A few from yesterday!

My friend and fellow photographer Lizney came up to Orlando from Miami yesterday to check out my studio and for us to get some picture ops with our kids. It was a blast andI haven't seen her since our trip to Chicago for convention. She's an amazing photographer. She literally had these 4 girls in the palm of her hand. She is much better with children's photography than I am, just watching her I was blown away. She caught a few of me doing my thing and some of Shaylee and I as well. You can view her work and website at www.lizneysievert.com . Thanks for taking these Lizney! I'm also adding a few photos that I took... one of the famous Lizney faces she makes, and yes that's also her in the middle of the pile of kids...lol. It was good to see you Lizney... miss you girl!

Woo hoo!!!

I've been wanting a website by BluDomain for quite a while. They are sites that are mostly for photographers and they are stunning and the ease of use is amazing. I just upgraded my site a few months ago, but BluDomain websites are so much easier to update and change. And I like to show my latest work on my site to keep it fresh and interesting. Yesterday was a big contest day and sale with BluDomain. I entered several of the contests and won one of the categories. The contest was to spell out bludomain by getting creative and using food, things around the house, etc. Well John and I decided to give sparklers a try to spell it out and it worked marvelously! Here's a shot of the image that I put together that won. You can also view it on their blog http://bludomain.typepad.com/blus_daily_blog/

This is the sparkler entry!

This was the entry for the "Kids Art" Contest...lol... yes I am a crazy mother!

I'm also excited because my good friends Amber and Troy Schmidt also won the whole kit and caboodle for Troy's expose as Blu Guy of 2006! He is at the top of the blog, painted blue in all his glory! The prize for that competition was a free website and an I Pod with docking station! Congrats to Troy and Amber! They have had a hard week in their family and this was a much needed and well deserved win for them! They are wonderful people and have such kind hearts. Perfect winners for this contest!! Troy also got to choose a friend to receive a second free site, and I was the lucky friend!! Sooo... stay tuned as I update and heavily upgrade to a BluDomain site within the next few weeks. This is very exciting for me and will hopefully save me time and headache when it comes to updating. It will be much more user friendly than my current site, and easier to navigate. I'm so excited I can't stand it!

Wow! Been a while!

Just wanted to take a moment to say Happy Father's Day to all the dads in my life! Dad, my hubby John, Gregg, Zack, Tony, Bob, Rob, Timmy, Josh, Dave ~ hope you all have a great and relaxing day! We are all spending the day together here and trying to relax and barbecue a bit later. I had hoped we'd be able to spend the day in the pool, but the weather is not looking so hot today.

A special Happy Father's Day goes out to Jim, who's gorgeous wife Jessica gave birth to their daughter Ava early yesterday morning! She came a bit early, but they had a wonderful and fast birth, and I can't wait to get my hands and lens on that new little babe! Happy Father's Day with a new baby GIRL Jim! Scroll down to see a sample of Jessica's pregnancy photos!

I've been really busy the last few weeks. Have done several sessions and completed a storybook wedding album for Gary and Anna, you can view it here! www.cristynielsen.com/AGWed .

I have done TWO sets of twins in the last 10 days! Newborn twins Ava & Addison had their session just about 10 days ago, and two year olds Gracie & Kaitie last week. Here's some sample images from their sessions. They were both lots of fun, and I realize how much work twins are by watching both of their parents care for them. I can't even imagine!!

I also photographed a girl named Melinda who is pursuing modeling. She did a great job at her session! Thanks Melinda!
You can view her entire session here http://www.cristynielsen.com/Melinda/Melinda.exe

Life is good here, Shaylee's been busy at her summer camp and loves it. She is now totally comfortable snorkeling in the pool, and has also learned how to swim down to the bottom of the deep end to get stuff off the bottom of the pool. It's nuts to watch this little person do all this stuff that most of the time I can barely do! My little fish is definitely not a baby anymore!

John is doing well, and had a good week this week. He plays in a monthly poker league with some friends and he won the whole pot for the end of the year tournament! So he came with just over $1,100 in his pocket! Gotta love that! He's been trying to get out and golf more too, so that is always fun for him. His best friend from high school Josh and Josh's family will be headed our way in less than two weeks to spend the 4th of July with us. It will be a blast and good for them to hang out and have guy time to play golf, yack and do whatever it is that guys do!

This next month will be nuts for me, so far I am booked pretty heavily until our vacation. Trying to fit clients in for sessions has become my biggest challenge. I can't stand not being available when people want to come in, but realize that it's part of growing and getting busier. I feel like all I ever do is work anymore, so this vacation coming up will be a MUCH needed break! Although I'm sure I'll take tons of photos of Shaylee at camp, sunsets, and all the fun...lol. You know me, can't ever put the camera down! I'm also hoping to get together with a few of my buddies from my online photography group, and have them do some family photos for us.

The TLC show we have done will start airing on July 24th at 8 p.m. I'm not sure which show we will be yet, but so far that is the date the series will be starting. Hoping it's not during our vacation or we'll have to go and find a place to watch it since we don't have cable at camp. The show producers and team have been calling, interviewing our family, and said the P/R for the show will be starting very soon and to be expecting phone calls from the media soon. I'm a bit nervous about all the publicity, but ready for it all to make it debut and move forward with this journey in our life. It definitely help John and I see the light in our marriage and understand each other more. I can't wait to see what the show turns out like. I'll keeep you posted as I know more.

That's all for now! Happy Father's Day guys!

:o) Cristy

Kinda funny!

My wedding assistant Christina caught these of me doing my "thang" at Anna & Gary's wedding... they are the first images I have of me working.

I have another that I'll post here of my friend Ruby from my photography group taking a picture of me taking a picture of her from Chicago... Too funny!

I also thought I'd throw in a shot of my little photographer in training, and the headshot that she took of me..these are a few months old, but still thought they were cute. Today she spent about a half hour this morning taking pictures of her dolls and horses. Pretty scary because she knows how to change her exposure and is already quite good at shooting full manual at 4 1/2 years old. I've been showing her how to use the camera and what it means to have a under and overexposed photo...lol. Someday she's going to give her mama a run for her money! Have a great weekend!