Our maternity photos - Sneak Preview

Yes that's right friends! I haven't made the official announcement on the blog but we are having a baby boy!! I am already 34 weeks pregnant and my due date is November 5th. We are a little nervous as this is new to us and hope to be the best parents for our son, but also so very excited of this new chapter in our lives and get things rolling! Last weekend, we headed to St. Augustine for maternity photos with Cayden Lane Photography. It was sooo hard choosing the right photographer for us as you very well know why. Us photographers have access to the online forums and community and know there are literally thousands of great photographers in our area. I wanted someone who had a great eye for composition and natural light, as well as good post processing skills with crisp images. I found Lori with Cayden Lane Photography while I was looking at the Images for a Cure website. She is a memeber and as soon as I saw her profile, I prayed she was local. You can imagine how extatic I was when I found out she is based in Jacksonville! I quickly emailed her and set the arrangements. I am so happy with my choice! And my husband also had a blast during our shoot. Lori is totally laid back and makes you feel so comfortable. The skies were really overcast that day and I just think it was perfect. Here is a little sneak peek that Lori kindly posted on her facebook.

I also wanted to share a little preview of our nursery we are working on. The photos are taken with my phone, but I will be taking better ones once everything is up and ready :) I decided to have a nice gray as the main color and my husband wanted one accent wall, so we decided on blue. I knew I didn't want a baby blue or sky blue, so we went to Home Depot and compared a few colors and we were both happy with the tone we chose. I also did not want a theme to the nursery. I wanted to keep it simple and make the room where I can decorate with accessories and also have the room to where the baby will grow with it. If I had chosen a car theme or animals, I felt like the baby would grow out of that so quickly and it would be harder to change. So I stuck with simple colors and things that I would be able to easily change and redecorate in the future.

I can't wait to get it completely done and share the photos! :)

Life is sweet :)

Two among my favorite things in life: A good cupcake and thoughtfulness, in this case, in the form of simple fresh flowers, that my amazing hubby just bought me today. No, it's  not valentines day, no, he wasn't trying to make up for anything or make amends. Just the simple fact that he thought about me and wanted to express that. Why do we have to wait around for the world to tell us when to give a gift of thoughtfulness to a friend or loved one? I love spontaneous-ism :)

Morning goodness

Nothing like a good warm cup of Chai tea and a gooey chewy marshmallow square on a cold windy day :)

ch-ch-ch-changes

I can't believe I've neglected my poor blog for 3 weeks! It's been very busy this month, with squeezing in a few shoots, editing, and of course, spending time with my family and doing wifey duties :) I've got a few things in the works for 2011. My first and foremost goal:



1. TO GET MORE ORGANIZED!!

I can't keep turning the house upside doing looking for my receipts from the year to turn in for tax season. Sometimes I'll tuck them in my wallet or set them on the table and totally forget about them and then they become this wad of paper with the ink almost disappearing. I've already started on this goal though. I spent a few days this month cleaning my ENTIRE house to make room for the new changes. I needed an uncluttered house to think straight and that definilty did the trick. I even took some after photos so I can share on my blog, which I will post later :)


I think it definilty helps to write your yearly goals down and that is something I plan to do. I have some blog posts in the works so be sure to stay tuned! :)


You can always visit my facebook page to get the latest and greatest. Just click on the link on the top right hand corner on this blog.


Happy Wednesday! :)

Jackie Beale
Daytona Beach wedding photographer

www.jackiebealephotography.com

FOOD PLACES & THINGS

Things I love:

Baklava! yum yummy! I gotta learn how to make this!

Succulent plants. I love these little plant flowers. They look like a mix of roses and cactus, because they have layers that look like petals but also cactus plants because they are green and firm. They also look delicate but solid. They are so beautiful!

Places I want to go:

Greece. Ever since watching the movie Sisterhood of the traveling pants, I've been dying to go to greece! I just can't wait to climb those mountains and sleep by an open window overlooking the villages, mountains, and lake!

Italy. This is another must have place. There is so much architecture and character to this country. I would love to someday be able to photograph a wedding or a couple in this country. For now, I'll have to stick to Portofino Bay (A little italy like town in Orlando) Great for engagement pictures!

France. Oh france, what else can I say? I've been wanting to go to France for as long as I can remember. The language, the films, the culture, the art. It is all the reasons why I want to go to this place.

California. I always wondered how it would be like to go to a beach and see rocks and mountains and caves. It gives the california beaches so much character.

Things I want to see:

Sequoia trees. Another site i'd love to visit when I go to california. I'm gonna need to take my wide lens to capture these beautiful trees. I'm a HUGE huge fan of the movie Avatar. So visiting the sequoia trees might be the next best thing as visiting Pandora ;)

Antelope canyon. It may be a little risky, but well worth it I'm sure. This is an underground grrand canyon. Naturally built by sand, water, and light over hundreds of years. Using your camera flash will kill the natural beauty of this underground canyon. Long shutter speeds and a tripod is a must :) oooh I can't wait to go!!!

The eiffel tower, France. Enough Said.

Sweet tooth

I'm the type of person who likes to eat dessert before dinner.....and then some more dessert after dinner. Especially when I go to olive garden, I love their tiramisu!

Here are some of my favorite sweet images I took to work up your sweet tooth :)

There's nothing more I love than my mom's homemade pancakes

And my husband's homemade oatmeal cookies...mmmmmmm!

Easy listenings

I love alot of types of music. I like listening to rock, ska, and love dancing to some good spanish music that really moves you. I've really been thinking about taking up on belly dancing classes. A couple of my friends and I took a few classes about 3 years ago but we just kinda stopped because life got in the way. But seriously, if you ever have the chance to learn, it will really benefit you and I think it also boosts up your self esteem and confidence ;)

Here are a few easy listenings that I absolutely love from Joshua Radin. His music really inspires me in a way that I can't really explain. I just know that when I hear them, I get in an artsy mood. This is the cd I brought when I went to see him live in Orlando.

And here are a few magnificant songs by Joshua Radin. Just sit back and enjoy them :)

W3D1

So I made it to week 3 of my 5k challenge!!

Wow I'm SOO excited that I'm actually doing this. I never thought I would be able to push my body to run for a long period of time. During yesterday's work out, I literally felt like my head was gonna explode. Weired right? I don't know, I guess that's how my body responds to too much exercise that it's not normaly use to. But after cooling down and stretching, the burn felt sooo good! I can see now why some people get a high on running. It's the effect you feel afterwards. I've never felt so decluttered, even when I was at my thinnest 4 years ago. My chest felt clearer and you feel so light and crisp! This is what my routine will consist of for this week:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:

Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)

Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)

I know it may seem like nothing, but to ME, it was huge. Coming from not being able to jog for 30 seconds and feeling totally out of breath, to jogging for a full 3 minutes??? That is a HUGE HUGE step for me and accomplishment. I have two more of these 2 go for this week and then it's on with week 4, which looks really scary! But I know I gotta prepare myself mentaly for the challenge. I think that really helps.

W2D2

Week 2, day 2

That's where I am up to in my schedule to reach my goal of running a 5k. It gets harder week per week. I already feel improvement in how I feel and look. I normaly loose inches first than pounds so it's nice to have alittle more room in my clothes :) My shins are hurting bad but that's probably because I need to get better running shoes. I can't wait to see how I do in the 8th week of my schedule, that's when I'm suppose to run 2.5 miles without stopping!

In other news, I just ordered a single CD case from whcc and I am so in love with them! I've ordered several actually but never blogged them. It's the perfect thing to store your clients digital files, so much better than those cheap jewel cases, gah!! I will post a few photos as soon as I get it. I'll also be blogging a few portrait sessions within the next few days!

Happy Tuesday!

The Couch-to-5K running plan

So, it is decided.

After finding tons of inspiration from watching Jillian Michaels kick butt on the biggest looser, plus the scale telling me that I'm at the heaviest I've ever been in my life, I've decided it was time to get up and do something about this.

For the past couple of months, I've felt this heavy burden on my body. I've literally felt that I've been suffocating, and I didn't feel free anymore like I use to. It's amazing that how you feel physically can really impact almost every aspect of your life. I miss having so much energy, motivation and the feeling that I can conquer anything! I want those things back in my life.

The past few days, I've really been watching what I eat and how much I eat. My body has responded to this change and it feels much more alert and less tired. Next, was to get outside and start exercising. My mind is already so focused in really trying to eat healthier, so my next thing was to include workouts.

A huge goal I've set for myself, and I've never ever done this before, is run a 5k without stopping. I know I have a long way to go but I am so determined than ever before to do this. I think to loose weight is an awesome goal, but I want to do more than just that. I want to be healthy, and I want to be a runner. Not a professional runner. Just someone who can make running and exercising part of their lifestyle. I feel like if I can accomplish this 5k, that I can really do this. I can push myself even further.

So I went to the internet and looked up a few articles on how to train for a 5k. Here is a really good schedule that I found and that I think it will be perfect for me. I have to keep reminding myself to not get too excited because I tend to want to start off fast and forget that it takes time, and lots of patience, to go from a couch potatoe to a runner.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SCHEDULE

If anyone reads this blog post and is interested in running a 5k also, I would love to be able to keep tabs on you. I think it will help one another to know that there are people out there striving for the same goal and it's nice to be able to have a companion :)

I'll keep my blog updated of my progress, and maybe, some before and after pics!

Anniversary photos

I very much want to say 'Vacation pics' as the title of this blog. But sadly I cannot. I cried and thought about it everyday, which made me cry all over again. I'm very sad to say that for the first time, I had a malfunction with one of my memory cards. The very one that I used to take a bunch of photos from our vacation week. I'm happy that there weren't any wedding photos on it, but it just makes me so frustrated and super angry at myself for not being able to do anything about this situation. I've tried recovering the photos but no luck there :(

Like my husband does: He points his index finger to his forehead and taps twice and says "It's all in here". IT'S NOT THE SAME!! I fire back, but I know he was just trying to make me feel better. The brain fails you sometimes and as time goes, those memories aren't as fresh anymore. but then again, the same goes for unreliable memory cards...*sigh*

Well now that my rant is over, I'd like to share just a few of the photos we do have that Jennifer Werneth took for us. One of the things I wanted to do during our anniversary week is have some nice photos taken. Our wedding were the last professional photos, which Jennifer also photographed by the way :) So who else to look to than her for updated photos. I've also been wanting photos for my website and profile so this was a perfect time to do them. I LOVE how they came out but here are a few of my favs:

If you're on my facebook, you may have seen this first one already :)

On Vacation!

Tomorrow is our two year wedding anniversary! I can't believe how fast time has gone by, but we are excited and ready to celebrate our anniversary week. Tomorrow we have a shoot planned for us. I really wanted updated photos of us both so I can't wait for that. And for the majority of the week, we are off to orlando and will be staying at a resort there and hitting the theme parks! It's something we do often every year and we never tire of it :) Here is where we will be going:

It's been like twelve years since I last went to Epcot. Can't wait!! :)

Fresh salt ocean air

toes digging into the soft, moist sand...there is something about spending time at the beach during the warm evening hours. The temperature is perfect in every way.

This week, I caught a little cold. It's in the beginning stages so I'm really trying to fight it, but just looking through all the beautiful photos from Sunday's beach session makes me feel so much better :)

We are headed to Tallahasee this weekend for a wedding and from what I hear, it is going to be Freeeeezing! Not complaining though, I love the cold weather and I'll be sure to bundle up in my oh so fabulous winter coat that I bought on sale at JC Penny's, and stylin with cute scarves! ;)

Happy Friday!

Love

Love is about the little things in one's relationship.

It's not all about the kissing, the make outs, the sex. (ok so a little about the sex ;)

It's the little things that make it whole. The inside jokes, the looks between the both of you that only you two can understand, the late night conversations, the quirkiness in each other and sillyness, sharing philosofical conversations about life and about absolutely randomness that have no importance what so ever lol, little love notes to each other that are collected and treasured in shoe boxes.

Every now and then, there are songs that just get to me and make me smile, and even make me cry a little, because it makes me feel so happy and in love even more with my husband.

I discovered Joshua Radin and Skyler Fisk (up and coming artist) 4 years ago. I love their style of music. It's down to earth, soothing, and romantic. I love this song with all my heart because it perfectly describes love, and it always makes me cry a little, because I think we all deserve this type of love in our lives, and it makes me feel so thankful.

I love her so much!!! Be sure to check out her link that I included. It is to her myspace page. The best of her songs are there. One of my other favorites is called: The Good Stuff :)

My newest addition...

to my never ending collection of accessories! I love this headband with all my heart. I bought it from a very talented seller at Etsy.com You can find all things vintage and handmade there. It is the greatest site for custom items and unique things that ever existed!

I am a huge, HUGE fan of peacocks. It is such an exotic bird and I love all the brilliant and bold colors. I especially love the patterns on it's feathers. I would never buy the real feathers for beauty's sake because I love animals too much and I think it's wrong to kill an animal for clothing or accessories. But now a days, they make imitation quite good.

I was actually thinking of having a custom logo made that incorporates peacock elements. How cool would that be! and it would fit my personality perfectly :) I have a lot of ideas for that and creating a brand out of a peacocks color palette. It may sound really weird reading this but I've got all these ideas floating in my head that make perfect sense to me, so please bear with that.

Here is my newest addition:

Photo directly from Etsy seller:

and the headband being used on a model of Fossil Magazine. I think it's a better picture because you can really see how big it is :)

Personalized Handmade Cards

My husband works at a local bank and he is constantly making good connections with his customers. A lady came in one day, and as the conversation progressed, he found that she makes cards. Any type of cards, and prices them differently to the specifications of the buyer. My husband asked how much a card would cost with everything on it and she said about $6. He told her that he wanted to give me one as a little surprise, so she asked him what are my three favorite things...so she can incorporate that to the card. He said: Teal, dusty rose, brown, and Paris.

So for 6 bucks, here is my handmade card, done to my liking:

Isn't it AMAZING!!!! I can't believe how creative this person is and I think her work is totally worth alot more than 6 bucks! At walmart, you get a plain hallmark card for that money and sometimes they aren't even this pretty. She designed the inside as well and you can tell her to put any kind of wording you'd like. I love how she incorporated all the other little things to it. I think this would definilty be a nice gift to a friend for any occassion. It will certainly give a nice and lasting impression, and it's something totally different.

I found her website, here it is: http://truphoenix.com/index.html

Vendor Review: RoseSource

One of the most important elements on your wedding day are the decorations. I think it's the most time we spend on during the planning process. Every bride wants their wedding to be unique and want incorporate their personality throughout the day, whether it's reflected through their dress, to the flowers, venue and table decorations.

In my case, I knew that I wanted really pretty flowers, but I did not want to spend a fortune on them. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on something that would go in the trash in a few days, so I looked to the internet for some ideas. I looked through a bunch of pretty bouquets and table settings and finally picked the colors that would make up my wedding. I knew I wanted chocolate brown as the main color, but I needed two more accent colors. I like more earthy tone colors like greens, browns, reds...well more like fall colors I suppose, but I completely surprised myself by picking Red and Pink. I wanted a victorian, vintage look to it and these were the colors that came to mind.

Only one thing though: I had completely forgotten that I was getting married on mothers day, May 11th, and that apprently, those are the popular colors on that day and the prices on flowers tripled because of the holiday! I was really worried at this point because I couldn't go back. I had to stick with these colors since my planning was well advanced and I had purchased a few things that evolved around these colors. I decided that the only way I would be able to buy these flowers and not spend thousands, is to buy from a wholesaler.

I met with one in Orlando, but they said that since my wedding was on mothers day, and considering that the flowers would be coming in from Ecaudor, and that they would be delivering the flowers personally, and the type of flowers I wanted, the cost would end up being $5,000. Um what!? I was in complete shock. That took a big chunk out of my wedding budget, so I had to cut corners and decided this would be it. After this meeting, I was in the mentality that I would probably have to buy fake flowers from Michaels. They are very nice actualy and look very real, but a Calla Lilly stem from michaels ended up being about the same price as a real one and I really wanted to cut costs, so I quickly dropped that idea.

Thankfully, a friend of mine (hi sarah jo!) was getting married a month before me and I turned to her for some advice. I asked her where she was getting her flowers, and she said "from Ecuador!". I was like how? Don't you need a middle man? She said nope, and proceeded to give me the information to a wholesaler online. I looked through their website and realized they were the one. I just got a great feeling about them, and yes, I did get a little scared at first because how in the world are they going to ship a bunch of flowers, in tact? Well one of their US reps explained the whole thing to me and answerd all my questions in such a professional manner, and they were so knowledgable about the different kinds of flowewrs, I knew they were legit.

Here is what my flowers consisted of:

75 Black Magics (50cm) they were nice and big!
25 Carrousels, same size. (two tone pink rose)
The roses come in bunches of 100, so I wanted to mix and match the reds with the pinks, making sure I didn't order more than I needed.

100 Charming Unique (pink roses, 50cm)

60 Pink Asiatic Lilies

1 spray of Pink Cymbidium orchids

3 bunches of Pink Aranda orchids

They arrived three days before my wedding, which was perfect because they had enough time to open beautifuly! My grand total with FedEx overnight shipping: $607.96....and keep in mind that I could have probably saved alot more if I had picked another wedding date!

My bouquet consisted of Black Magic roses:

My bouquet and my mom's mini bouquet, which consisted of Carrousels (two tone pink rose)

Pink Cymbidium orchid for the girls hair (my favorite!)

Charming unique roses for the girls bouquets. They matched the sashes pretty well

Black magic rose head with pink aranda orchids (they were a deep pink, almost purple)

The pink asiatic lillies were use with the tall trumphet vases, along with curly willow branches and a few aranda orchids.

It really helps to know someone who knows about flowers. My friend Ruthy, who was a florist for 10+ years, was there to help me with putting all the flowers together. She did a spectacular job!!

Definitly check out RoseSource, online flower wholesalers for your wedding!

2010

Baby steps.

Short Term Goals.

I'm the kind of person that if I overwhelm myself, I don't end up accomplishing a single thing. I've come to realize that it is best to take it one day at a time, or in this case, one year at a time, and try not to cram everything in at once. Be realistic with your goals and desires. Really think about what you want to accomplish and if it is something that can be achieved in a certain amount of time that you desire.

I was a little hesitant to post my list of short term goals for 2010, simply because I don't want to feel like a loser when the end of the year comes and I haven't accomplished them. But I have realized that this blog has also become my personal diary, where I can look back and read all that I have done, personal and business related. I only wish I had started a diary years ago because there were times that I wanted to look back at things and read how I felt at that exact moment, whether it was good or bad.

I realize now how important it is to write things down. It is so much better, rather than having your thoughts float in your head, unorganized. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and motivation.

Here are some of my short term goals. I may add to the list as things come to mind. Some of the things on my list, I had wanted to do before I was married, but it's even better now to know that I'll be doing some of my favorite things with my favorite person in the whole world! :)

In no particular order:

1. Have professional pictures taken of Lamar and I, just because.

2. Learn how to cook 5 big dinner meals.

3. Learn how to make one Italian meal and one Greek meal.

4. Establish a routine of "cleaning the entire house" day out of the week and stick to it.

5. Eat the daily fruit and veggie servings. Daily.

6. Go one week without eating meat.

7. Go one week without eating carbs.

8. Run 4 miles straight.

9. Watch the sunrise on the beach with Lamar.

10. Watch the sunset on the beach with Lamar.

11. Have a picnic.

12. Pay off all my credit card debt.

13. Run on the beach with Lamar.

14. Work on a RBC project with Lamar.

15. Creat an inspirational board.

16. Buy a notebook and fill it with photography related ideas.

17. Buy a big canvas for my home.

18. Organize my closet by color and learn to keep it that way.

19. Go on a vacation to California for two weeks.

20. Learn how to play one of my favorite songs on the piano.

21. Get a really cool haircut that I'm happy with.

22. Attend a photography networking opportunity.

23. Attend a workshop.

24. Shoot with another photographer for fun.

25. Shoot a wedding for free to a couple in need.

26. Get a cool logo.

27. Get a facial for the first time.

28. Loose 30 pounds.

29. Drink water everyday.

30. Cook home made meals for a month.

31. Shoot in the snow.

32. Shoot in the rain.

33. Buy a 5D.

34. Buy 2 new lenses.

35. Plan a road trip with Lamar.

36. Get up early to workout.

37. Send flowers to a friend, just because.

38. Learn how to make vegetarian pizza from scratch.

A few of our cruise photos

We took plenty more but I really love the photos from Coco Cay at the Bahamas. The water is this beautiful Teal/Green color that looks almost fake. Our tour guide said because of the reefs on the bottom of the ocean that reflect the sunlight, makng the water bluish. I'd like to go back there but not on a cruise, so that way I can enjoy the island thoroughly. I think it would be awesome to shoot a wedding here one day :) Here are just a few...

me

and my hubby

Fall is finally here!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE fall! It is my favorite time of the year. I always say to my husband that we are living in the wrong state. I never wear shorts and hardly wear flipflops. I''m not a summer person. What I love about fall is the crisp air, watching the leaves change and having a beautiful backdrop of orange, red, yellow and brown. It's the perfect scene for me and if I had my dream place, there would be lots of fall colored trees, enough to give you a mystical feel but also a big yellow/orange/red field with tall grass. I'd also have mountains in the distance and a big beautiful lake with ducks. I'd also want a few trees surrounding part of the lake, making several paths so when I go canoeing, I can enjoy the ducks floating around me and the beautiful leaves falling around me.

It's that wonderful time of the year again to take out the boots, sweaters, and scarfs and enjoy a nice chilly walk around town :)