Catherine, Noelle, & Laura are just a few of the high schoolers that Josh & I work with through our church’s youth group ministry.  And these three girls are some of the ones who like their photograph taken the most!  I love high schoolers – they just tell you what they want.  I got a text from one of them a few weeks ago saying, “Mandy, we want new pictures.  Let’s do them downtown.  When are you available?”  Haha!  Just like my little ones!  I had an open early Saturday morning & they came!  We met in Downtown Annapolis at 8am on a Saturday – that’s dedication!  They simply wanted some photos of them hanging out, and that’s just what we did!

This week I’m going through all of the weekend’s portrait parties I did.  In all, I completed 6 sessions for 6 different families.  What I love about portrait parties – everyone is all in one place.  What I don’t love, EVERYONE is all in ONE PLACE!  Some kids do great in a confined area for 20 minutes, and other children need more space & time to warm up to the idea of their photo being taken.  It’s definitely a new learning curve for me.

These two girls, however, did amazing.  Anna & Kate are our sweet neighbors & friends.  Thanks for coming by girls – we enjoyed playing with you!

Last night we took Brooke to her first Orioles game.  A lot of forces in the universe aligned to let us attend, or possibly God had it in our plans to be there! )  We were given a choice of some awesome seats for one of a few nights & we chose Thursday since my good friend Angelica would be singing the national anthem.  These seats rocked!  Thank you so much friends who let us attend – the joy on Emma & Brooke’s faces as they saw the game up close & got to experience the Oriole bird will never be erased from my memory!  Thank you, thank you!  Here’s my favorite shot of the night – sorry fans, no O’s players yet, but come back later for those shots.

My girls & their daddy…

Josh is explaining something about the game to Brooke & Emma is checking her Shrek watch to see if it’s time for Angelica to sing yet.  I don’t know who that other dude is.

As some of you know, I don’t really have a “yard” to speak of since I live in a townhouse, but the little garden I  have out front is often my project.  I liked to garden at first to make my house look pretty on the outside.  As the years have gone by, I have found gardening to be theraputic too.  Things have been up & down over the past few days with my emotions, I had a headache most of yesterday, and my garden was a perfect outlet to sort through all of those feelings & just think & pray.  Sometimes my garden gets a little too much trimming, especially if I am angry.  Last night was great since I was able to weed, trim, and talk with my neighbors at the same time.  And my neighbors aren’t just neighbors, they are real friends that I can talk honestly with.

When I started it was light enough outside to get this photo of “before” – when I finished it was just too dark.  Here’s my unkempt garden before I had my way with it!

Our neighbors – being the spring chickens that they are – had about 16 friends stay over for the weekend.  They looked liked they had so much fun.  Here’s a shot from the teeny, tiny session I gave them.