . . something to the effect of how you’re not really supposed to run in a small circle inside the baseball diamond . . . ya kind of have to tag up!!! haha!

So cute and so much fun!!!!

I just had to post some pictures of one of Marianne and Regan’s wedding album. I think this one is going to go down as one of my all-time favorites. It’s one that I designed in the weird hours of the night when I had this vision that I had to get on “paper,” and couldn’t sleep. I wanted everything to be very clean and symmetrical and let the colors and images speak for themselves. I knew, too, that it was going to be an album with “soft” pages, printed in fine art paper, so the colors are deeply saturated and intense. I just love the way it turned out!

The cover is a full-photo cover.

It opens gracefully and lays nearly completely flat.

The pages are thinner than a lot of albums, but still have significant weight and richness to them:

The cover image wraps all the way around the entire book:

One of my favorite album spreads. You can see how rich the printing is in this album.

There is a crease down the center of this page that is practically invisible.

The cover layout:

The page layouts:

If you are interested in this type of album for your wedding or portrait session, please give the studio a call at (619) 861-3630 or email me at shawna@shawnakstudio.com. If you order this album by April 30, 2008, you can receive 20% off the regular price of this album!

-shawna K

As I sit here uploading photographs to be printed at the lab (and babysitting my online connections), I have been thinking about the past couple of days. My oldest, Devyn, is learning how to read. Mind you, she has been asking me to teach her to read for at least the past 8 months . . . but she is one of those children where if something is difficult and she doesn’t do it “right” the first time, she gets frustrated and walks away from it. Hmmmm . . . sounds like someone else I know! Anyways, over time, she has started to let me work with her a little bit on stringing words together. They do the “ZooPhonics” method at her preschool, so she knows all of her letters and what sounds they make, she’s just had difficulty combining the letters into words.

Well, yesterday she read her very first story for the very first time!!!! Yay!!! The story goes like this:

Cat.
Rat.
Cat sat.
Rat sat.
Cat sat, sat, sat.
Rat sat, sat, sat.
Fat, fat cat.
Fat, fat rat.

Now she has it memorized, though, so it’s not so much reading. But she is learning to sound out words on her own and today she was REALLY trying to sound them out without my help.

Amidst the excitement of her reading, we did have some very funny moments. I was going through the book and reading at all the “__an” words out loud: “an, man, can, tan, fan . . . ” When Devyn said, “Oooooh! I have one!!!” “What?” “Toilet!”

I have no idea where that came from, but in her defense, I did say man, can, and fan . . . so naturally that must mean toilet! LOL!

It is cute, too, because she got a sticker for reading her first story. She was so excited. I told her that she could get another sticker if she read another story and she said, “Nah . . . I don’t want a sticker, I just want to read.” Awwww . . . . how cute is THAT?

My little girl is growing up. WAH!

-shawna K

P.S. It has been well over a week since I had a Diet Coke . . . almost 2 weeks, in fact, so I thought I’d take a tiny sip of Mike’s Diet Coke to see if tastes as good as I thought it would. EW! GROSS! That was NASTY! I guess I’m over it. It tasted really, really gross.

I haven’t had a Diet Coke since Friday night at about 11 pm. It is now Wednesday at 2:00.

I’m doing fine. Really only grouchy about it on Monday. And I’ve had a lot more water than I probably ever drink, so that’s a good thing.

I can’t say that it’s helped my headaches any, though. I was kind of hoping that they’d go away, but no. Oh well!

Thank you all for your outpouring of love and support.

-shawna K