Welcome Home (again) Shelby

Most already know that our Shelby is finally home!  We are ecstatic and thrilled that our little daughter is back home safe and sound after a very long 2 month hospitalization.  Though she has little or no recall of her long surgery and in patient recovery, we still had to do a bit of drug weaning at home and empty one of her drains for about another 5 days and now her biggest challenge is learning to walk again.

She is extremely motivated though and in the past two weeks has made great strides in standing with assistance and taking small baby steps.  Her tiny little legs are straight for the first time in her life and I think she feels a bit unbalanced.  It's cute to see her laugh and giggle and say "whoa" at her new found stance.  I can say without a doubt she is one amazing little girl who continues to laugh throughout the day and constantly request her sister by her side.  


I simply can not say how grateful we are to Dr. Gearhart, the nursing staff, pain management, nutritional services and the wonderful Child Life Specialists who kept her entertained when we couldn't be there.  Shelby is a healthy little girl who continues to show her strength and resilience.  


We thank you all for the wonderful comments and prayers during her recovery.  


Shelby, you go girl, the world is your canvas!

Life is like riding a bicycle

In order to keep your balance,

You must keep moving!

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge "Beautiful Black and White"

I adore any opportunity to photograph my Kira  and when we were playing in the weeds last week, I took this and loved how I captured a little dimple and smirk in this photo.


I decided to convert it to a Black and White and enter it in this weeks photo challenge at "I Heart Faces", since this is the face that defined my role as a mother and the reason I love photographing my children.


So head on over to I Heart Faces and see some of the amazing entries of this weeks photo contest.

This photo was submitted to the i heart faces photo challenge.

Beauty in Light

My pretty daughter.  

Her back was directly facing the light source, the beautiful setting sun, yet I was able to capture even tones without over-exposing her cute little face.  

Most of you experienced photogs already know how I did this, so it's probably not that exciting if this is already part of your bag of tricks.  For me I'm like a kid in a candy store after exploring the beauty in back lighting.

Remember way back in the days of 35mm film and how shooting towards bright light would over-expose your image?  Also there were no instant replays on a digital display to show you if your lighting was properly exposed, so what did I do?  Easy, I avoided it!  I shot landscapes, flowers, still life anything that would tolerate natural light without a hand held light meter or gray card.  I know I was lazy, but somehow I managed to capture pretty decent photos with only the use of my polarizing filter.  Now fast forward uh hmm, many years and However,  when I found I loved to photograph people, I chose low ISO film and shade.  I still did that up to last week!  I knew my Nikon was capable of pretty amazing things but I kept to what continued to work for me and really never explored it's capability, mostly because of habit and what "worked".   For example in the "old days" I would not like the grain on 1600 ISO film and therefore never used it; however I could bump the ISO up to 3200 on my camera and barely notice any grain or noise as it's often referred to.  Got to love technology and the advances of digital technology.  Additionally you can even reduce or add noise with photoshop.  But truthfully I have always loved photographs that appear natural looking and so I wanted to share my new found love of ambient light, especially back lighting in these photos of my daughter.

I am definitely ready for Spring, but more importantly we can't wait to bring our Shelby home in just a few more weeks.  

Shelby has been such a good patient and Monday she will have her epidural pulled and then if she tolerates lying still in traction, they'll take her back to the operating room in 1-2 wks to have her pins and tubes pulled.  We are praying for her continued recovery, despite a bit of a setback last week.  Kira misses her little sister so much, I can't wait to see them together laughing and playing again.  Two months is a very long time for Kira to wait for her best friend and sister to come home.  Again the outstanding medical care at Johns Hopkins was worth every worry as our Shelby is well loved by everyone there!

Thanks for stopping by.