Yes, my mom’s birthday is the day after mine, and this post is dedicated to her!

Happy birthday to my mommy! I couldn’t have asked for a better mom who is there to help me out, help out with Zachary and Maya when needed, and provide support and advice. I love her very much!

Here’s a picture of me and my mom from my baby shower in 2008:

Thanks to my friend Jessica for taking this pic! :)

Today is my 6th Anniversary to my wonderful husband Adrian! It’s been a great anniversary week for us – we celebrate all the little anniversaries too:

June 29 – the day we met
July 1 – our first date
July 4 – our wedding anniversary!

Last night we went out to dinner at a new restaurant, Bru’s Room, and then went to see Eclipse, finally, which was amazing! My parents had Zachary sleep over for the evening so that Adrian and I could enjoy our time together, and it was a great night. To top it off, I was able to catch up on sleep and ended up sleeping about fourteen hours! Yes!!!! :)

We had a wonderful wedding! Everything about our wedding day was magical and we had such a great time on our wedding and honeymoon. I can’t believe it’s been 6 years already. Who knew six years ago that we would have done so many awesome things — started our own businesses, had such an adorable little boy, and there is still so much more that we have planned and I know we’re going to have such a blast doing it. We’ve had a lot of great times together over the past 6 years!

I wrote a post last month for a blog hop about our wedding day, so if you’d like, you can check out out here.

This is one of my favorite photos from our wedding day – the photo of our recessional, after we’d been announced as husband and wife. It was obvious how happy we were by the smiles on our faces!

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Morning everyone! Just wanted to share some fun photos from Father’s Day (say that five times fast!) that I took yesterday. We had a great time visiting with my mom & dad! The bagels were delicious as always, the coffee was good, and everyone liked their presents. After lunch, I spent some time with my mom, my dad did a little work in his office, and Adrian took Zachary swimming — which he LOVED! He is such a little water baby and loves playing in the water, sprinklers, you name it!

I took a few photos with my trusty Point and Shoot camera (my Canon G7) and got some really great shots.

me, my dad, Zachary, and Adrian

happy Zachary and his Daddy

Zachary and Adrian in the pool

Zachary in his new sunglasses

my mom & dad

Zachary in the pool with Adrian

It would make my day if you voted for my site! Please click the links for Top Baby Blogs & Picket Fence Blogs! it only takes a second to click on both of them. Thank you so very much!

Happy Father’s Day…. to my daddy, my wonderful husband, and as always, remembering my grandfather who I loved very much (he passed away in 2001 and Zachary is named after him). Happy Father’s Day also to my father in law, Dan, way up in Tennessee, and to all of our cousins/relatives and friends who are dads, too!! :)

My family loves bagels, so Adrian, Zachary, and I are heading over to my parents house later to spend some time with them and enjoy bagels and coffee brought home from our favorite spot. I can’t wait! Our family generally prefers to “chill” on holidays and have brunch or lunch and just do something relaxing instead of going out somewhere. What is your family’s celebrating style? Do you like to go out and do something special or just hang out at home spending time together? What are your plans for the day?

Finally, it is also my mother in law’s birthday today…. happy birthday to Mom Z!

Being a wedding photographer, how could I resist today’s Twitter Blog Hop – the theme is WEDDINGS!!!! First off, I have to apologize for the quality of my scans. Yes, my wedding was shot on film. Come on, I got married in 2004. Digital was still new…. and I have a TON of medium format film that still really needs to be scanned professionally. There’s a LOT lost, quality-wise, when you scan an actual print (these are old scans from my album), so they are not the best. Sorry!

Adrian and I got married on July 4, 2004 at the gorgeous Heron Bay Marriott in Coral Springs, FL. Much like every other summer day in Florida, it rained. :) That’s supposed to be good luck, though! :)

I had four girls in my wedding party, and Adrian had three guys. Our main colors were shades of purple and silver. My flowers were incredible!!! People still talk about my flowers, and I’ve been married for nearly six years. I absolutely love how my Florist matched the colors of my draping and lighting perfectly with the flowers. There were soooo many flowers! Everything really flowed together and looked so beautiful and elegant. They did a great job and I would not change a thing about how my decor looked. My bouquet was absolutely gorgeous, put together perfectly and the size was exactly what I asked for – not too big or too small. It was just right for my hands.

I loved my wedding dress. I felt like a princess and looked like one too! My dress was not one I would have normally tried on, but the sales girl insisted and it was actually the first dress I tried. I ended up loving it, and after trying out a couple more dresses, I went back to my dress and decided that was the one! Adrian looked amazing in his tuxedo! He picked a longer, more formal jacket which was a fantastic style on him and looked great. The subtle pattern on his vest was a great accent. I had my makeup done professionally by a MAC Makeup artist and it stayed on for two days straight. :) It was flawless and did not smudge a bit even.

My ceremony went by so quickly! It was about half an hour but I felt like it only took five minutes. I don’t remember too much! I do remember thinking about how much I was concentrating on not getting any of the ceremonial wine on my beautiful white dress! Haha! By the time we were done, my feet were hurting pretty badly. My wonderful new husband gave me a little foot massage after everyone left the room, before we took our photos. We were very happy to finally be married!

We had a great reception. Our band, Manhattan Music, sounded INCREDIBLE and played all of my very favorite songs! We had so much fun dancing with our friends. The rum cake with buttercream frosting that we chose as our wedding cake was delicious and the wait staff at the venue made sure I had my favorite drink (at the time, I loved White Russians) available at all times. Since we were married on July 4th, the band even sang the Star Spangled Banner in commemoration of our country’s independence, which will always be a great memory.

The next day we got together with our friends and family at my parents’ house for a brunch, and Adrian and I headed off on our honeymoon — a cruise on the Enchantment of the Seas visiting the Western Caribbean! My dad took this photo of us getting into the limo that drove us to the cruise terminal! We were so excited – it was our first (of many) cruises together. :)

Wedding Photos by John V. Caspanello, Jr.
Floral Design by Flowers by Tony
Music by Manhattan Music
Cake by Ferraro’s (no longer in business)
Venue Location: Heron Bay Marriott

Yay for the 2nd installment in my “Green” series… Green Easy, aka easy ways to introduce “green” into your life.

I have been wanting to plant a garden in our backyard for quite some time. While we aren’t gourmet cooks or anything, we do like to include fresh herbs and spices in our meals. Unfortunately it’s just so expensive to buy them at the grocery store especially since the recipe only calls for a little bit & the rest just goes to waste.  It’s not only wasteful of the plant but it’s a huge waste of money especially if you want to use these herbs frequently and every dish requires a different herb!

After visiting Adrian’s parents in Tennessee and seeing how easy their garden was to maintain we decided there was nothing to stop us from creating one ourselves. It’s great for the environment since we will be much less wasteful, and I love the idea of maintaining a garden with my son. It will teach him to work hard on something and will be something he’ll be able to be proud of!

I was surprised by how easy and inexpensive it was. It took a good half a day’s work for the two of us working together (that was kind of hard… not kidding anyone there), and then we finished up a few final touches the following day. I really enjoy watering my plants every day. I’m finding it to be really relaxing, something I didn’t expect… and now I want one of those “zen” garden fountains so I can sit outside and get eaten by mosquitoes while getting lost in my thoughts :)

I’ve made a big post over at my photography blog since I could make a nice collage with bigger photos there… but check out some of my favorite photos of Zachary from our day setting up our garden, and then click the linky to view the rest!

View the rest on my photography blog!

well, I’m currently sick with the flu & lucky enough to have my mom & dad close by to help out with taking care of the baby as well as me. I spent the day at my parents’ house & it was nice to be babied!! my mom even went out & got me the new Sookie Stackhouse book…. now that is dedication! :) my parents are pretty awesome.

those of you eagerly waiting on a contest winner I promise I will post the winner’s name & info as soon as I get back to my computer, as I’m writing this from my iPhone in bed, where I’ve spent most of my day.

We had a really nice Passover dinner this year at my parents’ house, with my parents, grandma and me, Adrian, and Zachary. All the food was delicious, and Zachary was pretty well behaved during the dinner. He enjoyed trying matzah for the first time and loved having Israeli cous-cous (one of his absolute favorite foods) for dinner.

Here are some photos from our celebration:

The table was set beautifully!

Zachary was very happy (as usual) to see his family!

He listened intently to the four questions (I had to read them, since he doesn't know how to read yet. Hehe!)

Me, Zachary, and my Grandma (G.G.) posing together for a photo

We are truly lucky with our dog, Maya, a longhaired mini dachshund. Maya is a small and somewhat possessive dog (never bitey, but she loves her mama), so when I got pregnant, I wondered what she would be like when the baby came. She really took to me even more and became very close to me during my pregnancy, often stopping to lick my belly or lay close to my belly to feel the baby kick. She knew there was a little “puppy” growing in there, and when it came time for him to join our world, she was soooo excited to meet him!

When Zachary was born, Maya stayed at my parents’ house for two weeks while we got used to the whole parenthood thing, and then she came home. She was always extremely careful and gentle around the baby. She only wanted to kiss him. As he got bigger, she tried to play with him, and eventually taught him to push her favorite tennis ball – and then, much to her delight, throw it! They both absolutely love to go out on our back porch area and play fetch (and other games) together.

Now that Zachary is mobile, they play around the house like two puppies. It brings Maya AND Zachary so much joy to play with each other. If I’m in the kitchen and I look into Zachary’s room, I might see them both sitting on the floor, each playing with their respective toys. Other times, I hear happy giggles or dog noises coming from behind me and smile to see them chasing each other around in a circle! Other times they sit quietly on the couch watching tv together, Zachary with his arm across Maya, and her head stuck in position to lick his leg over and over (he doesn’t mind).

He gives her kisses on the head, and she gives him many kisses back. He gives her big, sweet baby hugs, and she gives him a lick on the face.

They are best friends.

I took these images a little over a week ago. We put Maya on her leash and let her sit in the front yard while Zachary played. He came right over to her and sat down in the grass, and she laid right next to him, with the most perfect look of joy on her face. I’m so glad that my dog, my first baby, has accepted and loves my little boy so much. I thank her every single day when I scratch her head and give her an extra treat, just for being wonderful.

Maya is turning 7 this year. I wish she would live forever!

happy Valentine’s from our family to yours! today Zachary and I spent the afternoon with Aunt Amy, window shopping at the Promenade in Coconut Creek, playing with some Thomas trains at a toy store (baby boy cried because he didn’t want to leave!!), giving little Z his first taste of ice cream (he loved it!) and enjoying the cool weather.

we came home to hugs and kisses from daddy, Zachary’s favorites for dinner, play time with his books, toys, and his fun airplane which he loves to push around his room, and lots of laughs and sweet, funny faces for mommy. he is just a sweet, loving little boy and I am glad to have been able to spend the day with him.

tomorrow starts the work week again as Adrian and I prepare for the WPPI (wedding & portrait photographers international) trade show, the biggest tradeshow each year in the photography industry, where we have a booth for our studio management software, Táve. it is going to be a great time, but we are spread thin right now getting everything ready!

hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s… here is a little card to brighten your day!