Two Sundays ago, I finally had a chance to take some pictures for Anthony and Gina, who will be married the day before Halloween of this year. Even though they became engaged last May, we never got around to shooting engagement photos. When Gina decided on what to do for their table numbers (think something like this) she reached out to me for help.

We ended up with shots like this:

This restaurant out on Rockaway Beach, is a place that is special to them...not to mention he proposed in the gazebo outside of it!

It was a really fun day (and huge thanks to John for helping out)....I cannot wait to do it again. We didn't get a chance to finish all the table numbers.

Keeping up with the theme, I had a bridal shower to attend this past Sunday.

The interior was stunning (outside was pretty too).

The bride-to-be's sister did such a great job with everything.

The bride & groom to be :-)

This little girl at my table was precious!

A very nice start to spring...little Ayla is almost one month old (WOW!) but the weather leaves little to be desired. I'm missing those temperates above 60...this picture makes me think of the quote, "Spring, where are you?"

Ayla is getting real big, real fast. Just yesterday she turned 1 week old!

She went from this:

to this...

...to this!

She has long legs & fingers - Ayla's already wearing 3-6 months (depending on the brand). I can't keep up with her LOL.

In short, she is just the sweetest thing.

I've definitely been over a lot more this past week or so, especially since school started the day after she was born. Speaking of school, so far so good - but the problem is, I chose three of the busiest humanities classes (think lots of picture taking, history of photo, Photoshopping, and traveling) possible into one semester so that first week, I was sinking in my fourth class, the math one. I have a fifth class but it's a 1 hour new student seminar that is like a walk in the park. Because the work load of those 3 classes, I had to drop the math one. There was no way around it. When it comes to math, I have to give it 100% attention or else I can't keep up. Sometimes I think there's a wall inside my brain in which when I look at a math equation, it just hits the wall. The information doesn't seem to get past it to process it like everyone else seems to. While that is a fate I accepted long ago, I know that when I really try, I can do it - as long as you teach it to me like you would break it down to a really dumb person haha. That sounds terrible...but I swear that subject has been my mortal enemy since day 1!

Overall, I can't complain with the school or curriculum.

By the way, my new favorite thing:

Welcome to the world, Ayla Mae !

March 6, 2011

7:01AM

7lbs, 8 & 1/2 oz.

20 & 1/2 inches

And a nice dark set of hair!

I woke up this morning to Jonathan telling me that Alex had the baby and it was a girl. My first reaction: HUH?!

Alex wasn't due until the 10th so I didn't expect any big news this weekend. That combined with that being the first thing I heard when I woke up was definitely something. I remember just sitting there and thinking "How could she have had the baby?" It was so surreal! My mom had contacted Jonathan's sister and asked her to call the house to wake me up. Well, it worked! LOL. I went to my parents' house around 10 and we left for the hospital shortly after to meet the newest addition to the family.

Ayla is the sweetest thing. Those pictures don't do her justice. She is a tiny thing now but there is one thing I've learned since knowing Johnny: babies grow FAST. So, I want to be around the house more to enjoy her growing up. Between work, school and my new baby cousin, things are going to be nuts for awhile!

We got a real kick out of this. (My mom's name is Jackie.)

This was taken while trying to find the room - my mom was clearly very excited!

Aw, Oma! She started crying before she went in.

<3

I am feeling like a lazy blogger lately. So much stuff is happening...that seems to be when I have the least motivation to keep track of what's going on.

Last weekend was a busy one. Saturday night, we (my sister, Tiffany, Keiko, her boyfriend and myself) went out with Natali. Her boys took care of us and we had a great night...that is, until we left the club. My sister, who can barely handle one drink, had had probably 4 or 5. So needless to say she was gone. I had been drinking myself, though I wasn't very drunk, but tired and tipsy and in short, I just wanted to go home. Not to mention, it was freezing out! So I started to hail a cab but Robyn refused to get in. I had to keep letting the cabs go. Finally, I was so fed up, I got the nearest cab, Tiffany and I hopping in...without Robyn. I thought maybe if she saw us in there, she would finally get in. We kept calling my sister's name to no avail. Even the taxi driver started yelling her name but Robyn still didn't get in! So we sped off to the train station (I sound like such a horrible sister I know) and waited for her to stumble our way. After awhile, we realized she wasn't coming and the worst part is her phone was dead.

We made up our minds to go home anyway and I said a quick prayer Robyn would make it home okay. I knew she could take care of herself...but I couldn't help but worry. It was 3 o'clock in the morning after all!

I did eventually hear from Robyn, even though she was locked in her hallway until 6am when her roommate let her in (but that's another story) so I felt relieved. The loon had walked all the way to Times Square and caught the 7 train from there! No wonder we didn't see her at the train station we were at. Also, because she was locked out, I got a flurry of (laugh-out-loud-'til-you-cry-funny) pictures of her in the hallway. Tiffany and I parted ways at a train stop since I had to transfer and she stayed on. Jonathan had been out for Billy's birthday with my brother and had just dropped him off, so he decided to pick me up halfway home. When we had just pulled into the driveway, I got a call from Tiffany saying she suspected someone was following her. She wanted me to keep her company on the phone - no problem.

Only, there was a problem. This guy really WAS following her. All of a sudden, I hear shouting which grows louder and louder. Tiffany was yelling something like "Stop! Stop!" over and over. It was just....horrific. Since she wasn't responding, I got very scared and thought maybe this guy was doing something terrible to her. Jonathan grabbed the phone and started yelling her name too. We kept repeating "Tiffany, where are you, just tell us and we'll come get you!" What we didn't realize was that when she was fighting off this creep (who unfortunately ended up touching her very inappropriately) she didn't have the phone up to her ear. But she did have it in her hands and thank God the line didn't disconnect! We eventually found her in a not so safe part of Flushing (well it was dark so nothing looked safe). Not one of us mentioned going to the police. I think if it hadn't been so late and we hadn't been shaken up and maybe thinking more clearly, we would have gone to the police station. But as it was, we took her home. I regret letting her go off by herself at that hour. I guess I thought we were invincible - in our teens, we stayed out even later and got into even crazier situations - without any trouble! Go figure.

But the next afternoon, Tiff did go to the police and the search for this guy has been going very successfully I like to think. The detectives found the video in which the guy was approaching her! Thank God for heightened security in NYC. It's just a shame no officers were patrolling the neighborhood. Maybe now they'll have one or two cars going around.

Waking up that morning was rough. I think all of us who had gone out that night got a total of 3 hours of sleep. Jonathan and I had our 2 year anniversary that day (27th) so we exchanged gifts.

He did pretty good, huh?!

He also added a little extra stuff too. I really lucked out - because he puts thought into everything.

And I like to think I did ok too! ;-)

The next day, my sister turned 24. I met up with her early in the afternoon for a belated breakfast at IHOP. Ever since she moved, she's been hooked on that place! (She lives within walking distance of one.)

Later that night, we had a cake for her.

Jonathan and (a just-pulled-out-of-bed) Oma joined too.

A very pregnant Alex was there as well!

I will end this blog here - but more to post soon - with a very silly group shot!