My friend Natalie is all for anything and everything DIY.  She always gives her 100% attention to every last detail. Her parties are such a labor of love. This party was to celebrate the baptism of her  and her husband Armando’s infant son Benicio. Check out these photos. You will surely find a ton of inspiration. Treats were made by Sabrina of Couture Cupcakery , with exception to the owl cookies. 

I love and ADORE this family. There are no words that can describe how much it means to be there for them for all their most important moments. I met them when they were pregnant with their baby girl and now they have their son too. To watch them grow has been such an honor.

Jasmine is an aspiring comic! She has even performed at the Laugh Factory! She is so beautiful, talented and most endearing to me is that she is hilarious!! We decided to get together so that I could take some head shots. I wanted to take some just for fun and try out some ideas I had. I loved all the images we took it was hard to choose just a few!! Best of all, I loved spending time her, isn’t she stunning!

I absolutely love the light, the outfits, the location and everything about this session. One of my favorites ever. It was so hard to choose a few to post because they were all so beautiful. Juana and Hugo were so easy to work with. I adored them from the moment we met. Such a sweet couple!!


Really!! Could the she be more stunning in this gorgeous light……
Juana found these coordinating outfits at H & M…. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE!!!!
This could be a painting. Everything about it is so beautiful……

Aren’t they adorable. Can’t wait to meet their precious baby!!

Several months ago as I decided to post a contest/giveaway for a deserving mom. I had been and still feel very blessed first of all to have the true chance, to be a MOM, and secondly to do what I love for a living practice the art of photography. Feeling so blessed, I decided to give a photo session with myself to the winner. I was looking for a mom that could appreciate the gift of being photographed, someone who wouldn’t necessarily have the budget or time to do a photo session with me. I posted the give away on my page and asked you all to nominate a deserving mom. The Jamie Cryderman family won the contest, she was nominated by her best friend Niccole for not only being a deserving mother, but in hopes that if she won the little fraction of time and interaction that is captured during a photo session would brighten her spirits. Jamie is a wife and mother of four, my decision on naming her the winner was because of the following: Life is a balancing act of work, family, friends, kids, and activities that fill our daily lives. Imagine adding to all of that a chronic illness, like Lupus. Lupus in short is a chronic inflammatory illness that affect various parts the body especially the skin, joints, blood, and kidneys. Lupus can make daily life very difficult because when it is active common symptoms include joint stiffness, pain, extreme fatigue, confusion, and depression. Imagine the stress of daily living especially with kids now add all of the above. Now comes one of the worst parts since Lupus has very few visible signs friends and even your family may be unaware of the amount of discomfort and pain the Lupus patient maybe suffering. Jamie has Lupus and and after learning of her story she was just what I was looking for, a deserving mother. The Cryderman family photo shoot happened at a local park and I want to say that Jamie is blessed with four beautiful children and a husband who adores her. I had so much fun with them. I joked and kidded with them the whole time. During their photo shoot I fell down a hill and landed on my camera. My camera survived for all of you who are wondering but I ended up with a grapefruit sized bruise and had the wind knocked right out of me. The only other time I had ever had the wind knocked out of me was when I was ten years old and had a group of cousins land on me as they rushed to get to the candy that had exploded from a piñata. Lol, the mental imagine of both these events makes me laugh. Needless to say I think the photo shoot was worth it because the pictures are priceless. I hope you love the images from my deserving mom contest as much as I do . If you want more information about Lupus please visit www.lupus.org

Recently I wanted to go downtown to get some party favors and a pinata for True’s Angry Birds Party. My cousin Mark, his love Jeimy and daughter Chloe accompanied us. We were early and a lot of the stores were still closed. I asked if they wanted to go to Starbucks… they said they could introduce me to something better! Boy were they right. Bottega Louie’s is like a little slice of heaven. Take a look! Everything we tried was AMAZING!! True loved it and had fun hanging out with his cousin. Definitely worth the trip to LA!!

The sweetest and most pure moments are witnessing the bond between mother and child. This baby girl melted my heart. How could she not. Tons of raven hair, chubby rolls, and so cuddly.

True is five years old! Where has the time gone. It seems like yesterday we were crying tears of joy when we found out that we were going to be parents. I honestly cannot remember what life was like without him. He is our everything.

 This year True could not decide what kind of party he wanted. He first chose Star Wars, then changed his mind and picked a Hot Wheels theme. At the last minute he had changed his mind once more and said he wanted Angry Birds. I told him that we would have to stick with that theme and he could not change his mind!  I designed his invitations, sent them out asap. In the meantime I was really busy and started all his decor for this party in 4 days. Yes! I said four days!! I had very little sleep and a whole bunch of help from a few of my friends and family. I couldn’t be more happy with the results. More importantly True was so over the moon happy!!  Here are some photos I was able to take. I honestly wish I could of taken more but I had to be a good hostess too!

A few of the cool things we did was make an Angry Birds Photo booth, I drew them out and my husband cut everything. I also asked him to make benches for a kids lounge! It was a huge hit and super cute and easy to do. I also went to Joannes and bought foamies. I cut out lips and mustaches, the crowns and others were part of kits I had bought in the past. I also bought foam balls at the 99cent store and decopage them. My friend Judith did all the birds faces. She did an awesome job. She also did the rosettes and I added the birds to them. We also made felt bags my cousin Mark, Jeimy and my friend Natalie with angry birds characters and Jeimy and  I glittered names on the back so each kid had their own custom bag.

My friend Vanessa did the awesome red angry bird marshmallow pops, and pretzel sticks. They were super cute!! My friend Veronica ordered 3 dozen chocolate covered strawberries and they were sooo good!!

My cake and all the other desserts were made by sisters Karina and Stephanie of Klassy Sugga, you can find them on Facebook. This whole party was DIY! Its very hard to find angry bird items and not break the bank. I did everything on a budget and a whole lot of creativity!