Picture Yourself...Helping Toby Home!

So...this past weekend I had amazing fun with my all-time BFF!!

They are SO cute, aren't they?

She and her precious family came and visited us for 2 wonderful days...we laughed and talked and just had a great time together.

One thing we did was take a few family pictures for them. This took about 10 minutes...and then we were back to hanging out and laughing.

It was way cool.

I just emailed her the files to print.

And it started my wheels turning...

What if we offered to do little "mini sessions" like this for others in exchange for donations to help bring Toby home?

We tossed around some ideas...

...so if YOU are looking to have 

some high quality family portraits done 

mid to late August...

...then we invite you to contact us about taking a slot. (Comment here or on Facebook and we'll get details out as soon as possible.)

As a caveat, this will not be a "full session" like we used to do with our photography clients. The time allotment will be 10-15 minutes per family. It will not be for large groups. It will be light retouching only. You will do the printing. (One of the main reasons we stopped our photography was the enormous time commitment on our part. The goal of this project will be to provide you with a high quality image of your precious ones with minimal time on our end.)

Obviously, this will be limited to people who live nearby. Sorry friends in Singapore! How much we'd love to come and shoot on location!

If you would like to donate toward our efforts to bring Toby home you can always click on his picture in the side bar and give directly to our Adopt Together account. All gifts are tax deductible.

We hope that this will be a delightful way to raise funds to help meet our next agency payment to bring home our little man!

Just picture yourself...helping bring Toby home!

Just Because...

...because Darrah Kate is adorable.

...because evening light is beautiful.

...because we have a teddy bear for Toby that has a tag in his ear that actually says, "Toby."

...because we think about Toby so far away it hurts.

...because we ache to go get him and bring him home.

...and because I just want to share these moments with you.

The Love Strand Challenge

I have an idea. You've probably see on Flickr, Facebook or somewhere on someone's blog where people step up to a personal challenge of taking one picture every day of an entire year. They will have captions like 1/365 for January 1st and then continue on through the year. The super amazing people make it to post picture number 365/365 on December 31st. I have thought I'd like to do that, but when the idea flits across my little brain, it's mid-year some point.  I think, "Well, I'll remember in January and start the year off right." Yep, you guessed it, today is January 30th. I missed again.

I got to thinking, "Why not just do it for a month?" AH HA!!! And what month is next??? FEBRUARY!! The shortest month of the year! Hey! Now I just might be able to follow through on 28 days of picture taking and posting! The more the idea rolled around in my head, the more like a snowball it became, picking up other ideas too. I'll keep a theme: love. Everything I photograph will be about love. Either something I love, something that speaks love or is a symbol of love. I will let the creative muse for the day simply take over and inspire me each day.

And then my idea expanded. What about getting other people to participate too? It's one thing to look at my pictures of love for a month, but what if a whole crew of us were doing it? What if we could all link to each other's blogs so we could see what each other is posting? What if I could find a way to post on my blog like Missy did on her blog of practical ideas (see her post here) so that we could easily check in on other's posts? (You have to understand I'm a baby in the blogger world, only doing this since last month. There's TONS I have no idea how to do!!) UPDATE: I figured it out!! Add your name and url in the box below and your name will appear in this post with a live link to the site you name! COOL! :)

So here's my challenge: Take a picture each day of February. Keep the theme of love. Post one picture each day with the caption 1/28, 2/28, and so forth. Add a caption or text if you like. Word happy people like me will be challenged to let the picture stand alone. Some poets may like to express themselves with prose or rhymey lines. You do not need any special photography skills, only to be motivated by your heart. (Everyone's will look different and that'll be the charm of it!) Link back to my blog (you can grab the button down the side if you like) or click "follow" so we stay connected.  Until I figure out how to have you place your own link to your site from mine, post a comment down below with a link to your blog, Facebook, Flickr or wherever you're planning on posting your love strand. Then spread the word.

Let's have some fun. :)