Today I realized I’ve come a really long way.  Ten years ago, Jeff and I wanted to start a family.  We struggled with infertility for 8 years.  Each new friend that was pregnant made my heart ache.  The emotions of feeling happy for my friend, but at the same time feeling so incredibly sad that we weren’t able to have our own was overwhelming at times. If you’ve been there, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  And if  you haven’t, you can imagine the pain I felt.  Infertility is a loss, and  you walk through a very real grieving process.  Anger, depression, sadness, and emptiness were just a few of the emotions I felt throughout those 8 years.

I remember the day so clearly in 2006 when God began to take the pain away, and I shed my very last tear over not being able to get pregnant. “Enough is enough…I’m so tired of crying over this Lord, please take this pain away and heal my heart.”  It was only a few months later that we started down the long road towards foster/adoption and began a new journey.  Looking back I wouldn’t change my journey, my very own story for anything.  I realize that it was difficult, overwhelming and at times unbearable, but without these struggles I wouldn’t be the woman I am today, and we wouldn’t have the children that God has so graciously blessed us with.

Pregnancy photos make me smile.  Although I’ve never been pregnant  myself, I love how a woman carrying a child in her womb glows and smiles knowing that soon she will hold her child tenderly in her arms.  It’s a beautiful moment in time, that goes so fast.  One of my best friends came down to visit this weekend.  She recently moved up to the Bay area, and I’ve missed her so much. She was my co-worker for over 6 years, and a friend that walked beside me in my journey of infertility and adoption.  She’s the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, and will be such a loving mother.  I’m so happy for Lisa and her husband and can’t wait to meet her little man.

These last few months have been overwhelming to say the least.  Taking care of an infant is the most exhausting job in the world.  I’ve had very little “umpf”, hitting the wall around 7:30 p.m. every night.  At 3 months old, Emma started sleeping 7 hours straight, and I instantly felt like a new woman.  With this new status, I decided it was time to start working towards my dream of being a stay at home mom, and having my photography business up and running.  As many of you know, starting a business takes work, dedication and drive.  But, ultimately I believe you must have passion to pursue your dreams and make them happen.

I decided to celebrate getting over this major milestone by running a simple contest, and showing the world that I’m back in the game.  I’m starting to book sessions again, and have a few fun things around the corner.  If you haven’t seen it already, it’s easy to enter my contest.  It will take a few minutes of your time, and the prize is a free Portrait session worth $300. You can use the portrait session for a family shoot, headshots, pregnancy shoot, children, senior session, or anything else that you may need that would fit into a 1-2 hour session.

Here’s how to enter:

1. Login to your facebook account
2. Go to my Facebook Fan Page “Miamarisaphotography”
3. Once you’ve gone to my page, click on “Suggest to Friends”.  It’s directly under my logo.
4. Suggest my fan page to your friends.
5. Lastly, leave me a note to let me know you did it.

It’s that simple!!!  Good Luck. The contest will end on April 16th.

Blogs are better with pictures, so here’s a picture of the family on Easter.

A few weekends ago, we headed up to the mountains to visit my parents and sister’s family.  We arrived with the expectation of taking Eva on her first sledding adventure. We imagined her begging us to sled over and over again, but this wasn’t the case. Granted, this is the same girl that tackled Pirate’s of the Caribbean, the Tea Cups and Rocket Ships at the ripe age of 1 1/2 years old.  She cried as we put her on the sled and cried all the way down.  I don’t think she was scared, but instead more curious about this white stuff she had never seen before and was discovering for the first time.  After torturing her for a few runs, we let her frolic alongside her cousins for a great 55 degree day in the snow. We were dressed way too warm, but what do we know!  We had a blast.

Here’s Samantha and Dominic. He wasn’t feeling it either.

Sam, Me and Noah…just missing Josh.

Here are some pictures of me and Emma along with our sweet little friend Stella.  She was born 2 weeks before Emma and is being adopted by our good friends.

Here’s Ms. Stella Rose….gorgeous eyes, don’t you think?

Yes, it’s true.  Our little foster daughter is already 2 months old. Can you believe it? She’s really starting to smile all the time, and coo. I love it.  Here are some recent pictures of the kids, along with pictures from our visit with my brother and his family.

My sister-in-law Staci and my nephew Isaiah.  He’s a doll!

My brother Josh and the baby.

My niece Ella loving on the baby.

Eva is such a ham!  I love this little one so much.

Blowing Kisses…

Our little foster daughter.  I love these pictures of her.

After 3 long years, my sister is finally moving back to California.  I hadn’t seen her for over 1 year, and hadn’t met her son Dominic.  He’s 1 years old, and so cute.  We had such a great visit, as they are out here finding a place to live. They’ll be moving out in a few more weeks, and I can’t wait to have them close to home.  Here are just a few snapshots from our time together.

Here are Samantha’s kids.

Dominic and Alyssa

Cousins!

Look at that face.  He’s just looking for trouble.

Alyssa loved the baby. Grandma was enjoying her grandchildren.

Jeff and Eva messing around.

Me and my girl.  I love her so much.

Meet our friend Chris. I call him my husband’s brother from another mother. They are best buds, and not only have been mistaken for one another, but love to write, record and play music together.  We are so blessed by his friendship. He needed some pictures, and I desperately needed to get out and get behind the camera. It’s been since early December, and OHHHH how I’ve missed it!  We only had 45 minutes, but had fun on our mini shoot.

You may have been wondering where I’ve been.  I haven’t blogged for almost two months, I check facebook maybe once a week, and returning emails isn’t happening. I promise, it’s been for a really good reason.

I’d like to officially introduce you to our little foster daughter. She just turned 1 month old on Wednesday.  We met her on New Year’s Day in the NICU at USC, and brought her home 1 week later. Our hope and prayer is that we’ll get to adopt her, but realize that this is ultimately in God’s hands. For the meantime, while she is in our home, we will love her and take good care of her.

Jeff’s Aunt Patty bought Eva the cutest purple tutu, and I remembered that I had a little tutu for the baby.  It hardly fits her, as she was only 5 lbs in these pictures.  But, we made it work and had fun doing it. As you can see Eva loves her so much. She can’t say baby, so she calls her “Dee Dee”.

I leave you with a few fun pictures of Eva.  We gave the dog a bath today, and she was so dirty I had to strip her down to her diaper and boots. I couldn’t resist.

I was so excited when I heard that my cousin and his family were moving to California.  You may not know this, but I lived in Pennsylvania for two years while I was finishing college. During those two years my dad’s cousin Ron graciously let me live with him and his son.  Growing up in California I always felt somewhat removed from my east coast family.  My dad grew up near Philadelphia and that’s where most of his family still lives. Those two years gave me a chance to reconnect with my dad’s side of the family. I loved the family dinners cousin Denise cooked and seeing everyone during that time.  When I heard my cousin Sal was moving out west, I was ecstatic.  It’s been fun to see them in the past few months and get to know his beautiful wife and children.

We decided to shoot in Seal Beach where they are living. Yes, east coast family, these pictures were taken this month and “YES” they are barefoot.  The temperature did start to drop as the sun went down to a cool 60 degrees. But, as you can see we had a good time.

As you can see, Tori loved modeling. I think I may hire her for my next shoot. She’s a natural.

I remember years ago, playing dress up with my friends, imagining what it would be like to be a woman.  One of my favorite things to do was to dig through my Mother’s closet, and hide in the bathroom, practicing with her make-up for what seemed like hours in my mind, which was actually only minutes because my brother would start knocking on the door annoying me.  Even to this day,  I love to get all dressed up and feel beautiful.  It doesn’t happen very often when I get to put on a pair of high heels, or sassy boots, dawn the bright red lips, and go out for a night on the town. But, when it does, I still feel like that little girl digging through my Mom’s closet, and trying on her make-up, excited to feel beautiful again.

Boudoir style photo shoots have always intrigued me.  I love how I feel when I’m all dressed up and love to captures a woman’s beauty.  The opportunity I was given was amazing.  My girlfriend’s sister owns the Ultra Lux Salon and Lounge in Redondo Beach.  You walk in and you immediately feel like you’ve stepped back in time. From the red and black wall paper, to the pink hair dryers, and old vintage prints, the owners Tricia and Deanna put their hearts and souls into this place.  They graciously opened up their second home to us, provided the girls with killer hair and make-up to make our photo shoot amazing.

A big thank you must go out to the Ultra Lux Salon and Lounge family, without you this wouldn’t have been possible. Thanks also must go to Ming, Alice and Noah, my fellow photographers for providing support and talent for this shoot.  A big thank you to Pin-up Girl Clothing for providing the outfits.

And I can’t forget our models Jennifer, Allison and Kaylie for rocking the shoot and giving us some beautiful images.

Jennifer is our first model. I grew up with her and her twin sister and have known them from Junior High.  Most of the pictures were too sizzling to post. But here are some of the tamer ones.

Allison is a good friend of Jennifer’s and had such a great look that I loved.

Kaylie has joined us before on some of the previous shoots. She’s a college student just wanting to break into modeling.  The girl transforms and can move her body so beautifully.  She’s definitely a favorite among my photog friends to capture.

I have to tell you, I’m getting pretty spoiled working with all these amazing models, make-up artists and photographers.  Every shoot, I learn something new.  This shoot was no different.  Through the help of a photog friend, I’ve just purchased some off camera lighting. It was so fun to play around, mess with my settings and try to get it just right.  If you don’t have any off camera lighting and are looking to purchase some items without spending a fortune, check out the “Cactus” trigger.  It’s only $30, and it worked great.

A Big Thank You:

Thank You Alicia and Rita for putting on this amazing shoot. You thought through every detail and made your vision come to life.

Rita Clifton

Alicia Salcedo

Kelli Benson

Make-up Artist:

Crystal Roberts

Crystal, you made everyone look so fierce.

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Jarred and Valentina

Kaylie and Bryan

Kaylie

Valentina and Kaylie