The Harrison Crib: Hello hello :)

It's been on my mind for days to find some time to sit down and write a new blog post, I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last one! Time sure flies.

Let's see, I'm trying to remember all that's happened in the past month.

Kids are doing well. Ethan is almost 4 and a half years old and growing up so quickly it seems. We've been practicing writing his name and while he's getting good at writing the letters, he gets frustrated with me when I ask him to write them in order. Ha! We practiced again a bit this morning and he's getting better. I haven't enrolled him yet, but he will be going to preschool 2 days a week come September, for just a few hours each day. I think he will love it!

Gracelyn is doing well, and beautiful as ever. Pretty sure that girl gets more beautiful as the days go on. I can't wait to see what she looks like as a teenager. Nothing too new with her, still her spunky and sweet self.

I did ask her the other day if the baby in my belly was a girl or boy. She always says girl and this time was no different. "It's a girl baby, my sister...because that's my best friend. I want to hold baby but will need your help so baby doesn't fall off couch." Ha! She's so serious when she has these discussions with me and she simply has the cutest voice on the planet so I just love these conversations!! Another funny one...her bed is broken in one spot and I keep forgetting about it. Jer will push the pegs back in and then I forget and sit on it, and the one part caves in. (We need to get Grandpa Petke on this soon ;)) So anyways I went to get her from nap the other day and sat on it and fell through. She looked at me with her beautiful big green eyes with concern in her voice and said, "Momma, it's because your butt is too big."

I died laughing but was trying to stay quiet as the boys were both sleeping in their rooms. It's so funny the things that go through kids minds and then the things they say. I'm forsure writing that one in her baby book :)

Lincoln has changed the most in this past month. He has now mastered crawling, pulls himself up on everything, has gotten his first two teeth, waves bye bye AND gives kisses when you ask him! He's had quite the productive month! I can't believe in another month I will start planning his birthday party, wow, this year has flown by!

Baby #4 is doing great. I saw my midwife last week and baby has a strong and healthy heartbeat. The baby kicked for the first time a week ago, which is so exciting and it now feels real that we have another little peanut on the way! I'm excited to order this little one's baby book soon, and start jotting down the few things I can fill out already :) Our big ultrasound is in just 5 days!! And I'm sorry to disappoint you Grandma's, but, I'm actually sticking to it this time and not finding out the gender. Typically I am counting down the days towards u/s day and so so so so excited to know what we are having...but for whatever reason, the idea it being a surprise this time around is more exciting to me. My labors are long and hard, and it will give me something extra to look forward to. Jeremy and I both lean towards it being a girl, but, time will tell :) We forsure have our girl name chosen and we are pretty confident with our boy name but not definite. Typically, with all of our kids, we've always only been strong about the a name that we ended up having that gender...which is why I'm leaning towards girl this time around. With Ethan we had no girl name. Gracelyn no boy name and Lincoln no girl name. Of course all we care about is a healthy baby, but I would LOVE having another daughter, and mostly a sister for Gracelyn. I really want that for her, but know she will be fine with all brothers if that should be the case :)

Please join us in praying for a completely healthy baby as we have our ultrasound on Wednesday.

We are taking the kids to the Toledo Zoo next week, which I'm really excited about. I had Jeremy take a day off weeks ago so we could go. We took the kids to the Detroit Zoo last year when I was like a week away from delivering Lincoln....and it was fun but Ethan was very sad they did not have elephants there. Good news! The Toledo Zoo has elephants :) It should be a fun day and I'm praying for good weather! Not too hot, not too cold and for the animals to be out :)

Another fun thing that has happened this past month is my cousin Nathan and Elizabeth tying the knot! Jeremy and I were both in the ceremony and it was a beautiful wedding! Elizabeth could pass as a real life princess and their love is so special. It's funny because we always tell them how much they remind us of ourselves at that age. Nathan is a lot like Jeremy and Elizabeth a lot like me...and we just have a lot of similarities in how long we dated, personalities, etc. We told them get ready! 8 years from now they will have 3 kids under 4 and 1 on the way! ;)

I have some really exciting news to share. Yes, I saved the best for last :) I spent 5 days creating and designing a website for my photography. It's something I've thought about for awhile, but haven't pursued. I decided I should and I couldn't be more excited about it! It went live on Monday and I've received so much positive feedback. It was fun to design and choose a lot of my favorite photos for the site. Another fun thing is that I also now have a logo. I've been wanting to do that for awhile too and found someone online through Etsy that did custom work and was super affordable. I gave her an idea of what I wanted...which was just something simple and a little added fun to my logo...and she did a great job! It took a good dozen or more revisions before it was exactly as I wanted it, but it's perfect and I love it. So, from now on you will see this watermark on all my photos, as well as my website and my marketing materials, etc. Isn't she (as in my new logo) cute?? Here's a recent photo from a session I did on Wednesday evening.

Speaking of my photography, I'm keeping really busy and have been getting so many referrals, it's been wonderful! There are still a few areas I seem to struggle in, which I know comes from lack of knowledge and experience and I get frustrated at times with some of my photos. The good news is there is a photographer I have been following on fb for the past month who lives just an hour from me and she does incredible work. She has like 8,000 fans on fb and does 4-8 sessions a week and then 2 weddings many times on the weekends! She's good and it's obvious looking at her photos why she's so busy. I've contacted her to see if she does one on one mentoring and she does. Which really excites me. I really feel I need someone to help me figure out the things I'm doing wrong and just the areas I am struggling with. There is SO much to photography. It's not free of course and will cost some $, but I feel it will totally be worth it and beneficial for me. I think she will be a good mentor for me. She mainly shoots outdoors like me, she shoots with the lens I own, and our styles are similar and she's my age. I just feel she will be a good fit for me. I will get to meet with her and go over any areas I need help with, chat, go out and shoot and practice together and then also be able to email her anytime after our meet up with questions, advice needed, etc. I am going to meet with her in August...as I have two weddings I'm photographing in September and I REALLY wanted to meet with her before those. So, I've offered a few discounted sessions this last week on my photography page to save up the money for our mentoring session.

I'm also saving up for Jeremy and I's get away weekend alone together late August...to celebrate our anniversary and birthday's. It will be the first weekend EVER in 5 years (since having children) that we are going away together for 2 nights. It's going to be a much needed and wonderful time together, I'm looking forward to it. So, saving up for our hotel costs (which is right on the beach!!) and some spending money, restaurant money, etc too.

I'll leave you with a couple photos from the 2nd wedding I photographed a couple weeks ago, which was my friend Bonnie's wedding. I haven't edited her wedding yet, but here are some of the sneak peeks I've given her.

Oh and one last photo. We took the kids to Holland last weekend, to Lake Michigan and had a great time playing in the water! Someone offered to take a pic for us. It's not super clear due to her taking the photo with my camera and not knowing what settings to use, etc. but it's still a sweet memory of my clan...and I'm all about candid shots like this :)