Durham Engagement Photography (Brandy & Brian in the Orchard!)

Brian & Brandy were so kind as to get up at the CRACK OF DAWN to meet me for their engagement session in Durham, just outside Chico. We shot in this beautiful, blossom filled orchard first before heading over to Butte College were Brian coaches baseball to wrap up the session. Here's a little preview!

Winner of the Birth Give Away!

I hope you all enjoyed Raylan's birth images! I will be off to shoot his newborn session in the morning and I am SO excited to see the little guy again. It's going to be so fun!

Thank you all for your lovely comments and I am pleased to announced we have a winner of our Give Away!

Drum roll please..........

And the winner is, jrkaman!


Who I think is Jennifer Kaman! Email me or leave me a comment with your address and I will get you your present out in the mail! Yay!


These beauties will be in your mailbox as soon as you do!

Baby Ray's Birth Film (C-Section Video and a CONTEST!)

Raylan was the most wanted and wished for baby in the world. (As every baby is.) I was so incredibly excited and blessed to be invited to be there for his arrival with longtime clients Devan and Margarita, whose love for each other I have watched evolve from an engaged couple, to newly weds, to fresh faced parents.

Raylan was a stubborn little stinker and decided he would really rather just be born butt-first, which, Margarita's doctor told him was a no-no, but despite all of their convincing, Raylan stayed exactly where he was, sucking on his toes, butt down. And so, yesterday, all of us arrived at Mills-Penninsula at dark o'clock in the morning to coax Raylan out the other way!

I was so incredibly lucky that Margarita's OB and her anesthesiologist were completely on board and flexible with allowing me to be in the OR during the c-section. We couldn't see a thing because of the drape and had the instructions to not move around, so when I heard the doctor call out, "Time?" I just held the camera up and pointed in the general direction and hoped I was getting something. Raylan let out the fakest, cutest, most adorable cry (like a bleating lamb!) and they swept him over to the incubator to get cleaned off, weighed and have new dad Devan cut the cord.

Once he was swaddled up tight, and wearing his first new hat, Margarita got to see her precious baby boy for the first time. It was awesome! He was so cute and so perfect, and had the funniest legs! He had been sitting in there in a tight little "piked" position with his legs straight up to his face and that is exactly how he liked laying once he got out! His feet were as soft as butterfly wings and his hair was dark and curly. He is perfect and so loved!

We discovered after Raylan's birth that his cord had been shorted in length because of some tangling around his neck and it had prevented him from moving, which was also made more difficult due to low fluid levels. For teeny tiny Margarita, this big 7 pound baby arrived in just the way he was supposed to, and in the way that was absolutely best for him. It was medical technology working at it's best for sure!

In celebration of Raylan's birth, I am doing my first ever GIVE AWAY! of my two favorite baby items: the book "The Baby Catcher" by Peggy Vincent, which is all about a midwife in the San Francisco Baby area from the 1960's to the 1980's, and my favorite documentary ever, "The Business of Being Born," by Rikki Lake and Abby Epstein, which explores types of birth, especially home birth, in the United States. (A second documentary, "More Business of Being Born," is coming out soon! Watch the trailer HERE.)

Although this wasn't exactly an old-school natural birth, this book and this film are awesome, and just fascinating and fun to watch and read, regardless of whether that is the route you choose for your own birth, or whether you are having a baby at all!

HOW TO ENTER

If you would like to enter to win, it's really simple. You can enter any of the following ways:

1.) Leave a comment below for Margarita & Devan about their beautiful new baby!

2.) Become a FAN on Facebook (link) and post a link to this specific post on Facebook. Come back and leave me another comment saying you have done so.

3.) Pick your favorite picture of the new family from this post, and pin it on Pinterest (linking back to this specific post, not the whole blog please) and come back and leave a comment telling me you have done so.

4.) Lastly, you can tweet a link to this post, and, you guessed it, come back and tell me you did.

I'll pick a random number and announce the winner on Raylan's One Week Birthday.

Happy Birth Day Raylan! You are a beautiful baby and we love you so much and are so glad you are here!

HOW TO ENTER

If you would like to enter to win, it's really simple. You can enter any of the following ways:

1.) Leave a comment below for Margarita & Devan about their beautiful new baby!

2.) Become a FAN on Facebook (link) and post a link to this specific post on Facebook. Come back and leave me another comment saying you have done so.

3.) Pick your favorite picture of the new family from this post, and pin it on Pinterest (linking back to this specific post, not the whole blog please) and come back and leave a comment telling me you have done so.

4.) Lastly, you can tweet a link to this post, and, you guessed it, come back and tell me you did.

NOTE: You do not have to have to Blogger Account to leave a comment/enter! You can leave a comment under "Annoymous" OR "Name/URL" and link back to your own site! Just be sure to leave your name so I can track you down later!

Valentine's Babies (Our Special Family: Here Comes the Sun)

Did you need something sweet for Valentine's Day? Well don't worry, I didn't forget you!

This is my favorite family from last year; Mommy Stephanie, twins Kellen & Grant, preschooler Lennox and newborn baby Johnna. The children's daddy had to watch Johnna be born from Heaven as he had passed away unexpectedly in his sleep early in Stephanie's pregnancy. Because Daddy was healthy, and had no known health problems at the time, this wasn't something the family planned on or could have anticipated.

I traveled to Utah about a week ago to attend my friend's daughter's baptism and throughout the entire service I could not help but think about these four children. I watched my friend's husband hold his oldest daughter after she lept into his arms out of the water and I just cried; thinking of how different these life experiences would be for some families.

This year, I will be shooting the weddings of four different couples who have all lost a parent, mostly during their childhood or growing up years. They have all expressed to me in one way or another how different their wedding days will be without that parent, or for some, without those parents present.

We all have those people in our lives that really resonate and stay with us, and for me, this family is "those people."

A Memorial Fund was set up in Dad's honor, for the four children's future education and I urge you, to please share the word about this family so they can continue to receive the blessings I know they are supposed to receive.

JPM Kids Memorial Fund (Link)

Happy Valentine's Day.




Johnna wasn't exactly a total fan at first of the whole "naked on a cake plate" idea. Ahem.















I LOVE Lennox! LOL










You can find the link to the JPM Kids Memorial Fund HERE.

If you would prefer, you can also send a contribution the old fashioned way to the family's financial advisor:

Matthew Sheffield, Financial Advisor
Account number WH10988
UBS Financial Services Inc.
601 W Riverside Ave, Ste 1200
Spokane, WA 99201

Please feel free to share this post, as long as the information above is included in any reposts.

Previous Posts:

Stephanie's Maternity Session
Johnna's Birth Announcement
Johnna's Newborn Session

Happy Birthday Banner: Posies & Polka Dots Etsy Shoppe

Cute as a Button: Provo Orchards in Winter (Roy, Karen & Lauren)

Roy, Karen and Lauren are my newest clients! I met them, literally, in this orchard surrounded by deer! I was out in Provo, Utah last weekend and spent some of that time shooting this portrait session with this beautiful little family. Aren't they just darling? I LOVE their clothes! The poor baby was so cold though, we all kind of forgot it was still WINTER since there wasn't really any snow on the ground!




































We are having a small sale for last minute weddings taking place in Utah during the month of April, with a special bonus for weekday weddings in celebration of our new remote office there. You can email me at heizer_ea@yahoo.com or check out our sale page for details. :)