Catch Your World

Payton's journey

I know many of you who follow this blog know about the journey through cancer fought by Payton Wright and her family.  You may have watched the slideshows of images that Itook of Payton and her family, and most heartwrenching of all, her memorial service.

Recently, Dick Vitale, who had pledged to raise 1 million dollars in cancer research funds in Payton's name, surpassed that goal and a total of 1.2 million was donated.  At the gala to celebrate the donation, Payton's mom, Holly told the story of Payton's journey.  While I had read the transcript on Payton's website, the video of Holly's speech is now on Mr. Vitale's site and I really encourage everyone to watch it and pass it on. 

 The link is here:  Holly's speech. 

It hurts to watch it, I won't lie about that.  It hurts me to watch it and I sat here and cried as I did, remembering Payton as I do daily, and seeing just a tiny, TINY piece of her family's pain there in Holly's speech.  I really encourage everyone to watch it, and pass it on to everyone they can think of.  As Holly pointed out in her speech, pediatric cancer gets very little funding, and with awareness we can change this.  Mr.Vitale's work to raise funds and awareness are an example of what people can do when the message gets out. 

Please share Payton's story, help fight cancer, and hug your kids. 

Payton's website:  www.paytonwright.org

sneak peek :)

A little teaser of images from a FUN session on Thursday..... we have superheroes and smashed cakes in addition to the usual cute portraits from these longtime clients :)

Little Bookworms slideshow!

Last weekend, I photographed a group of kids at Little Bookworms.  We update our display there approximately once a year, and this year we wanted to showcase some of the new clothing items Bookworms has added to their incredible and unique book inventory.  Mistie assisted me that day, and took some behind the scenes shots that worked so well for this slideshow! 

We are planning boutique sessions at Little Bookworms starting early next year and will post details here as we solidify them.

In the meantime, have a peek at the fun we had :). 

Just be nice!

The title of this post has been my mantra for a long time.  I'm not the first to notice that these days, taking the time to just be polite, courteous, pleasant and NICE is a forgotten art!   It takes just as much time and energy to be a crab as it does to be a pleasant person.  The choice belongs to each of us.  I wish more people would Choose Nice!

Found the link to this cute website and awesome BE NICE tag on my friend Terrilyn's site....thanks for sharing T!

Click on the Badge of Niceness to go to their website - you can snag the code for yourself too :).   I loooove the 'Nice Assignments' - really makes you cconcentrate on the good.  I'm hooked :).

Welcome to the farm :)

Apparently things aren't crazy enough here at the Catch A Star Compound In The Woods, so we decided to add some chickens :D.

Just five...though we do want a rooster too.  And maybe a couple chicks eventually.  We'll see.  They have a nice large area to roam and a coop to hang out in.  They are settling in nicely and two of the ladies produced eggs today!  We could end up with 3-5 eggs per day, since they are all breeds that are dependable layers. 

In the meantime --

meet Moni

Leia

Stripes

Jezebel

and Sophie!

Yes we named our chickens.  Sophie was the first to produce an egg for us today.

I can honestly say I never expected to put a picture of a chicken, or a chicken egg, on my blog, but yet there they are :). 

Braving the heat

Adrianne from our own local APKidzSongs and her family joined me one morning recently in Sarasota for some fun family shots.  The girls were *so* sweet and we had a great time.  If you haven't already checked out Adrianne's CD, you should!  You can get more details on her website, linked above and on our sidebar :).

Just a few days later I met Sean and Kevin and their parents for a whirlwind hour of hula-hooping, swinging, dog-walking, fence-climbing, monkey-flinging (yeah really!), bed-jumping laughs.

Serious height on the bed jumping :).

 

And I'd like to just illustrate for you a typical behind the scenes kind of thing that happens at so many sessions.  Here is a compelling, serious image of Sean that I really like --

-- and here is what was going on in the background that I had to crop out :D !!

Awesome family beach session

A 40th anniversary is a big event.  This family, who have been clients for almost two years and have been SO incredible to work with, enjoyed a family vacation on the beach in Clearwater to celebrate the occasion.  I love going to new places to shoot and was happy to do a road trip up there to capture the fun! I could share a couple dozen images, but I'll try to keep it to a few favorites :)

By the time we got back to the vacation house after our walk to the beach, the sun was down and it was almost full dark.  So I got to really test my skills capturing the boys leaping in the pool together, because there was really *no* light.  Scary camera settings, wide open aps with shutters about 1/20 for those who can relate :D.

And you gotta see Wil getting tossed around the pool -- each time he'd flop like a ragdoll, and come up yelling for more.  I *love* this image!  Thank you so much again, all of you, for the fun evening sharing this neat occasion with your family :).

 

What happened to August?!

*Ahem* yes you'll notice, I oopsed on that resolution....but really, August doesn't count :).  Both of my kids are August babies, so I take a good chunk of the month off to do fun things with them.  Also, it's so HOT -- with school being out it would seem convenient to do family sessions at this time of year, but in SW Florida it's pretty scorching for that!

Even so, I do have a number of sessions to share that took place in the last month. 

To start -- congratulations to Gabrielle, our Kids Directory cover contest winner!  The September issue is all over Sarasota and Bradenton now, with Gabby gracing the cover.

Also in August several StarBabies came in to the studio to show off their newest skills and milestones. 

Nate:

Caroline:

More in another post in just a few minutes!

Sometimes....

.... a sprinkler just won't cut it. 

This weekend, Mistie and I set our kids up outside with slip 'n' slides and sprinklers to beat the heat while we did some work in the studio.

We came outside to find these little mudpuppies.

Aidan was using the hose, so he wasn't *too* filthy....if you can ignore the mudpies in his hair......

And Travis, by far the youngest, was also by far the cleanest of the bunch......

.....but Lauren and Tanner decided that 'mudball' fights were necessary since Florida kids don't have snowballs.

This weekend!

Don't miss the fun this Saturday, July 19th!  Catch A Star Photography, along with many other local family-friendly vendors, will be on Lakewood Ranch Main Street in front of Little Bookworms bookstore for a CD release party.  The event is from 11am-1pm.  There will be games, food, face painting, live music, raffles, lots of fun and lots to keep kids busy.  :::secret -- we'll have ice pops at our booth, so stop by if you're hot!:::::. 

The CD release party is to celebrate a new CD by local musicians Adrianne and Dean of APKidzSongs.   The CD is entitled 'Fun To Be Fit' - a great collection of songs to get kids moving and having fun.  Adrianne teaches Strollerfit classes with Robyn as well (one of our local partners) and knows just what works to get kids motivated. 

Attached is the party flyer.  Hope to see you there!