What’s up and where have we been?  I’m going to answer it for you all right now.  Yes, we’re still alive.  Yes, we remember your phone number (or have it somewhere).  No, we haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth.  No we’re not mad at you.  Things have been busy.  Crazy busy.  I have been neglecting everyone.  I am very, very sorry.

I have been working tirelessly at launching a new business.  With the two kids always within earshot it has become very hard to plan weddings for clients who expect my full attention (and deserve it).  So until piss and vinegar, I mean Noah and Kate, are both out of the house for a chunk of time every day I’m trying to use my talents for other things.  I just opened “Oh My Bride” (www.ohmybride.com).  It is an opportunity for me to still make money and play in the wedding business without having to be on call 24/7 or at the beck and call of a bridezilla with a cell phone.  Sure, I still have “office hours” and plan to interact when I need to but at least the majority of my dealings will now be online and through email to keep me from having to screen calls and dance around nap schedules.  I am still doing weddings, at least until this new venture gains momentum, and I’m looking forward to a packed dance card this winter with events.

As I mentioned before, my sister and her children were in town for 10 days and we took every opportunity to enjoy their company.  We also did my niece, Natalie’s, senior photos while they were here.  With so many interests though it turned into a bit of a marathon and we are still editing.  Here are a few to enjoy for now.

This is Natalie in her Junior Prom dress.  It was my sister’s (her mother’s) Senior Prom dress but has been reinvented.  Talk about vintage!  We also took some photos of her in her Senior Prom dress but you’ll have to ask her for those.  Wouldn’t want to give too much away before the big event!

Yes, that is a real train.  It was FLYING by.  I’ll spare you the photo with the look on her face that says “You want me to do what!?”.  We have so many beautiful ones to choose from, this is hard!

This isn’t even a sampling of all the shoots.  Like I said, we’ve been busy!

And in the spirit of photos we have (finally) started to embrace our love for the craft and share it with others.  We used to do photoshoots back when film was in and we were still a little (ok, a lot) unsure about the whole portrait thing.  Then it was only for us, then we included friends and family since we’ve learned not everyone can take a photo without chopping heads off.  Fast forward 10 years and hundreds of practice shoots later and we find ourselves getting inquiries left and right.  Family and friends always pushed us to do this and we have seen the light.  To mainstream things a bit and have one central location for our favorite photos we’ve created Yap Originals (www.yaporiginals.com).  Our friend Lauren actually branded us and always bragged about how many “Yap Originals” she had hanging in her home.  Thanks Lauren!

Here are some photos from our most recent newborn shot.  Isabelle is a doll and she has an amazing family.  What a love!  We have so many other recent shoots that I wish we could share.  Oh, what I could do with free time!

Isabelle’s dad is a firefighter… and she has her own boots!

We were also MIA because we were off getting older.  Walter and I (who are 2 days apart) took the kids to Disney for our birthdays.  It was soooooo hot but also a lot of fun.  We have a million photos to share and will, soon.

The one thing keeping us sane and us as with it as we are (which isn’t very “with” as it turns out) is Kate’s new BFF, Falan.  Falan is the newest addition to the scenery around here.  I hate to call her a nanny, because that sounds so snobby, but she’s so much more than a babysitter.  I don’t know what we’d do without her.  We originally hired her to help until I got Oh My Bride off and running but I’m not sure how we could ever part with her.  Hopefully things start running smoothly and prosperity finds its way to our door so we won’t have to worry about that.  In addition to being amazing with the kids she is ridiculously beautiful.  How lucky was I to talk her into modeling a few hair accessories for Oh My Bride?

So we’re here.  I appreciate all of you who have reached out to us.  We are grateful for your love and friendship.  Hopefully things will slow down here just a bit so we may have the opportunity to get back into the social scene.

Love you all!

This 4th of July holiday weekend we took off for a mini vacation.  We headed south to my very favorite hotel, the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood.  It was everything we hoped it would be and more!  The weather was perfect, the pools were fun, the beds were super comfy, the kids were even well behaved!  We were lucky enough to have a lot of friends with the same plans and because of that we enjoyed many laughs and large meals.

Here are a few photos from our relaxing weekend, there are many more to come -

First, let me show you why I love this place so much…

Yes, really.  And yes, really, these are photos from this weekend.  The pool and beach didn’t look like this for long but they were still very beautiful and very relaxing when other people showed up.  This is one of four pools at the hotel so you never noticed that the resort was bustling; there’s so much room to spread out!

And this is how excited we all felt when the plans were made and we were on our way.  A family vacation was so overdue!

The one photo we got of the kids together this weekend…

She may owe that pole dinner.

At the pool…

Our friends Bettina and Dan and their daughter Helena happened to be staying the weekend at the resort as well.  The kids loved swimming together!

Rachel, Robby, and Ayla were also at the resort as were thier friends Nicole and Chris and their children Nicholas and Carsen.  You haven’t lived until you’ve looked for a dinner reservation for 11 people 30 minutes before you’re hoping to eat!

Nicholas is such a cool kid!  A lover boy with a little Dennis the Menace mixed in for good measure.  We had a blast, he has such personality!  At one point I was holding Helena (above) and Nicholas (below) was playing with us.  Someone joked about how easily I could pass them off as my own kids.  I’ll just have to borrow all the redheaded children and wish their parents luck with the stubborness and sass that comes with the color! 

Chris and Carsen                                                                     Little Miss

For the fourth we were unknowingly misinformed and decided to take our chances watching fireworks from Rachel and Robby’s room.  Little did we know we would have been much better off on the beach, where we originally planned to go, but then we would have missed this amazing view of the city and the light show.

The city after a few cocktails…

The monkeys…

And a certain little someone learned a new trick while on vacation… she now STANDS!  Where does the time go!?  Buh-bye baby Kate, hello toddler land!

And just for fun we relived a few moments.  I told you this place was my favorite!

(Noah at 4 months)

(Kate at 9 months, who doesn’t know how not to smile)

(Noah at 7 months)

(Kate at 9 months who apparently heard she was going to be late for lunch)

Still think they look exactly alike?!

Unfortunately when we got home reality smacked us in the face!  Monday was right around the corner, grocery shopping needed to get done and the laundry fairy never showed up this weekend.  Oh, and there was a leak in our roof that was flooding our laundry room because of all the rain.  Fun times!  At least we’re tan!

Happy Father’s Day out there to all the fathers and dads!  Walter and I are so fortunate to have great relationships with our fathers.  Today we honor them and of course the kids and I will be celebrating Walter as well.  We don’t have any big plans.  The only thing on the agenda is to spend the day together and at some point make it over to my parents’ for dinner and a dip in the pool.  Walter’s family is, and has been, working really hard on building a new home for his brother and unfortunately weekends are the only time they can invest at the moment so we won’t be seeing them.  Hopefully Ian is going to have everyone over to make up for all the missed Sunday dinners when the kids play and we all get to visit (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Anyway, I wanted to blog and brag about Walter on Father’s Day.  Anyone who knows him, knows that Walter has always been a big kid.  He’s the guy that the little girls and puppies flock to.  He’s so much fun and he is genuinely interested and playful and full of useless knowledge about things kids love (like cartoons, planes, and action figures).  I never had any doubt in my mind that Walter would be an amazing dad, and he is.  And although he always finds himself a bit helpless during the newborn stage, he is the man with the infants and toddlers!  Always on the floor with them, making crazy faces, playing fun games, turning a temper tantrum into giggles – he’s a blast for the short people. 

It wasn’t until the past year or so though that I realized what an amazing man and father he is.  When things are great, so are people.  When things are hard, relationships can get sticky.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best of company when the going gets tough and the stress creeps in.  During these hard economic times and patches of uncertainty and frustration, though, Walter has been amazing.  He takes all the worry onto his shoulders and still walks around with a smile on his face.  He is an amazing provider (if only I weren’t such a great spender), a true friend, a hard worker, a pillow fight, a bath time giver, a bed time book reader, a master of imagination, and an awesome housekeeper (again, if it weren’t for my bad habits).  Our family has never felt the stress and pressure.  We’ve never worried, although there is much to worry for.  I don’t know how things would be if it weren’t for him, nor do I wish to even entertain those thoughts.  Today is a day to celebrate the man he is and the amazing father he has become.

I love you huney and I am so grateful for everything you do!  Thank you so very much for being the father of my children and for caring and taking care of your family so effortlessly and happily.  I can’t imagine life without you and I wouldn’t want to ride this crazy roller coaster with anyone but you!

I love my family.  I love how crazy and quirky they are.  I love how different we are.  I love how we stick together through tough times and sticky situations.  I love that they would do absolutely anything for me.  I love that when my cell phone rings at 8am and 5pm every day I know exactly who it is (it’s always Lindy).  I love that my sister spent way too much money to chat with me during her trip to Japan.  I love how much they all love my kids.  I love how they love to remind me of every embarrassing thing I ever did in public. 

My mom recently had surgery (nothing serious, nothing related to her long gone breast cancer) and strangely it’s been very uniting.  I laid in bed with her, Kate, and my niece Julia today and we all chatted, laughed, and entertained Kate.  It’s one of those moments that just sticks to your memory.  Thursday my sister, Nikki, and I plan to invade her bed for some quality time and I’m sure that will be just as fun.  I hold those moments close like the times when my mom stayed with us after having Kate.  They are just so awesome!

So along the lines of them doing anything for me I suckered Nikki and Julia into a photo shoot.  My new online site (details soon) offers hair accessories but I didn’t have any good photos of the products.  They loaded up all their pretty dresses and dragged over for a shoot during the horrible rain storms and a surprise ant problem.  They were such troopers!  They even stayed afterwards to babysit so Walter and I could go out!  Anyway, I got some photos for my site but I got two others that I am in love with.  Two that I want to hang up all over my house.  The last time Nikki and Julia took photos together Julia was tiny.  Like preschool tiny.  I love having an updated photo but why, oh why, does she have to look more like Nikki’s sister than her daughter?!?  12 going on 25!  What’s with these kids growing up so fast!?  I’ve had the first photo hanging in my house since the day I took it.  I’m not sure I can take it down, maybe I just need a bigger frame.

Then                                                                                             Now

And here’s one of Julia that I love (that’s one of the hair accessories by the way).  She says she looks “fat” and “ugly” in this picture.  Mark my words young lady, you’re going to wish you were this “fat” and “ugly” in 25 years.  What I wouldn’t give…

*And it did occur to me that when I said “my family” you may have been expecting a story about Walter, Noah, and Kate.  They’re pretty amazing too!

We’re STILL waiting for Comcast to fix our internet.  It is so frustrating!  In the meantime we signed up for DSL which isn’t as good but it’s something.  I’m so over our connection issues!

I wanted to share some sweet pictures with you.  We went to my mom’s for Memorial Day and Kate got all dressed up for the party.  She even wore her Cole Haan shoes!  Keep in mind I don’t have anything from this designer but I couldn’t resist these hot pink patent leather penny loafers.  She seems to be pretty fond of them too.

We also took the opportunity for Noah to get an updated photo with his Grammy.  We wanted to do this at his birthday party but she wasn’t feeling well.  A few days late but well worth the wait.  The last time we did this (on his first birthday) she was bald as a baby from chemo.  Now she’s the picture of health and we’re so fortunate for this very happy ending!

Poor Grammy, Noah hates photos.  I wonder why!

Why are there only 24 hours in each day?  We seem to have so much to do and so little time.  I’ve never had so much laundry, housework, dishes and now business to take care of – oh, and these kids are cutting into the schedule as well with playdates, birthday parties and summer fun.  Because we’ve been so busy I have a ton to blog but as I’m sure you’ve noticed that has fallen to the bottom of the priority list.  While I play catch up, know that we are all well, that we just celebrated the best Mother’s Day and the kids are growing like weeds!

Here are some photos from our first attempt at dying Easter eggs.  My God, I don’t know how our parents did it for so many years!  It’s such a happy memory for me but either the kids aren’t old enough, coordinated enough, or interested enough.  It sure was a learning experience for us all.

Lesson one – a plastic table on a tile floor in the middle of nothingness is still not enough space to keep food coloring from finding it’s way to every stain hungry fabric in the house.

Lesson two – the colored dye is supposed to go in the corresponding colored cup.  My bad.

Lesson three – that little wire hook thing that holds the eggs, well, it’s not nearly strong or sturdy enough for three year old hands.

Lesson four – my son has no interest in coloring Easter eggs but his (Jewish) friend Ayla thinks it’s a pretty cool tradition even if she doesn’t understand that gentle and eggs belong in the same sentence.

Lesson five – my son will always like the stickers best in any project we ever do.

Lesson six – given the opportunity, my son will put stickers on ANYTHING, including other stickers and furniture.  He gets that from Walter (don’t ask)!

Lesson seven – I’ve either lost my skill and talent for coloring Easter eggs or my standards were much lower as a child.  I remember how beautiful they were when we were little and these look, well, like three year olds did them; sadly that’s really not the case.

Ta da!

Lesson eight – no matter how ugly an Easter egg, they make delicious deviled eggs.  Is it me or is there something really wrong about making Easter eggs into deviled eggs?

Most weekends we usually sit around asking “what do you want to do?” until it’s mealtime, or nap time, or bed time and we almost always do nothing.  A few weeks ago we actually got out of the house and went somewhere different!  We took a trip to the Museum of Science and Discovery in Fort Lauderdale.  We had a great time and loved watching Noah explore.

They have tanks and open exhibits of all kinds of animals.  Some of these fish were bigger than Noah!

And they also have people walking around with some of the creatures for a more up close and personal experience.  Noah would not touch this baby alligator – no way, no how – but I did!

They have a toddler play area where Noah could have spent the whole afternoon.  Tons to explore, climb on, try out… here he’s taking Kate for a drive.  It’s looks like she’s concerned about the odometer!

In the play area they had a bubble station.  I’m not sure who enjoyed this more, ok, we all know who did but it was for the kids – right?

This climbing structure was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!  I wish I could have tried it!

On the right is the perpetual motion clock (or something like that) – it’s very cool to watch!

After checking everything out we stumbled into a behind the scenes tour of the facility.  We got to see some crazy stuff but unfortunately we also had to listen to Noah whining “I want to go home!”.  So after checking out what the animals ate, climbing behind all of the tanks and over scaffolding we ducked out of the tour halfway through.  We had a good day and everyone enjoyed a great nap afterwards.  Where do you like to adventure to?  We could use some new ideas!

So while spring has sprung around most of the US, it’s summer hot here!  It’s so hard to believe it can be in the 90′s here and we have friends snowed in in Denver.  Not to rub it in but we took the opportunity to take the kids to the beach.  While it’s technically not Kate’s first time, it is the first chance she’s had to take it all in.  Being the air conditioned girl she is, she only wanted to take in the first five minutes of the visit but Noah was having way too much fun!  The water was freezing but he didn’t mind one bit.  Here are some photos from our first beach trip in ’09.

This is how often we go to the beach – “I’m going to build a castle!” – Not there, buddy!

Noah wanted to bring home every shell!  He somehow managed to sneak a pail of sand into the car!

And Kate just soaked up the sun.  Complete outfit courtesy of Ayla.  Oh, how I love hand me downs!

At first Noah wouldn’t let go of my hand.  The water was frrreeezzzzing!  He was a little apprehensive about the waves, but not for long.  Please excuse the fact that I ended up in these photos!  I’m still hiding behind “I just had a baby”, and I’m still carrying around baby photos to back it up!

Before I knew it he wanted nothing to do with hand holding – he was off!

Actually diving into the waves!  The salt water in his face didn’t bother him one bit!

We found out about a strawberry farm in Delray and decided to check it out.  We were quite impressed with the place and had a great time!  “The Girls” is off of Military Trail just north of Atlantic Avenue and it’s so much more than a strawberry U-pick.  Noah (and Kate) plucked a basket full of the freshest berries but also got to see hundreds of plant species, fruits and vegetables, farm animals, fountains, gorgeous birds, and a shop full of the most amazing jarred everythings and local foods and finds.  We were lucky to get cool weather and I’m not sure how long I would last in this heat but it was definitely worthwhile.  The fresh vegetables were better priced than at the grocery store, although the strawberries were a different story!

It was nice that you didn’t have to bend to pick, if you didn’t want to -

I don’t know why Noah’s shirt was coming off!  Kate looks confused about it too!

I’m not joking when I say they had strawberry everything!

Walter found a bird that shared his name.  He loved the sign!

Walter and I were really hoping to get Noah back to Disney now that he’s a bit older and really into Mickey Mouse.  Our last visit was a bit of a disaster and no one enjoyed it.  A great opportunity (excuse) came knocking on our door and we couldn’t pass it up – The Brady’s were Disney bound!  Kimmie, Kelly and the twins (Sydney and Peyton) moved to DC a year ago and we miss them terribly so there was no question that we had to make this work, and we did!

We were very ambitious and decided to go up and back in one day.  Kate stayed with my mom since she’s still not a fan of the great outdoors – or crowds, or car rides, or eating on the run.  We went up super early and met the Brady clan at their hotel, The Polynesian.  The girls lei’d us but I’m pretty sire Sydney ended up wearing everyone’s petals.

Syd on the monorail

The barbershop was our first stop.  Noah needed a haircut (we were having family photos the next day) and the cuts at Disney are quite the experience.  Of course he wasn’t thrilled but like a good kid he put up with my request.

He even let the guy put sparkles all over him.  Someone commented that Tinker Bell must be spitting up again.  Noah got a box of chewy Gobstoppers at the confectionery for his tolerance.  He wasn’t sharing those with anyone!

Here we are at the castle now -                                            and before.  Noah still hates the camera lady!

Noah’s first ride was Buzz Lightyear.  He loved it!  Even waiting in line was fun!

You basically ride around in your cart and shoot at targets.  Noah was our navigator (to ensure motion sickness to all!)

There was no way I was getting on those teacups, they make me so ill!  Luckily Walter and Kimmie agreed to take the kids.

It was a gorgeous day!  It wasn’t very crowded either.  Wednesday is the day to go!

Everyone on the carousel!

Then we headed to “It’s A Small World”.  I’m not sure what the lure is there but the kids loved it!

The Brady’s went back for a nap but we stayed.  Noah had to see the parade!  He loved all the characters!

And then a past wedding couple came to visit!  Victoria and Irwin live in Orlando and they recently had a baby, Jake.  We were very lucky that they were able to pay us a visit!  Isn’t Jake gorgeous!? 

I haven’t seen them since their wedding (photo courtesy of Focused on Forever) and I have never seen them happier!

After the character performance we went back to the Brady’s hotel.  Back in the day my sister, Lindy, made them dresses for their first birthday.  She wanted to see how they worked as shirts so although the lighting was quite unfortunate we got some fun photos and the kids had fun running around.

Here are the girls when they first got the dresses -

And now -

The whole Brady Bunch

“Look!  Here’s how you get out of this thing!”

Sydney had quite a crush on Noah all day so we let them go for a romantic stroll under the moonlight.  Rest assured, it turned into a healthy game of “Boo!” very quickly.

After the kids ran out of steam the Brady’s treated us to dinner at their hotel.  It was the Disney version of Chima and the bread pudding was to die for – really!  We headed home after dinner, around 10pm.  If I had it to do over I would have either stayed over or left after the fireworks (at 7pm).  It was a very tough drive home but so worth it for the time we got to spend with our good friends.  Hopefully we can get together before another year has passed!