This is the week that leads up to Mother’s Day, and I’ve been so excited for ALL the things we’re going to post on the blog in the next five days! I want this week to be all about celebrating wonderful, beautiful moms! (When I told this to Brian, he said “Really? That will be different for the blog.” Do you hear sarcasm in that because I TOTALLY did!)

For starters, I have two moms I’m going to feature and introduce you all to. They love taking pictures and are both going for it. You’ll be inspired and excited to meet these two ladies, hear their stories, and see what they’re doing.

We are also going to start a special on our products in honor of Mother’s Day! Starting Wednesday morning–lasting till Sunday at 12 midnight PST, all DVDs and 101 Kits will be marked down 30%!! If you are looking for a way to celebrate your wife, mom, sister, friend, or even better, yourself for this Mother’s Day–we hope you enjoy the big discounts that are in honor of moms!

Attention all moms who own the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit!! My business coach and I have been scheming up something special for moms who already have or will be purchasing the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit! I’m SUPER excited about this surprise! This surprise will be a MAJOR added bonus to all of you. That’s all I can say for now…but it’s going to be good! More later this week!

Can you hear how fast I’m typing because of how excited I am about this week’s blog posts!!!

But first, is it OK to start our Big, Blog Party Week with my little guy who turned 4 today! Little Blazey is growing up (hear me cry…). We had a Batman Birthday Party yesterday, and I have to share these photos with you. There are a few so humor me. (I love you little Blazey Batman! luv, mama)

We started the party off with Poison Ivy Sodas! (fyi, Poison Ivy is a villain that causes a lot of trouble for Batman. She is played by Pascaline on most days. ;))

It was given the “finger licking good” award by the kids!

Pascaline and Eva, partners in crime since they were two.

And then Blaze got a letter delivered to him saying that the Riddler

had snuck in to his party and stolen the birthday cake!!!

There was no time to lose! Calling all Junior Dark Knights! The Riddler had left 12 riddles around the house for the kids to solve! Could they solve the riddles and find the birthday cake before it was to late?

Go Blaze Go!!! (and in case you’re wondering, nope, he doesn’t want to cut his hair–and it’s OK with me :))

Wow! There they ALL go at once!

I couldn’t stop laughing!

Thanks to one of our special moms who follow the blog, Addie on the East Coast! You totally got my juices going and the scavenger hunt was the HIT!

One of the clues was taped to the bottom of a Batmobile Pinata. The kids went crazy when the thing busted open and dumped candy and toys all over the grass!

Addie, I owe you one!! Addie is one of my blog readers and has also attended one of our workshops with her sweet teenage daughter. She helped me piece together a major scavenger hunt for the kids. We had 12 riddles in all for them to solve.

In the end, Batman found his birthday cake!

During the hunt for the birthday cake, Uncle Shauni was entertaining my mom and Korean aunt, Komo, with bubble blowing. Brian caught these photos, and I could not stop laughing at Shauni’s face in these shots and especially Komo’s enthusiasm. It’s hilarious! (These are especially for you “Oooh La La Rachel” :))

Starts out like any other bubble blowing afternoon.

And then the excitement builds.

And builds a little more!

And even more!!

Then look out…

Uncle Shauni gets really serious! I mean wow, look at the form on his lips and his sheer concentration! He’s not messing around! (can you tell I’m the big sister? :))

Okay, so after everybody left. Guess who steps out with his new outfit on?

Right away, dad puts it to the test! (This must be a dad thing.)

He regrets that quickly!

And when the little guy retires for the night, guess who I find playing in the backyard???

Just guess who that would be??? UNBELIEVABLE!!!

There was even a neighbor watching him from the other side of the hedge without Brian knowing!!!

I’d say we all had a great Batman Birthday!

Today is one of those days where I have so many things I want to blog about that I don’t know where to start!

I want to write about my new Zumba classes (salsa time baby!), or post up the WPPI photos I’ve still yet to do!, or tell you about a few moms who are blowing my mind (breathe Me Ra, breathe). Where do I start?

I think I’ll start with shoes.

Pascaline turned seven last month, and I can’t think of any better way to show you what seven is all about for this little girl.

Her birthday started with breakfast in bed. She is my little Ms. Swoony, so any thing that sounds indulging is right up her alley!

And of course you can’t leave Blaze out of the equation–sitting by himself in his bottom bunk. C’mon, give that little guy a Starbucks!

This face he’s making is so him right now. He’s soon to be four but still transitioning out of baby talk and all the attention he can get from it. Any parents of 3 year olds know what I mean?

After breakfast I surprised Pasc and told her that we were going to go to Nordstrom’s today for a new pair of shoes. Just the girls.

She LOVED the big discount rack. “It’s like a world of shoes!” she said.

She LOVED dancing in the mirror next to the discount rack.

She LOVED having the sales clerk help her with another pair, and then another, and then another.

We must find just the right shoes, or at least keep trying dozens and dozens of shoes on.

These are the shoes that finally won!

These were a tough second, but mom had to pull the reigns in a bit. (should we be worried?)

And then Pasc turned her magic on–you know, the kind of magic that enlists the BIG BROWN eyes. “What’s a new pair of shoes if you don’t have a new dress to match it?” she says to me.

And when it was all said and done, we went upstairs to the Nordstrom cafe for lunch. Can you believe that my mom and I have been coming to this little cafe since I was in middle school? Pascaline just loves dates with mom at the Nordstrom cafe. And since Nordies is in the process of building a new Nordstrom and will soon be tearing down this special place, we had to ask the waiter to take a picture of us.

(There’s just a little bit more background then I wanted in the shot, but it’ll work.)

There you have it! All about being seven these days: shoes, dresses, and going out for lunch. A lot like being six with just a bit more sass involved. What could be better than documenting stories like this?

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To learn more about me visit About Me Ra.

To order our new DVDs, Refuse to Say Cheese: Capture the Story and Beyond the Green Box: Understanding Your Digital SLR, click the titles!!

For information on Me Ra’s popular photography workshops visit “Documenting a Child’s Life.”

If your a pro and tired of reinventing the wheel, check out our 101 Kits!

Mom’s, don’t miss the new 101 Kit, The Mom’s Survival 101 Kit: How to Survive as a Mom While Juggling Family and Dreams!

To see our day job, visit our website.

Me Ra asked me to write another Blog post for her tonight.

I just finished looking at photos of Me Ra speaking at PMA for Sony and Bride/Groom Marian and Greg who we shot in LA this weekend. My brain is fried tonight, but I’ll try to post a sneak peak of Marian and Me Ra in LV tomorrow. I know Me Ra wants to talk about all of that fun, but I like to be mischievous sometimes when I can.

Oh yeah, Me Ra went to the doctor today and no wonder she’s so sick, she has Bronchitis.

She also asked me to announce our contest submission final date is this Sunday at 5 PM PST. The winner will receive a copy of Adobe Lightroom. We started using lightroom for all of our post-process work a few months ago and LOVE IT!!! Thank you Adobe!

We will also be selecting a random voter winner who will receive a copy Beyond the Green Box: Understanding your Digital Camera, Starring the smartest and most entertaining professor in the world (yours truly) and co-starring my beautiful wife Me Ra. If you’re fortunate enough to already own your own copy, then the winner will receive credit toward any of our new 101 kits coming out in March or any of our already popular kits.

Well I hope I said everything Me Ra asked me too. I’m sure I said more than I was suppose to say.

After five full days of speaking and shooting, Brian and I are so glad to be back home.

I’m fighting this horrible cold that doesn’t want to give up. So I’m going to spend some time laying low today and being with the kiddos. But I’m excited to catch you all up on how great our trip with Sony was in Vegas, as well as the wedding we shot in LA on Saturday. Good stuff!

Thanks so much for all the bday greetings to Brian! Your messages meant the world!

Happy Birthday to my sweetie!

You are the most amazing husband a woman could ever ask for. You are the perfect partner for all our crimes! Whether it’s parenting, our business, our marriage, there is no one more giving than you.

People are surprised time and time again with how you don’t need more credit in our business, that you are okay with how much spotlight is put on me, and yet, you never think about it. It doesn’t even occur to you to want more glory or recognition. This among many other things is why I know there is no other husband like you.

You are King Daddy Brian to the kids, and they love you for it. You have been through experiences so hard, I can’t even begin to fathom your survival.

You have loved me back to life. You hold a light of hope when I’m to tired too. And you make me laugh like no one else.

I love you. Happy Birthday sweetie!

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If you have ever experienced Brian, will you post it up today!

Your posts would be the coolest birthday surprise!

The kids were BEGGING us for skis! They wanted to rent their skis the moment we got to Vail. But Brian ended up getting altitude sickness the first night. It was brutal! The elevation in Vail is 9,000 feet. If you don’t drink a ton of water when you get here, you can get pretty sick. And even if you do drink a lot of water, you can still get sick like Brian did.

His head was pounding, he was throwing up throughout the whole first night, it was so sad. Instead of hitting the slopes the first day, Brian recovered and the girls took the kids sledding.

By Day Two, we were ready to hit the slopes. Clear blue skies. Sunshine. Fresh powder. It was what you picture Vail to be.

Brian headed out early with the guys while Shannon helped me get the kids ready and checked in to their first day of ski school. It was a bit chaotic to say the least with dozens and dozens of kids getting checked in and half of them crying. Things were going okay, until the school said I had to pass them through the rainbow and let the teachers take over. But we still needed to get their boots and skis fitted! “We’ll take care of them, just pass them through the rainbow tunnel and we’ll take it from here. No parents allowed past this point. Be back in three hours.”

Panic started to rise inside me because I knew this was to abrupt of a goodbye for the kids. But we tried it and once Pascaline was on the other side of the rainbow, I heard her SCREAMING which of course made Blaze cry, and I said to hell with the rainbow!

I would not have been able to leave the ski school without the kids if it wasn’t for Shannon. She took my arm with a firm grasp and said, “Me Ra, they are only as strong as you are strong. Don’t lose it.” I’m on the brink of tears at this point and cursing Brian for making me do this without him. But Shannon was right, I needed to pull it together b/c this is one of the best ski schools in the world. They would be fine after ten minutes, but to leave, oh my goodness, it was horrible! Like I said, Shannon and only Shannon got me through it. (Shan-you know I’m eternally grateful for that one!)

Without the kids seeing me, I came back 45 minutes early to see if I could grab some shots. The school didn’t call so things must have been going okay. I hid on the other side of the window and tried to find them without being seen.

I spotted Pascaline first.

I was so proud of her! She wasn’t screaming anymore!

And then I saw Blaze. He looked good at first.

He’s the little guy on the far right. I didn’t know his teacher was wiping off his tears. The scoop is Blaze did great, UNTIL they put skis on him. From that point on he didn’t stop crying. These teachers are amazing with how patient and caring they were to Blaze.

(and I mean seriously think about this, he’s been crying for two hours and they are still trying to help him move forward and down the hill with a great attitude–amazing!)

This last one is my favorite shot. At dinner I asked Pascaline why the teacher had moved her over to Blaze, and why were they both squatting together for so long.

She said Blaze didn’t want to stand up and go down the hill again. He told her he didn’t like skiing and wanted mom and dad to come back. Pascaline looked at me and said, “I was trying to make him feel better and let him know I wanted mom and dad to come back too. And then these three other kids turned around and said they wanted their moms and dads too. We all started crying mom.”

Day 1 was tough, but Brian and I are crossing our fingers that Day 2 or 3 of lessons will be better. We’ll see!

One thing I know for sure, Brian is doing morning drop off from here on out!

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Recipes for the above Ski Lesson Photos

ISO 100–the snow reflects light at such intense degree so I’m able to keep my ISO low for better color saturation.

Aperture–2.8 when the kids weren’t moving and 4.0 when they were in motion. I liked the low 2.8 aperture because it does a beautiful job at blurring all the trees, lodge and mountains behind the kids. But when the kids were in motion, I had to bump my Aperture up to a 4.0 to give me a better chance at getting a focused image.

Shutter Speed–1000 (1/1000 of a second) when the aperture was 2.8. The lower you go in your Fstop, the bigger your opening is for light to come through. When I have my aperture wide open at a 2.8, I need a faster shutter speed so the image isn’t overexposed. When I up’d my aperture to a 4.0, the whole got smaller so I needed to keep my shutter speed open longer (1/500 of a second) to let more light in so I wouldn’t get an underexposed image.

Your Turn!
Try playing around with this effect of Aperture. Take a photo of your kids holding still at a 2.8 (or as low as you can go) and notice how blurred the background is. You may have to put it on your computer to see the blurred background. Now try to take a photo of your kids running, skipping, playing at a 2.8. You’ll notice it’s a little tougher to keep them from being blurred. What happens if you forfeit some of your blurred background and go up in your aperture to a 4.0.

Reflect on these questions?

Q: How does going up in your aperture to a 4.0 or 5.6 affect the image in sharpness and exposure (overexposed or underexposed)?

Q: How does going up in aperture effect the focus of your kids?

There isn’t one right answer to these questions. This exercise is to provide a way for you to play with light and the degrees of light. Remember, the best part of photography is trial and error and learning from our mistakes. Tell me what you learn from this! Would love to hear!

Think about a time when you met someone(s) in your life, and they blew you away with their unexpected generosity.

These are the type of people who invited us to their cabin in Vail, Colorado for a week. Words cannot express how honored Brian and I are to call them our dear friends.

Without embarrassing Shannon, Rob, Brittany and their dad Jim, I have to tell you what they’ve done. This family is AMAZING! To see their generosity in detail is unreal. Many of you remember Shannon and Brittany, two beautiful sisters, we had the privilege of photographing their weddings. Needless to say, we fell in love with their family. So you can imagine how blown away we were when they called several months ago with an unexpected invitation.

Shannon and Rob said they wanted to get airfare for Pascaline and Blaze to come to their cabin in Vail. Would we be open to taking care of our airfare and spending some a week together? We were in shock. Are people really this generous!

Not only did they invite us to their breathtaking place, but they picked us up on Friday at the airport, gave us their SUV to drive while we’re here, brought us up to the cabin, spent the weekend with us laughing,

and skiing the best snow Vail has had in years!

plus, sledding with us,

and then last night they taught us how to make “Rocky Mountain Pizza”,

and can you believe they have left us this beautiful 6 bedroom log cabin all to ourselves for the rest of the week! Brian and I are literally sitting here stunned as we look around. We can’t believe we are here for a week to play with the kids and rest. Seriously stunned.

It’s only Day Three, but it’s feeling like a trip of a lifetime!

Being that our day job is what it is we’ve been snapping away. Here are some more of my favorites.

The kids eating their pizza! Pascaline, Blaze and Cade (the kids’ new buddy!)

Pascaline making her way through the snow. 16 feet of new snow this season!

Cara (Cade’s mom) giving her tired little guy a piggy back ride back to the cabin after a full morning of sledding. She is quite the mom, especially when she’s teaching kids to make pizza dough! (xoxo Cara!)

Rob took this one of his baby, Ruby! Good job Rob! To see baby Ruby as a newborn, click here!

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking a photo exercise(s) on how to shoot in the snow might be an appropriate thing for the blog this week! What do you think!

Tomorrow I’m going to show you the “not so dreamy” part of the trip. Helping your kids learn to ski is a cool thing, but if you’ve done this you feel our pain. If you haven’t done this you can see it tomorrow for yourself and then feel our pain.

We finally made it back home at 2am yesterday morning. You would think a three hour flight from LA to Seattle would be easy. But no. We had a three hour delay and lots of time to get creative with the kids in the airport. By the time we arrived in Seattle, waited for our luggage, and then another extra hour for one of the car seats, picked up our car, and made the drive home…let’s just say Brian and I were so close to fighting about NOTHING. The icing on the cake is this rotten cough that Pascaline has had (which only starts at bedtime), so we dealt with that until 4am.

The four of us finally woke up around 1pm yesterday. And then reality hit. Brian had made a run to Starbucks, and the kids were asking me question after question…

“Can you fix this mom?”

“Can you make us something else to eat?”

“Can you find me batteries for this new toy?”

“Can you sew my Batman costume, it ripped…wahhhhhhhhhh!!!!”

“Can I take out my new jewelry set?…Can I take out my new Polly Pockets? Mom, have you seen my new Barbie shoes?” (keep in mind that all these “little” things are smaller than your fingernail!)

“I’m hungry. Can I have my vitamins? Can I have some tea with Almond Milk?”

“Where’s my BLANKIE!!! We left it at Uncle Shae Shae’s!!!” (sheer panic and screaming sets in)

I was seriously overwhelmed, I mean seriously OVERWHELMED!!! The reality sunk in that our kids have had nine adults at their disposal for the last seven days, and upon arriving home, we were down to one tired mom. The transition of coming home was BRUTAL!

So I’m asking from one desperate parent to another, what are your travel tips for transitioning kids to being back home. How do you help kids get back into the swing of not having you at their disposal and regular life, work and play happening? You give me some good transition travel tips for kids, and I’ll give you more camera tips!

Sound like a deal?

p.s. The whole studio has taken the week off and will reopen after the New Year. If you’ve emailed or called we will get back to you after the New Year. I’ve tried to stay on top of email a little, but I’m still at 300 plus emails to reply to. So give me a few days to get back to you.

We’re headed home today after a wonderful time with the family!

This year was unique for so many reasons. First, we’ve never spent Christmas in LA. Truth be known, I was SUPER resistant to leave our Northwest Christmas behind. But my brother Shae and Erica invited us all to come and spend it in their new home.

ELEVEN of us flew in, and we spent the last seven days being together under one roof.

We all feel like this was the BEST Christmas ever for our family! Instead of spending JUST Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together, we stayed up for six nights and seven days playing games, watching movies, going shopping and swimming during the day, cooking up feasts, and eating lots of cake! Their was a rich mixture of laughs until you thought you would wet your parents, expected family tiffs from being in close quarters for seven days :), and a few good cries here and there. Wouldn’t have changed a thing…

Here’s a little photo album with some fun stories in between, and a question for you at the end!

Erica, having grown up in Tennessee, remembers leaving a slice of Red Velvet Cake out for Santa Claus instead of milk and cookies. Talk about cake that puts you flat on the couch because it’s so good and rich!

Every year we draw names for Christmas, and my youngest brother and Brian both got each other’s names. Shauni decided to get Brian one of those cool little remote control helicopters, you can guess what happened for the rest of the afternoon.

And then Shae had to get in on the fun too! That is totally the face Shae would have when he was a kid! Hilarious!! So focused!

I have to say that Blaze was the most thoughtful shopper this year! He picked out a hand mirror for his big sissy, and the crazy thing is Pascaline had been asking for this exact mirror one hour prior with me. Sissy was so excited!

When I asked Blaze what we should get for each other for Christmas, without even thinking, he looked up at me and said, “Mama, you need new tea set.” I almost died. When he gave me the little bird tea cup and saucer he found, he was so excited. I’ve got a pretty sweet boy (and it must be noted that dad won a few points for remembering to help Blaze find mama a teacup :)) .

My mom and I couldn’t resist after the family photo was taken. The Christmas balls were just to fun to not play with.

While my dad slaved away on the turkey!

And Shae let the marshmallows on top of the yams catch fire. Whoops!

And the kids were SUPER patient to open the rest of the presents!

Putting up with the dozens of photos that everyone wants in front of the tree. Remember those days?

And I can’t leave out the eleven stockings hanging. That was pretty cute!

Erica decorated the tree and house with a classic Nutcracker theme, and it turned out so beautiful and fun!

So if we had awards throughout the day…

Best Costume would have to be BATMAN (yes, Spiderman and Superman are a thing of the past, Batman is every thing now).

Check this out, I was taking the shot and didn’t even realize he was throwing a bat at me! This guy is serious!

2. Brian and I had so much fun conspiring with a couple more husbands on surprising their wives with spots in our upcoming workshops. You husbands rock! You must email and tell us what your wives said!

3. As we study the stats for www.refusetosaycheese.com, I’m excited to say that the 101 Kits have been the bestsellers these last two weeks (especially the Better Together deals)! You’re loving the Better Together deals, and we’ve been getting great feedback on the Kits content! I’m so excited Brian and I went with a hunch that many of you could use these types of tools! Keep sending the feedback on the kits by posting a review at www.refusetosaycheese.com!

4. It looks like 98% of the DVDs ordered for Christmas gifts made it! Can I just say we were SUPER excited about this! We now have an incredible shipping/distributor that we’ve started working with and coming to LA could have been this stressful thing, but the shipping company did things with great success! The 2% that didn’t make it in time is still a BIG deal to us. We plan to look into things when we’re back in the studio this week. Thanks for your patience!!

5. We have some BIG things underway for 2008 and can’t wait to start spilling the beans on the blog as the new year starts to roll in! Stay tuned friends because a lot of it has to do with all of you!

So glad you all liked yesterday’s post! I had a fun time recounting it all! Brian said he couldn’t stop laughing after reading the post, and he was there living it!

We’re off this morning to do an engagement shoot today at the Getty!

Brian and I can’t wait to shoot in such an inspiring location, and even more so, meet Marian and Greg in person. Their wedding is only six weeks away!

After the shoot Brian and I head down to Huntington Beach for a fun lunch with the talented Shoot Dot Edit gang, Dane Sanders, and the (beautiful, sweet) Sara France (if you haven’t checked out Sara’s sites, they’re great). Then we head back to Hollywood to grab dinner with Carey and her husband. I have this scary feeling that after the morning shoot, we’re going to be sitting, eating, sitting, eating more, and then sitting again, BUT great conversation the whole way through.

But here’s what I need your advice on. My grandma and grandpa have gone through horrible loss with two deaths in the family this last five weeks. I wanted to get them each something that was really special, unique and creative. Any ideas on what to get? They’re simple people and incredibly giving and kind. They’re both in their mid seventies and totally active from their Thanksgiving travels to Puerto Vallarta to spending the spring in Santa Barbara and the summer at their lake cabin. I hope I’m going this strong when I’m a great grandparent.

The only reason I can ask you guys for advice today is because my grandparents arrive to my brother’s place today, and because of this I know my grandma won’t read today’s blog post.

Thanks for the advice!!