I had the pleasure of doing Emelia’s Smash Cake session a couple weeks ago. And was also asked to photograph her first birthday party. I love all the candid moments you see while watching a party from afar. I feel that they best capture the joyful feeling of celebrations. But what makes my heart really sing is seeing my work on display at such an event. I’m proud of my work, but when my clients love it just as much and more, it means the world to me.

And of course it’s not a party without some tears shed! I don’t think there has ever been a first birthday, {at least that I’ve attended.} Where there hasn’t been a meltdown. I call it the meltdown hour. Its usually during cake time. The birthday child rings it in, and it slowly hits all the kids. I love it, because it always makes for great candid pictures!

Stay tuned, I have some crafting, and more sessions to share soon!

Easter was a week ago. I had to check a calendar to make sure. Because I feel like this week has gone by in a blink. I have been BUSY! But that’s the thing, it is amazing to be busy. Between last Saturday and tomorrow I have had 4 session’s and of course Easter photos. I am trying to edit my little brain out, but life get’s in the way. Sawyer is breaking his 50th tooth. {wait they don’t get up to 50?? because I swear this is the 50th time we’ve gone through teething!} There are tiny little elves that break into my house every night and make a mess. Sort of like Christmas but no presents. And some how I am behind on blogging, posting pictures on fb and laundry. Like a lot of laundry. Seriously a lot.

 And in between that all I get to dress up Sawyer, watch him go on his first Easter egg hunt. Treasure these moments that are slipping between my fingers way too fast. This morning he figured out how to pull back the race cars and let them go flying across the room. Since when do kids grow up so fast? And why am I just realizing this. And then right in the middle of my panic attack of growing older, he behaves just perfectly and throws a fit because ya a 6ft tall bunny is probably not be a comforting thing. But that’s ok, I’m going to look back one day and LOVE that he cried on both Santa’s and the Easter Bunny’s lap this year.

So I am always going to be behind. I am just trying to hold on to him. Can’t blame me for that. And then once in awhile I will stay up again too late and spam my lovely readers with a million pictures of this very well dressed red head. Enjoy, there’s only a couple more I swear!

Tomorrow I have another session with a little girl for her 3 annual Birthday photo’s. I think kids are my favorite subjects behind a lens. Is anything more beautiful than seeing the world through a child’s eye’s. Stay tuned for those gorgeous previews!

I just adored capturing little Emelia’s Smash Cake session. I cannot get over her beautiful bright smile. She actually became a client of mine after her mom stumbled across my blog! The best part is I get to work with this little princess again on Saturday. I am covering her Birthday Party! I myself wish I had done the same. It’s always hard to enjoy and photography your own parties. So I offer events as well! But without further ado, here is her Beautiful One Year Smash Cake Session Photo’s!

You can check out the entire album on my facebook page this weekend!

To schedule your own session please contact me on fb or at lissables@gmail.com

There is lots of ways to be creative, but one of my favorites is with shutterfly books. I’ve shared some in the past. My favorite being the book to document Sawyer’s craniosynostosis story. And of course the yearly books, which have recently turned into half a year. Apparently I take too many pictures to meet the 1000 photo maximum. But just this week I am finishing up another special book for Sawyer. I saw the idea on pinterest a year ago and just knew I needed to make one.

It’s an alphabet book. Each letter has it’s own page with words that are special to our family. With each finished page I loved this book more! Here is the list of words we used. Some pages I couldn’t decide on one thing so I used multiple words. Of course change as many as you can to be uniquely yours!

A- Airplanes
B- Bitter beer face, Birthdays, Bubbles, Batman, Bathtime, & Babies
C- Christmas, Cuddles, Cousins, Cars, Cake & Craniosynostosis
D- Daddy
E- Easter Bunny
F- Feet
G- Grandparents
H- Halloween
I- Ice Cream
J- Jump
K-Kisses
L-Love
M- Monkey’s & Mommy
N- NapTime
O- Ocean
P- Party, Playdates, Pool Time
Q- Quiet Time
R- Red Rubber Boots
S- Super Hero’s, Swing, Smile, Sad, Santa & SAWYER!
T- Toys
U- Ultrasound
V- Valentines Day
W- Winter
X- Xray, Ok ours was actually a CTscan but all the same. {There is basically NOTHING that starts with X}
Y- You
Z- Zoo

As you can tell this is still a work in progress. But I am working like crazy since shutterfly is offering their free 8×8 book promotion! {I have until Tuesday, I love companies that make big promotions like free photo books!}

I also included a page for Numbers, Colors and Months. I believe this will be a great tool in teaching and spending time together. I can’t wait to get it in the mail! It will also be our Easter gift to Sawyer this year! See you don’t need to be crafty to make customizable creative gifts. All you need is a few key starting points, shutterfly and LOTS of time Seriously I spend too much time on shutterfly. But it’s worth it!

And also browsing Pinterest on a daily basis doesn’t hurt!

Hope you enjoyed today’s {very picture heavy} post! Stay tuned this week for more scrapbooking and photography. And some party details from this weeks celebrations for my hubby and sister in law.

Perhaps you have stumbled upon my blog after hours of research and crying. And you have found that somewhere out there, someone know’s what you are feeling right now.

I have recently gotten a string of emails from other cranio families finding lissables and Sawyer’s story. I know how scary it is. By documenting it, I have made new connections to lots of other families. It’s one of the most rewarding things Ive ever experienced in life. Each and every email brings me to tears. And I am honored every time I receive one.

I encourage you, if you have just found us, to reach out. Not only am I hoping to ease other cranio families minds, but I want to continue to be a source of help through each journey. If you have just found Sawyer’s story, please go back and read each post. I started documenting and blogging after he was diagnosed at 4 months. It was a therapeutic way for me to express my emotions. Most of my friends and family were in another country. I felt alone through much of it. I never imagined that those same post’s would bring other people peace. Now I strive to ease the pain as much as I can.

It’s been 9 months since Sawyer’s surgery. Most day’s I don’t think twice about it. It’s just a piece of his life to be remembered. But then I will receive an email. And emotion’s and thoughts come flooding back. This week has been especially emotional, with the loss of a friends little girl. Born the same week as Sawyer. We bonded over our children being the same age and dealing with medical conflicts so early in life. She had cutis aplasia, and they went through surgeries around the same time. As a mom I was so relived someone understood what I was going through. The mess of anger, frustration, guilt and heartbreak. But nothing I went through would ever come close to what she is feeling today. And even though Cranio is immensely terrifying in so many ways, it rarely ends tragically.

 It was actually one year ago this week, that those words leaving the doctor’s mouth, first shocked my world. But you would never know if you saw that little red head. He was walking, {early} at 2 months post-op. His hair grew back fully after 3 months. And we are now 9 months post-op. And he is a healthy happy little boy. A blessing I don’t take for granted. It will never leave your mind completely, but you will get through it. And I am here to help you.

Please email me directly at lissables@gmail.com to ask questions, vent, cry, or just talk.

Like most people I can let life get to me. I think about how busy life is getting. Starting a new photography business, traveling, a toddler. Sometimes we take life’s greatest blessing’s for granted. Like this morning when Sawyer woke up and I just wanted to ignore him and go back to sleep. Waking up with him is such a minimal part of my life, something I have taken for granted. And across the country, a friend didn’t get the same blessing.

K and I met over the internet. I am not one for making friends online, but we bonded over our kids and dealing with the PICU & recoveries. Her little girl didn’t have cranio but we were dealing with the same emotions and the same age kids. They were both born in October 2011. Both kids were doing so well. But still so little. 16 months. I noticed on her fb this month that she had been posting about hospital visits and MRI’s again. But I didn’t think anything of it since Sawyer will also have those experiences at his one year mark. This morning I was scanning fb’s meaningless updates and came across her quiet heartbroken message.

This is someone who I’ve never met. I’ve only talked to a handful of times. But I have sat here quietly crying all morning. I am absolutely heartbroken, that I sit here and watch my little boy play in his own blissful world, while her’s was just shattered. Words cannot express those experiences. Losing a child is truly life’s greatest tragedy. I have seen her page flooded with messages of love and support. But unless you have experienced the exact same thing we can never know truly how much her heart has broken today.

I will continue to cry for her loss for many day’s to come. And Sawyer will be a constant reminder. And I will be so grateful every time he doesn’t sleep through the night. Every time he throws a tantrum. Every time he throws a bucket of water on me during bath time. Every time he wakes me up earlier than usual.

And I will remember what a blessing those trying moments are.

I know some of my very loyal reader’s will remember this project when I first did it in 2011 for Valentines day. Well do you ever start projects and then stare at them for years? No that’s just a me thing? O well! For my Mom’s 50th Birthday I wanted to give her something special, and what’s more special than a list of reason’s you love someone. She loved it!

This is a quick and easy album to make. Which make’s it a perfect gift to give someone else. All you need is a deck of cards, a permanent marker, one ring, and some ribbon and embellishments to make a cover page. I wrote directly onto the cards and let them dry overnight. Don’t want any smudges! Punch a hole in the top left corner of each card. I punch one and then use it as a guide to punch the rest in unison. If you want you can make a cover page for your album. I made mine using a pre cut card and decorating it with some stickers and rub-ons. I love how simple it is. Then I added some ribbon to the ring, because I always think they look naked without it!

 Had I thought about this earlier I was planning on printing pictures and attaching them to the backs of the cards. I think if you filled it with black and white pictures of you and the person it was made for, it would be the cutest thing ever made. But finding 52 black and white images from the lat 25 years proved to be too big a task for a last minute project. And I don’t mean I didn’t think about doing an album until the last minute. I have 2 others on my desk I was making for her as well. But I inherited my dad’s famous procrastination. {I know you just read that dad, don’t deny it. Because I know where Kimmy got her stubbornness too! But I love you enough to make a 52 reason’s for you too!}

I’m so glad she liked it, even though she made sure to tell me there was TWO extra reason’s to her birthday years. I also had the brilliant idea to bring her some lissables cupcakes. I always get the request to ship my goodies, well in the picture you can see why I don’t! I went to extra care to make sure they stayed perfect for my airport arrival. But I forgot I was traveling with a mini monster. Who upon finding them when I was taking stuff out of the diaper bag to get him a toy, proceeded to fall right on top of them. So they arrived much like me, squished, beaten and done with traveling across 2 countries with a toddler! But I tried. Can’t blame me for that!

All in all I think this will be a gift-able album I make again in the future. Little enough to carry around for a pick me up, sentimental as you want to make it, and o so easy peasy! Hope you enjoyed it! I have some photo session’s coming up that I will be sharing. Some more projects and every day life. Thanks for being awesome reader’s! I appreciate each and every one of you!

O my gosh! Remember how I just shared my entry for the Create: Blog Teresa Collins giveaway! We’ll I woke up this morning to a post with my picture in it. I think it took me a minute to realize, I HAD WON!

This vacation I felt like, started off as bad as possible. Just little crappy things piling up my last day before my flight. Flying itself is a nightmare for me + add a wiggly toddler. Then there was the surprise 2 hour drive from the airport to the cabin. Just little things. But once I got there….sigh, I was so in love. We even looked at extending my stay. But alas we did not win the lottery, so not worth it. I was having so much fun walking on the beach, scrapbooking during naps, and re-watching MadMen from the beginning with my mom. And I NEVER win anything. Seriously. And I won a gift basket at Shoppers Drugmart at a little shopping event, just the night before I left! I left most of it with my mom but got a big bottle of juicy perfume.

And then BAM this morning I wake up to the blog post announcing the Create: Blog’s winner. So exciting. I feel like I’m on a winning spree. Maybe I should go buy some lottery tickets! {although NV doesn’t even have a lottery haha} So I won my choice of a line from the 2013 winter collection. I already have most of the Memories and Stationary Noted lines. {I was obsessed with that blue and red in the stationary noted.} So it was really between the He Said, She Said and the Far and Away lines. So I narrowed it down the the He said, She said, because I love my little boy pictures and this is a line that you can use with boys but it isn’t just baby blue and yellow. All the cute Mustaches and speech bubbles. And especially the washi tape! You have to check out all the 2013 lines. They are all amazing.

If you are loving the paper’s I used in the album I entered, you can find them all here, the Now&Then line. Which is still available online and at some of your local stores! As well here is a link to all the entry’s on the Northridge Publishing Pinterest page. Now that I am home, I can’t wait to get all my pictures printed and finish this winning album!