• bsquared business,  personal

    10 for Tuesday

    1. I got John some luggage for his birthday last week. Why luggage you might ask? Well, the man has pretty much everything else and will NEVER tell me what he wants for his birthday. Other than the $12,000.00 Rolex that isn’t in the budget at the moment. He has this ridiculous dinky duffle bag that he takes all the time on our trips with no wheels or anything. So after hearing him complain about the bag, I bought him a new wheelie bag. And pretty much from the moment it’s been here at the house, Timmy has decided it’s his. In the funniest way possible.

    Oh, and it’s muggage, not luggage. Just so you know.

    He made me take him for a walk outside while inside the luggage. Too freakin funny.

    2. My first week on the cleanse diet/weight watchers I lost 4 lbs. Not bad- I’ll take it! Only 46 more to go although I think I gained 2 back over the weekend…

    3. Timmy at the dinner table this week: “Mommy, you are my princess”. Melt! And some of his other sayings that are my favorites lately: Yeddow (yellow), tippitty top, ear muffins (ear muffs), renember, nudgie (for nuggie), it smells funky in here.

    4. Started Pilates last week and I really like it. Although I’m sore in places I didn’t even know existed. I’ll be going twice a week for private training sessions with Karen for the next few months and am actually looking forward to it!! We’ll see about that after this weeks ‘real’ training sessions (last week was just an introduction, this week is the real deal. Oh deeeeer.)

    5. Monday’s are the suckiest, craziest day of the week for me. Just a slice of my day: after going to bed at 3am Sunday night, up at 8:15 brought all boys to school (forgot Timmy’s backpack so had to run all the way home to get it and get him back in time- just made it), came home and answered/wrote 23 emails, blogged and facebooked the post, return 6 phone calls (with a bunch I didn’t get to), burned 6 discs, edited a shoot, uploaded 3 shoots for printing, packed 6 orders- 3 of which were packed to be mailed, decided I need a very part time assistant, balanced my checkbook, started editing another shoot, got Timmy from school, went to PT/OT where I paid bills for an hour, went to Subway for my lunch (at 3pm), came home shoved lunch in my face in 7 minutes, left to pick up the big boys at school, took Timmy to CATS and while he was there went to A&S Pork Store, dropped off two client DVDs, got Timmy, got gas (which was literally 1 gallon short of completely empty), came home again, said bye to the big boys and John and Grandpas who were leaving for the Mets game, made dinner, gave Timmy a bath, put him to bed and am now writing this blog post and working on editing a shoot. I loathe Mondays.

    6. Looking forward to the 6 shoots coming up this weekend. And hoping against hope to catch up with the 6 shoots still to edit before the weekend. Haha- pretty funny, no!?

    7. And it seems as though I have found my very part time assistant! My good friend Jen will be starting today (praise god!) and helping me out with lots of behind the scenes work so I can spend more time editing and less time running around. She’ll be helping me out one or two mornings a week with packing orders, ordering supplies, emailing clients with pick up information, picking up finished photos at the camera store, filing clients papers, obtaining photo permits, shipping orders at the post office and the like. I’m so excited to finally have some help and the wait is nothing but self imposed. I’m pretty much a control freak and hate giving that up at all. But I know Jen well and we are made from the same anal-retentive cloth so I have no worries!!

    8. I have Timmy’s CPSE meeting this morning which is really just a formality since it looks like he’ll be ‘graduating’ from PT and OT at the end of the school year. I still want to get him speech but they aren’t giving it up. They did tell me at the Kindergarten screening that he is flagged for speech/articulation for next year. Better late than never I suppose, but seriously if they had just given it to him already he would’ve been done. Grrrr.

    9. The big boys have been going to Coach Bryan at Batting 1000 in Freeport for a few months now and the difference is huge! He’s a great coach and the boys (even Timmy) just adore him. He’s a funny guy with a great way with the boys. When I walked in one day and forgot what the boys were wearing, I looked at them (from the back, from far away) and didn’t think they were my kids!

    Timmy starts Tball in a few weeks so Coach Bryan pitches him a few sometimes too.

    Coach Mike often works with them too and the boys have come such a long way with him. They were SO scared of him in the beginning but they know that when he gives you a compliment you really earned it. My favorite Coach Mike story is that a kid came in to the place with his mom carrying his equipment bag. Mike asked the mom for the bag which she gave to him and he promptly opened up the door to the outside, and chucked the bag into the 2 feet of snow in the street. He then told the kid- ‘now, go get it. your mom doesn’t carry your bag’. Love that!

    10. Can’t wait for tonights LOST episode. I’m so hooked again (not that I ever wasn’t but now more than ever). Loved the Hurley/Libby episode last week and the whole crossover to the alternate reality. And everytime they show this week’s preview with the Willy Wonka narrative in the background (‘theres no earthy way of knowing, which direction we are going…and they are certainly aren’t showing any signs that they are slowing’) I get the chills! I’m going to be so sad when the series is over and they had better give some kind of answers when it’s all wrapped up or I’m gonna freak out!!

  • occassions & parties,  school

    the rvc education foundation gala

    I was thrilled to be asked to photograph this very special event again this year! It’s always a fun night filled with lots of familiar, friendly faces, along with great entertainment, and special honorees.

    This year’s theme was “Celebrate Broadway” with some very talented singers/actors from both the Middle and High schools performing scenes from their shows (Annie and Carousel respectively).

    There were also honors given out to some very special members of the community. The Honorable Frank Yanelli was the gala honoree and a real pillar of the community.

    The recipients of the Ruth Fins Memorial Award Karen Bauer and Gene Kaplan are both important and amazing teachers in the Music Department. In fact, Mrs. Bauer was my chorus teacher back in my days in South Side!! So glad to see that she is still there, working with the students who love her.

    There were SO many great images from the evening, it was so difficult to decide what to post. If you’d like to see all of the photos from the evening, please visit the online album HERE. And look out for some of the pictures in The Herald as well as I’m told they will be making an appearance in an upcoming issue.

  • children & families,  communions,  occassions & parties

    the sewa communion

    Although we were battling the winds and the dreaded overhead 1pm sun, I had a great time meeting this new to bsquared photography family and capturing their oldest daughters first communion. Actually, her communion is the weekend I’ll be away shooting the destination wedding in Jamaica so doing it now worked out great for all of us!

    Isn’t she lovely?

    The girls were so cute and giggly together, even sharing a coat in between pictures. They seemed to really get along great which is always a pleasure to see.

    Such a cute family! Mom wanted greenery so I got as much of it as I could.

    A pleasure meeting all of you. Hope you like the pictures and I hope your ‘real’ communion day is wonderful!!

  • baseball,  personal

    take me out…

    Well, you know the rest. The big boys baseball season has officially begun and they have played 2 games so far. I’m happy to report that I actually caught some of both of them!! And of course, took a bunch of pictures (people wouldn’t recognize me without my camera I don’t think).

    They lost the first game and had a come from way behind win in the second game. It was actually very exciting! (yes, even for me!!)

    Total determination from Patrick.

    Jack pitched an inning and did pretty well.

    Their friend and teammate John C. Hi Stefanie!! (waving)

    John getting his coach on. He’s one of the boys team’s coaches again this year and really seems to enjoy it a lot. He’ll also be co-managing Timmy’s t-ball team next month. He’s a good daddy and a busy guy!!

    This is what Timmy does during the games.

    Some shots for their batting 1000 Coach Bryan, so he can work on whatever he needs to with them. (They’ve been going to training with Coach Bryan for a few months now and he’s helped them SO much. More on Coach Bryan and Coach Mike in another post coming soon.)

    Looking forward to catching some more wins by the boys!

  • babies,  children & families

    the midd family

    Mom is the school psychologist in the boys school and when she told me she was expecting twins, I was so excited!!! We have become friendly over the 6 years the boys have been there and she’s always been so good to all of us. I was thrilled to be able to capture some images of this very exciting (exhausting, busy, chaotic, thrilling) time for her and her family.

    And did I mention she only found out she was having twins at her 19 week appointment? Surprise!

    Miss E.

    Mister P.

    The babies were so super deliciously cute (and big for twins- you go mom!!) and their big sister was absolutely adorable. I was a little worried going in that I wouldn’t be able to capture much from her being not even two years old, but I was so wrong. What a cutie pie!

    Thanks for the morning of babies (big and small)! Hope you enjoy your pictures!!