A Newborn Photoshoot

Most hospitals have a photographer come in and take photo's of the newborns. Many new parent's don't know how to take photo's or have the energy to take decent photos so it's a nice thing to have when the babies are so new. We were the same. Even though we both know how to take photos and consider ourselves amateur status, exhaustion and forgetfulness played a role in which photo's got taken.

Our hospital has a professional photographer come in and take the newborn photos. I was skeptical that the photo's were going to be any good, because I have seen some of the ones that have been done, considering some hospitals have new photographers come in and they don't always look the greatest. I was highly impressed that our photographer came with a basket and a pillow. She used our blankets and the handmade hats that we received also. I am glad I packed some headbows as well! I fell in love with all the photo's that were taken, minus the ones of me because she came in right after my shower, please don't mind our unkempt look! I love all of them and even though Emma was having a fit because she was hungry, the photographer managed to get some really cute and serene shots of her! We will cherish these always! Thanks to Baby Bella Photography for the great shots of our little angel!

DIY Maternity Shoot

I had every intention of having a maternity shoot done, one with Darin and I together celebrating the birth of our first baby. However so many things have occurred and the fact that we had two 3d scans to involve all members of the family in this process. We have gotten to the point of no return of this pregnancy so something had to be done.

I really did not want to be taking photo's my last weeks when I am huge, uncomfortable and lets face it hot.....the end of June beginning of July are the start of the unpleasantness here in SoCal. Honestly.....its already hot and it's the beginning of June. So what did we do? I hired my hubby. He got lots of kisses and hugs and baby kicks for his services! Our DSLR has seen better days....it's been dropped so it doesn't function like it used to and it's a pain to use indoors, but it still takes relatively decent photos. So we decided that this past Saturday while the house was empty to take advantage and get some cute photos of my bump.

I perused Pinterest and the internet for tips and tricks for taking maternity shots. Our photo's are not original by any means, but I like them and they showcased our growing family nicely. We used some props and a couple of wardrobe changes and we spent the afternoon having fun. I have every intention of having a newborn shoot done! We need to showcase Miss Emma! On that note, onto the photo's that we did!

Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve

About a month ago, my bumpdate shoot was held at a pretty cool place. I was up visiting my parents for the weekend, trying to decide where to take it when my mom suggested the Antelope Vally Poppy Reserve. We drive through the desert and see the wild poppies all the time but I have never been to the preserve. It really only blooms in April so going for my bumpdate seemed like an ideal plan.

My mom and I loaded up into the car and made our way into the preserve, seeing all the wild poppies on the side of the road got me excited! People were out in full force taking their photos along the side of the road. Once inside the reserve we discovered that we couldn't go off the path and take photos in the field. It was also outrageously busy with tourists and gale force winds made it almost impossible to keep the chalkboard upright without recruiting someone to hold it from behind.

We took a couple shots in the Reserve as well as some fun artsy shots, which is the purpose of this post. We decided to stop along a concentrated area along the road, where you can get deep into the fields and take photos which is inevitable the one I chose for the update. My mom couldn't help herself and had me pose for a couple without the chalkboard, but the wind made it really difficult to get a good shot.

It was a fun afternoon and of course after this weekend the poppies really bloomed, so if you live in Southern California or are visiting in April, go and check out this pretty place and take some photos of your own! :-)

When Two Become Three - A Holiday Surprise

Has this blog been a little quite this month? I have been holding in a secret for 6 weeks!!!  Our twosome (with a furbaby) is becoming a threesome!!!! If you follow me on Instagram (dianekimball07) or are following my personal Facebook you got the news last night!

I couldn't think of anything more perfect to be thankful for this year, besides our family, friends, and health; except for that little tiny heartbeat on the screen. It finally happened!!!!!! It has been SO hard keeping it a secret and even though our parents, siblings and close friends have known for five weeks now....we wanted to save the secret until the holiday's and really give everyone a reason to celebrate.

I am 10 weeks 5 days, and although its still early I just cannot hold in my excitement! Everything has been relatively easy for me.....minus a little nausea that started mid week 7....I thought I was in the clear. Bummer. But that seems to have passed. We had an ultrasound and saw our little peanut's heartbeat at 6 weeks 6 days which is what is pictured above and below. We had a mini scare week 8 with some spotting, which is why this post (which was supposed to go live on Thanksgiving) is a little delayed. We had another ultrasound done and everything looked great. We also had our 10 week appointment yesterday, and saw our little nugget again, who has quadrupled in size from the last month! We are beyond excited!!!! I cannot wait to share this journey with all of you! Bring it all on! I will share how we announced to the family and everything that has happened thus far in a little more detail in the coming days. Please bear with me if its a little baby heavy for a couple of days....I'll try and mix in some other posts that I have lined up as well!

The best time to be pregnant is around the holidays with all the yummy foods, outpouring of love and kind words from our family and friends! My mom has already started shopping! I thank you for all your support and love with our journey to becoming parents!! I hope you all will be around for this journey, it's going to be a fun ride!

See our mini photo shoot below that I told you about a couple weeks ago!

And a picture of the peanut along with our announcement cards for the family!

I love how it looks to be waving for the camera! My heart be full!

Photo Shoot Sneak Peek

Last weekend, we borrowed my mother-in-laws camera (since our camera is now officially in the shop getting repaired) and went to a local nature center to take some family Christmas card photos.

We brought the pup with us, but because there were so many people, kids and distractions such as squirrels she refused to pay attention. Which lets be honest, when your working with a 10 second timer she never would have made it to actually look in the general lens direction anyways.

So we just posed in some nice area's and got some good shots, considering we had to use a timer. We went during "the golden hour" and had some wonderful fall trees in the background.

I thought I would just share a sneak peak of one of the photos, and when we decide which photo's to use I will of course share them here!

Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend everyone!

12 Months of Instagram

I was a longtime holdout on getting an iPhone. I thought that my blackberry was THE way to go. Well, after battling with the crackberry for months, I decided to make the change last year and switch over to the Apple product. I can't believe I held out as long as I did. I love it! With this smartphone came another social media.....Instagram. I never thought that it would be something that I would get so addicted to, but to be honest.....it's my favorite one! Just above Pinterest. I am not a crazy poster, but I do post anywhere from 2-6 photos on any given week. It could be more or less depending on what interests me. Since were coming up on the year mark, I figured it would be cool to go through a year in my Instagram. So that's what I did here. Compiled 12 of my favorite photos from the last year that were uploaded to IG.

// October: This was taken at my very first basketball game. Lakers, 10th row center baby! // November: Thanksgiving Day with the family and yummy pies! // December: Bokeh of my Christmas Tree. That was fun to do. // January: I made a quilt for my best friend for his 30th birthday. This was taken when he received it! // February: Our trip to Catalina Island and our zip line adventure! // March: City Walk and Saddle Ranch where we road the mechanical bull. // April: We bought a beautiful succulent to sit on our patio. // May: A camping trip to Lake Piru with our neighbors for Cinco de Mayo. // June: Visiting family and the Fresno zoo with our goddaughter. // July: Our surprise 30th birthday! // August: Paint balling for our brother's birthday. What a blast! // September: A trip to Lake Tahoe, Carson City and Reno for our 6 year wedding anniversary. We bought cowboy hats! //

We have had quite a fun and eventful year! It's so great to be able to have wonderful memories with my hubby and all our family every year. Our lives are very rarely boring that's for sure! I cannot wait to see what the next year has in store for us, as well as IG. If you'd like to please follow me on Instagram. My user name is: dianekimball07. I think it's really important that you and your S.O. find things to do together that create memories. It keeps you active and always together. Trying things that are outside of your comfort zone are a must as well! What do you and your S.O. like to do?

Limoneira J&K

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Remember last week when I told you guys that I coordinated a dear friends wedding. Well the photographer, Nick Charrow, was on top of his game a released a sneak peak on his website. The photo's are awesome!!! I still feel blessed and honored to help be a part of this special and magical day! Check out the photo's and give Nick some love!

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The Power of Photography - Tuesday Topics

So, I am a little excited for this weeks Tuesday Topics! Not only is it featuring one of my favorite things, photography, I am going to shamelessly show off a couple of my favorite nature shots that the hubby and I have taken! You can see more of our favorite photos on our updated Photography tab at the top!

1. This was a pure luck shot. We hadn't had our DSLR camera for very long and I was walking along my parents property in Florida. The sun was going down and coming in through the trees just looked pretty. A little color correction and bam! One of my favorite shots.

2. We were at my parents house in Tehachapi, again pre us really knowing what we were doing and the hubbs went outside to play with his new lens. I love the contrast of the bare tree against the sunset. This photo has not had any color correction to it! Straight out of the camera! It's such a great shot that we blew it up and have it hanging in our home, and we gifted the shot and a couple of others to my parents of this same tree.

3. On our trip to Catalina this year, we went walking around the island on a particularly gloomy day. Gloom, still made for a moody and, in my opinion, fantastic shot of the harbor and the boats.

4. This one was also from the same trip to Catalina, we awoke super early to catch the sunrise on the island.
 

5. D got this on his family trip to Lake Tahoe last year. This is the island in Emerald Bay. It's a favorite locale when we go, to just float on the lake and soak up the sun.

6. I took this in St. Pete Beach, FL this year. I haven't blogged about that trip yet.....sorry, its coming! It was a fun and wonderful evening just hanging out and eating seafood!

7. We went to the Aquarium of the Pacific with our dear friends and their daughter for my birthday last year. I got this super cool shot of the jellyfish! It was really hard to get a non-blurry shot, so I was pleasantly surprised when I opened this large on my computer!

8. Last July, we had a particularly large full moon. We pulled out the camera and the tripod and got some pretty awesome shots of the moon.

Do you have any cool hobbies that you like to show off? I guess that's why I blog, a place to showcase the things I do! Happy Tuesday.

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Ever been hung off the side of a castle? I have! - Travel Diaries

Hey Guys! Are any of you the type of people that LOVE to travel? I totally am one of those people. I wish I had lots and lots of money so that I could just travel anywhere I wanted to go and just see the world. I blame my first ever trip outside of the U.S.A. to my infatuation with travel. Right after high school I went on a "school" trip to England, Wales and Ireland. It was a blast! 2 weeks in a foreign country!

Here's the thing, I thought I had lost all my photos! When I got married, my parents moved out of my childhood home. In the hustle and bustle of me moving, and them moving I lost the album with all the photos in it....people this was pre-digital cameras! I couldn't find the negatives either! I cried! Last year, my mom was going through boxes and FOUND THEM! I was so excited that I sent them off to Costco to be put on disc. I popped in the disc and was underwhelmed to say the least....my photography skills were lacking (18 years old with no idea what I was doing with a disposable camera!) I played with them enough to bring out the colors, and I think they look so much better.

So back to the story. We left LAX in the afternoon and took the 10+ hour flight "across the pond." We were all so excited that no one slept, and that 6 hour time difference dropped us in London mid morning. We were greeted by our tour guide, dumped our luggage at the hotel and made our way on the first day of touring. Over the next couple of days we did our performances, the reason we went was to perform for school kids and at elderly facilities...we did sketches, singing and dancing. We also toured all the areas of London....Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye....etc. Judging from the photos, I can't really tell what anything is, so if I have any London readers that could help me in determining what things are! If I remember correctly we toured Oxford as well....this was 12 years ago, so my brain and the memories have faded a bit!

Interesting outfit I have on! I wore the Shape Ups before they
were fashionable! Wait were they ever fashionable?!

Tower Bridge

The changing of the guard was really interesting! I also turned 18 while on this trip and we did it up right with fish and chips and lots of sightseeing.

Changing of the Guard

Gardens at Buckingham Palace

Our tour guide

After several days of playing in London, taking photos inside those large red phone booths (which have very interesting advertisements in them!) We made the trek into Wales to catch the ferry over to Ireland. We went to the train station in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Wales. This city has the longest name in the world and you can stamp your own passport with it! Of course we did! We hopped on the ferry and made our way over to the greenery that is Ireland!

We toured around the Ring of Kerry in Kilarney and just took in all the sights! Everything was just beautiful, however somewhere along the way I caught a cold, so I was asleep during much of the bus tours. I was also told that our bus driver like to spike his morning coffee with Baileys....so I was kind of glad that I wasn't awake for that roller coaster! We did our performances and went to a little fair/carnival and took in all the culture there. We also went to see a comedy show....although half of the show was in Gaelic so most of the jokes were lost on us Americans. We still had a great time!

My favorite memory was visiting Blarney Castle. It was just so cool to see a medieval castle and how people once lived. I was also very excited to kiss the Blarney Stone, that is until I realized what that entailed. You have to walk to the top of this 90 foot high castle, around the outer edge to the stone, lie on your back while two men hold your ankles and lean you backwards over the edge of the castle and kiss it upside down. I am terrified of heights! I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to do it, until it was my turn and I just said to myself....Diane just do it! They have since put in metal safety rails so your not hanging off the edge of the building by your ankles! It was seriously so exhilarating and I hope to take the hubby there someday! Watch the video below for a tour of Blarney Castle (not my video)

These pictures just don't do the beauty of this country justice! I hope that someday I can visit the world and see all the culture that it has to offer!

Love this little cottage!

Miles of greenery

Where have you traveled, or want to travel? What are the favorite memories of your travels?