Wednesday night is my night alone with Finnian.  Sayer and Daddy are off at swim lessons and Finn and I are on our own.  This week we went to dinner and then to my photography club meeting.  I have been going to this club for years and we all do a show together during Fotofest.  I haven't been to a meeting in a while so it was nice to see everyone.  First off, we headed to Central Market for some dinner.  Finn loved the big bins of pumpkins.  He was running around screaming (yes screaming) "pumpkins!" and "look, more pumpkins!".

The white pumpkins were the coolest

Then we stopped and had dinner.  Finn loves to put raspberries on his fingers and eat them off one-by-one. 

Then we headed off to the club meeting.  Finn ate about a half of a sleeve of cookies and then, um, helped clean up...

Finally, he announced to everyone in the room that it was "time to leave" and "I go home now".  I didn't get a chance to see everyone's cool new work or this cool book someone brought about Lee Friedlander but it was a nice time.  Finn did take his first self portrait!

The kids are home and our little weekend without them was relaxing.  After our night with Raul Malo, we hung out with the Clarks.  We took them out for some sushi.  I can't remember what it was called but the squid appetizer we had was awesome!

We tried really hard NOT to talk about business but it crept in a little.  Danny & I have started a new business photographing weddings together.  We call it Better Together and we're both really excited about it.  Check out the new promotional DVD!  Watch out wedding world, here we come!

Saturday I was back at work in the studio with the Obenhaus family.  I have had the pleasure of photographing Haddley's girls a handful of times.  They are so cute and it's so much fun to see them growing up.  On the 22nd, I am having a special event at the studio that I am calling Little Ballerinas.  I am scheduling mini-sessions that include an 8x10 of your choice.  I'll be taking pictures of a bunch of cuties in their ballet outfits.  I have all boys at my house so this will be so much fun for me!  Paige and Brooke gave my tutus a practice run.  Here they are!

If you like these shots, I actually have some spots left (2 to be exact) for my Little Ballerinas sessions on 9/22  so give the studio a call if you have an interested ballerina, (713) 255-2882.  Let the cuteness begin!

The kids are away so the mice went out to play!  My friend, Tom Lewis, plays drums for Raul Malo (who used to be in The Mavericks).  Tom sent me a nice little invitation to come see them play and we happily obliged (thanks Tom!).  Raul was great and his voice is just amazing.  Warehouse Live is great too if you haven't been there.  The sound was good and this new no smoking rule makes going out even nicer! 

I took Steven's little point and shoot Canon with me (powershot S3) and tried to play around with making a video but I don't think it worked.  I really need to read the manual!  Anyway, I did play around with the cool little flip screen and the flash.  The flip screen is great!  You can turn it around so when the camera is pointing at you the screen lets you actually see yourselves while doing it. 

Steven holding our tickets, with and without the flash...(I know, pointless pictures, photo geek, poor Steven)

Cutey

There was a couple in front of us for most of the evening.  I loved them!  they were dancing together and so happy with each other.  I loved the his and hers pony tails and the height differential.  There really is someone for everyone and I find tremendous comfort in that.  They were awesome.

Tonight we are hanging out with another great couple- Denise and Danny Clark.  They've been together since high school.  I'm just amazed and awed by that.  Steven and I are just newlyweds in comparison!

Saturday evening we partied with James Clark at his 3rd birthday party.  Poor little Finn couldn't come because he was sick so it was just Sayer and I.  The partied started with a little snack...

Sayer just walked in, sat down, put on his hat and started snacking.  It was so orderly it just cracked me up. 

The Tumble Tykes bus came and all the kiddos got in line and headed outside.

The bus was so cool!  There was a trampoline and hanging rings and all sorts of cool padded blocks.  The first thing was to sit down and get the "rules".  The Tumble Tykes instructor had them all get on the trampoline and bounced them all around.  They were cracking up.

Danny Clark was there shooting away too.

Whitney jumping

This little guy was so cute.  His name is Christian.

and here's Taylor

 
Danny took some cool shots outside the bus that you can see here on his blog.  It was hilarious to watch them from outside the bus.  You just saw these heads bobbing up and down.

All of the kids loved the bus door.  Here are the gate keepers in action.

Sayer showed James a little love, sweet!

James got a special t-shirt as a prize

Sayer being "so tall" and touching the top of the bus

 After the fun on the bus we all went inside for cake.  Check out James' glasses!

Sayer ended up with cake all over his face (of course).  So we headed off to the bathroom to clean up.  After cleaning his face up he looks up and gets this huge smile.  Then he starts dancing and make faces and laughing.  It was hilarious.  It was like he had never seen himself in the mirror before!  Kids are so funny.  Notice that he had put his hat back on too.

By now everyone had worn themselves out.  It was time to go.  We managed to leave without tears, which is always nice.   Happy Birthday James!  Thanks for having us.

Happy birthday Luke! We had the best time on Saturday night celebrating with Luke & Julia on a progressive wine dinner / party. The night started at Cova with (of course) wine and some great food. I was playing with my camera testing out some high ASA settings (3200) and no flash. Sometimes it worked and other times not so much.

presents! More wine to be exact.

Look at Luke...so sweet. I think he might have been looking at Julia! :)

Here are our hosts, Julia and Luke:

The MC of the evening assigned us all names that identified our wine glasses...I was none other than Madonna!

Our first stop was Sorrento's where we had the most amazing ravioli, some nice chianti and some red zinfandel. Here's Luke, uh I mean George Clooney, enjoying all 3!

the sun going down at Sorrentos

Next we went to 5115 inside Saks and had a great appetizer plate and, you guessed it, more wine! After that we went to Masraff's. It was awesome. I was so full already but I managed to get a little of everything eaten. The molten chocolate cake was fabulous!

Me & Julia

Me and the bday boy!

It was a great night and we really enjoyed it. Thanks guys!