Atlanta Baby & Child Photographer Blog | Angela Calderon

I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July!  Also a special Happy Birthday to my wonderful Mother In Law.  My awesome friend Cheryl had a beautiful baby girl at 7:11 am this morning and I’m desperately trying to convince her to name her Liberty and call her Libby for short, how cute would that be?  If she doesn’t name her that maybe I’ll just whisper it to the baby when I see her in a few weeks!  Congrats!

Here are a few photos from tonight.  My Mother in Law’s building has a helipad on top and we went up there to watch the fireworks and it was amazing being up that high and being able to see for miles and miles.

I thought these next fireworks looked like dandelions in the sky!

It’s almost July!  How is it possible this year is already half way through?  Wow!  I heard on the news last night that July 7, 2007 aka 7-7-7 it is going to be a record day for weddings! 

Each year I run a Christmas & Hanukkah in July promotion for my clients.  I discount one of my popular items so that you can have a chance to buy it at a great price if you didn’t when you placed your order.  Last year I chose storyboards because they are a personal favorite of mine and this year I’ve selected another favorite.  This year’s CHJ (Christmas & Hanukkah in July) item is the DVD Slideshow.  Seriously if you didn’t get this the first time around now is the time to do it!  I’m telling you Grandparents love this, I’m even sending my Grandma one!  I call her my Gran, and she recently got a computer and she reads my blog so I hope she skips over this post so she won’t know it’s coming.

The DVD slideshow is the same show that is presented to you that includes all of your proofed images.  These images cannot be printed, but it’s a great way to still have them to look back on for years to come.

My usual price for DVD slideshows is $300 for the first one and $50 for each additional copy.  For CHJ I am offering them for only $175 for the first one and only $35 for each additional copy.  Here’s an example of one that I created for a client.  The outside cover has a 5×7 print on the front and a 5×7 print on the back.

This special offer ends at 11:59 pm on 7-7-07.  If you would like to take advantage of this please email me and I will give you directions on how to order.

Ohh I’ve been a bad bad blogger the past few days. I swear I don’t think there are enough hours in the day. My little one had a yucky eye infection so I stayed home with her for a few days. I should be blogging about the insane price of her eye medication. I think I figured it out and it was up in to the thousands of dollars for one gallon of it, I do that when I buy insanely priced medicine to make me feel better that I don’t have to pay that much for gas. I’m glad my car doesn’t run on Vigamox (that’s the prescription drops she had to take).

But, I’ve also been on a underground, top secret mission. So secretive that you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. I truly thought that it was going to be Mission Impossible and that I was going to fail, but guess what. Mission Accomplished! What is this risky mission you ask?

Wait for it…..

Wait for it….

Wait for it….

I potty trained my two year old! Let the angels sing… hallelujah…..hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! With only one month to go until her 3rd birthday I am now the proud parent of a potty trained little girl. Although she’s beyond freaked out by public restroom toilets (can’t say that I blame her), so I gotta figure that one out, but other than that, woohoo no more diapers! If anyone has any suggestions on how to get her used to freaky public restrooms send me a email!

I honestly thought that she was going to be wearing a diaper on her wedding day. This is one feisty little girl, where in the world does she get all that sass (no comments from the peanut gallery on that one!) For those of you going through P.T. Hell (potty training hell) like I’ve been going through, I’ll share my last resort method.

Warning, if you are a parent who does not believe in bribes, go ahead and stop reading, cause it’s going to get ugly with the bribing!!!!!!! Ok proceed with caution, you’ve been warned!

We recently had to get a new cordless phone at home and one of the nifty little features on it is a musical alarm. There are 5-6 little songs to choose from and my daughter loves them. So while she was staying home from preschool so her eye could get better, I decided to take advantage of that time and go full speed ahead with the training. So, I started out setting the little musical alarm for every 15 minutes. Seriously, do you know how fast 15 minutes goes when you have to take a 2 year old to the potty every. single. 15. minutes. all. day. long. Oh boy. *If* she went on the potty her briber, err cough cough, reward would be two glorious M&Ms, her choice of color. By combining the bribe/reward and that little musical number, it was the magic answer. As soon as she heard that little song she would start dancing around singing about potty time and I would go with her to the restroom. So yesterday was day five and we had changed the timing to every 45 minutes and a couple of times she would tell us on her own before the alarm went off.

So for all of you out there in PT Hell, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, your child won’t be in a diaper on his/her wedding day. If my stubborn little one can do it then there’s hope for yours too! Oh and my big grand bribe if she did a good job all weekend was that I would paint her toe nails, oh boy you would have thought she won the lottery tonight when I painted them for her.

Her preschool teachers said she did a super job today as her first day back at school diaperless, no accidents.  Life is good!

On Saturday my good friend Barb, or as she is known in the photography community “Jinky”, joined us for a day of fun and we took our girls to American Girl at The Grove here in Los Angeles.  Her family is on holiday here from Australia.  Another photographer friend of ours, Rachel, joined us with her beautiful little girl Gemma.

We had a very fun Unbirthday Party for the girls… meaning they sang happy birthday, we had lunch and cake but it wasn’t anyone’s birthday, just a little celebration with friends. (translation – if you pay $10 more per person at American Girl they will throw a party for you but they always assume it’s a birthday so we went with it!).  I’ll confess that I didn’t really take a lot of photos because we were all so busy talking and chasing around our little ones.  It was so wonderful to spend a day with the girls.

For those of you who don’t know Jinky, well you absolutely have to check out her work.  I think it’s only a matter of time before she is a household name here in America.  She is already creating a sensation in Australia and I’m so excited for her.  She’s so inspiring, talented, funny and so humble.  Her work is truly innovative and one of a kind. Here is her website: http://www.jinkyart.com.au/ , I think you’ll fall in love with her work like I have.  I think the best part of it all is that she’s such a nice person in addition to being such a photography rockstar, she hasn’t let her success go to her head.

Here are just a couple of snapshots from our adventure…

My daughter picking out her very first American Girl Doll

Our Unbirthday Cake & Certificates

Jinky’s daughter Talia with her new doll

Jinky’s daughter Penny and her new doll enjoying lunch.   Penny looks just like her Mommy!

It was so cute how they had these little cameras and when they would take a picture of you they would put their fingers over one eye.  How cute is that!?

Beautiful Miss Gemma

Jinky shooting me shooting her!

I hope all you Dad’s out there had a wonderful day today!  We sure had a nice one and the weather was beautiful which made it even better.

My son made this in his Kindergarten class for my husband.  It’s a desk organizer, on the other side there is a pen holder and a place for post it notes.  Such a sweet gift from the heart!

This afternoon we came home and the kids were begging to go swimming, but it was too windy so we compromised and got out the foam machine.  It uses baby shampoo so it doesn’t burn their eyes and it is one of their favorite things to do.  We got it at the end of last summer at KB toys on clearance for super cheap.  If you have a chance to get one you won’t be sorry, your kids will love it!

Here are a few snaps from our foam party!

and my little one, loves wearing a towel on her head after we are done, I didn’t put her in the Mom Rocks shirt, my mother-in-law did when she was visiting earlier today.  I know I know, it should say Dad Rocks since it is father’s day afterall!