Divine Intervention

I fought it in the beginning....I fought it HARD. I was stuck in a difficult, dark place. I was so confused with life and couldn't really make sense of why things were happening. I was on the end-cap of a horrible marriage with an alcoholic and Chris had just left a relationship of 17 years with his ex-wife. I had sworn off men (and was preparing myself for a No Man Plan) and he was in no shape for a relationship after what he'd been through.

I asked myself 'why' 100 times. "Why is this happening? Why him? Why NOW??"

And then one day it hit me like a cartoon anvil.

Our lives were SUPPOSED to intersect at that exact moment.

What I lacked, he provided. What he lost, I found for him. We helped each other heal and encouraged the necessary changes to get there. We held hurdles for each other to leap. And little bit by little bit those bad memories, those awful feelings leftover from our past relationships, were replaced with positive ones.

We are uncannily alike and swear we share a brain from time-to-time. We usually know what each other is thinking and can finish each other's sentences. We've had conversations without speaking a word. Except for the unfortunate sour cream discrepancy, we have similar food likes (our favorite sandwich is bologna with potato chips and mustard), we watch the same shows (a lot of Reality TV) and live by the DVR. Our religious beliefs are in agreement. We have a tendency to take in stray kids for dinner.

He thinks my quirks are cute. I think his sincerity is stunning. He thinks my photography and writing are amazing. I think his chosen profession is admirable. Our children "get" one another. We fit perfectly together, like the last two pieces of an unfinished puzzle.

He is the most thoughtful and compassionate man I have ever known. He is an incredible father to our kids. And loyal to our friends. He is honest and fair, genuine and tenacious.

We support each other's dreams and our friendship knows no boundries. We have the endurance to face the hardships and the determination to pull through them. Our relationship is comfortable and our love is effortless.

We both realize what a blessing we are to the other and the gift that we share. We respect the people that each of us are, and appreciate the faults we bring to the table. We recognize what we have been given here and have the dedication to see it through. I fully believe that we will be that family, that couple, everyone is green with jealousy to be. We will be that couple that still makes-out in the driveway after "date night" when we're 40, and that old couple strolling thru the grocery store some 50 years later.

I am happy. It's been a long time since I've felt happiness without fear or trepidation or waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the first time in my adult life, I feel like happiness is not a temporary emotion.

This happy is for real. And it's here to stay.

Aunt A-ka.

I have no idea what it is about my name that makes it soooooo hard to pronouce for a little kid, but whatever the reason....it is. I have been called Eh-nika and Eka. My cousin, Sarah, couldn't say Ericka and called me Urlicka forever. My Aunt Jean will still call me that when she calls me on the phone. My sister couldn't say Ericka when we were little so she just called me Ketchup. (Of course, that could've had something to do with the fact that I ate ketchup on practically everything.) And Danicka is just carrying on the legacy.

"Aunt A-ka".

A couple weekends ago (I know!! I've been so busy I couldn't even find time to post these until today!!)....Anyhoo....a couple of weekends ago, I kept Dani so my sister could go out to celebrate her birthday with some friends.

I love this kid.

The only time she didn't have us in stitches was when she was sleeping. We laughed so hard at her, the things she said, and the things she did. I kept my camera handy for most of the day just to catch her in action. Don't worry, I'll save you the bare toosh pictures.




See what I mean?! This girl is a comedian in her own little world. I wish I would have taken a picture of the aftermath of the Spaghetti O's. Oh my gosh. Bryce is our messiest eater in this house, and Dani put him to shame.

This picture makes me smile so hard....from the inside out.

The cool thing about being an aunt is spoiling the kids. You know, letting them do the fun things at your house that they'd get in trouble for at home -- jumping on the beds, eating Spaghetti O's with no silverware, eating candy before dinner -- the really cool things that make "Aunt A-ka" really cool. (I'm always up for some extra cool points.)

I took this set of pictures in about ten minutes. As in, ten minutes total. Once she crashed, she crashed hard.

Once the plans were made for Dani to come to my house, I immediately started scheming ideas for a photo shoot. The last time I did a mini-session of her (remember these?!) she ended up winning a Cute Kid contest. I think she'd win again......I'm just sayin'.

These were actually taken in my kitchen in front of a half wall next to my patio door. It was late afternoon and I was losing the available light pretty fast...so I had to work quickly. And with a 2-year-old, it was probably a pretty good idea. I fired off about 20 frames and ended up with some pretty amazing shots in the little time that I had. This one was, hands down, my absolute favorite!!
Now, if I could just get my nephew for a couple hours........

Boys vs. Girls

I never would have thought that I'd be a mom to boys. After I had my daughters, I pretty much figured that was it.

Girls.

Nothing but dresses, bows, pink fingernail polish, doodled hearts, lipstick, sparkly earrings, boyfriends, to-die-for shoes and overzealous emotions.

And even though my boys have been in my life now for a couple of years, I still find myself shocked that I have sons. So, now instead of talking about cute haircuts at the dinner table, there's talk about farts....there's jock straps in the laundry with our unmentionables. There's spiral passes alongside of our spiral curls. And boogers on fingernails instead of polish.

I know you guys are laughing...and those of you with sons are relating. This is life. The way it is. Not just my house, but yours too.

So, every once in a while, the girls of the house have to break out and find some feminine sanity. And, on Friday, we did what all girls do as if it's imbeded into our DNA....

We went to the mall.

We ate fattening mall food and chatted about boys. We went into all of the accessory stores and picked out super-cute earrings, and visted every shoestore just to try on high heels.

That's when I saw it...just as we were rounding the corner to leave.

A photo booth. And it was calling my name like my mom used to beckon me from down the street. We each took a turn and the only rule we had was one picture had to be a good one -- the rest was fair game. The only thing more fun than taking these pictures, was trying to cram 3 people into a 2'x2' photo booth.

But we did it. And it was sooooo worth it.

2009 Year in Review

2009 was good to me.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally good to me.

Like, almost-one-of-the-best-years-ever good to me. Yeah, THAT good.

I looked back at the 6500 images I took (no joke, it was that many!!) and tried to find the best picture of the year. Something that highlighted the year.

But, when I started looking, I couldn't find one. I could find 32 of them. And then at one point I narrowed it down to 15, but I couldn't find just one.

Then, I asked myself, "Why do I have to pick just one?".

And that tiny little thought led me to 158 images that I compiled into this amazing slideshow. Which to me, was a 5 minute smile chiseled into my face.

As easy as you'd think this would be for me -- a photographer, mind you -- it was so hard trying to weed out the "unimportant" images. We had alot of important stuff happen over the course of 2009. There were birthdays, and milestones of a first tooth loss, there were sporting events and life events of babies being born. There were holidays and vacations.

But my all-time favorite times from last year were the in-betweens. The Halfdozen sledding trips and snow forts, the family trip to the Ohio State spring game, the night all of us went to dinner at TGIFridays and Cassanos, and our Yahtzee games. Then, there were the summer nights of the kids playing in the backyard, or the hot afternooons at the swimming pool. The lazy Saturday afternoons of sidewalk chalk drawings and the backyard football games.

How is one person suppose to choose a favorite? I couldn't. And believe me, I tried! Chris always makes fun of me for have 100 favorites of something -- movies, colors, foods, shoes. "They ALL can't be your favorites...", he'd say. But there was just no way for me to have only one favorite.

I hope my family gets to look back at the gazillion (that's really a word) pictures that I have taken over their lives and appreciate the moments that I was able to capture.

It's like memory insurance.

One day they'll be old, with kids of their own, looking back at boxes full of pictures. They'll tell their kids "man, I remember when we went here"....or "remember how mad mom got when we broke that clock?"

I want them to feel their hearts swell when they look back at these pictures and remember how much they were loved. Then maybe, just maybe, they'll have a tiny idea about how it felt to be their mom.

Seriously.....

Does every kid do this??

I'm filing this one under "Instant Happy". You know, those pictures that you can pull out when you're having a bad day -- and viola! -- you've forgotten all about the dog peeing on the carpet, or the late charge on your credit card bill, or that you burnt dinner! I laugh out loud every time I open it....

PS. It's really comforting to be in someone else's home and see their windows/doors in the same condition as my own. Like I always say "we aren't living in a museum"...and "it gives it character". ..