Amy Wenzel Photography

Vegetables and Doughnuts

I’ve been excited to post these photos. You probably recognize the older girl from my blog header above and also plastered on my website from last year’s sessions. These sisters are so darn cute they really should be Disney characters. Anyways, we planned this shoot back in February to go to the farmer’s market and our adorable pastry shop (a local gem thats been around for decades!) I get happy whenever I drive by it and see all of their colorful antique cookie jars lining the windows. It inspires me to start my own collection, although I’m sure david would have a thing or two to say about me turning our kitchen into an obnoxious display complete with clowns, windmills, Dorothy, and The Muppets.

I am prone to nightmares, and due to my extreme love of said cookie jars, it must have prompted my ridiculous dreams before the shoot. First I dreamed that I showed up at the pastry shop early for the session but all of the cookie jars were gone. So I went up to the counter and asked if I was at the right place and if so where were all the cookie jars?? They informed me that I was indeed at the right place but just yesterday they had decided to take down all of the cookie jars for good. To which I started bawling hysterically and raging like a mad woman at the poor counter clerk about the cookie jars being taken away when I had planned this shoot months ago!!! I startled myself awake and was seriously amused by my totally ballistic response in my dream. I lay there thinking, yikes, I must really love those cookie jars. I finally fell back asleep and proceeded to have another dream. This time I dreamed that I went back to the pastry shop to see in “real life” if the cookie jars were really gone or if I had just dreamed it. (I know, weird!) Anyway, in my dream I went there to check and of course, all the cookie jars were gone. So I cried and raged some more. Then the dream turned into me being lost on foot in the wilderness in a blizzard with the two girls I was photographing and trying to find our way to their parents. I’m going to go ahead and just stop now before you all think I am an absolute head case.

Happy Independence Day!

My family is all in town and they have turned my home into a miniature bed and breakfast. =) As I lay in bed this morning half awake, mentally packing the cooler for the beach today (stressing a little- is all that food seriously gonna fit?) a 4 year old munchkin knocked on my door and crept into bed with me to cuddle. We lay there for a moment and I whispered that it was time to go get our swimsuits on for the beach today. Her eyes lit up with excitment. I felt like a kid again for a second. Thats when I had the “aha” moment, so this is a taste of the joy of motherhood.

First Communion

The rain drops lightly sprinkled down on us the entire time as we tramped through the orchard holding up her train from the damp ground, but to me she was like a ray of light that parted the heavy clouds above us. With our fingers crossed that we would escape a torrential downpour we decided to take the risk and do the session. She just looked so beautiful, and the light was so perfectly diffused. How on earth could I resist? Thats like yanking a lollipop from a baby! Her sisters patiently stood by watching as their hair got soggier by the minute. I must have wiped sprinkles off my camea a hundred times, but I am glad we we risked it. Everyone needs a rainy day adventure in their life!

On a side note- I would like to wish everyone a happy first day of July because this is my favorite month of the whole year! I am going to have a lot of bonfires, eat a lot of ice cream, wear a lot of tank tops, run through a lot of sprinklers and try out my nephew’s slip and slide. Yee-haw!

I’m a real girl!

I am buzzed on adrenaline this week- I feel like I drank 20 cokes. I’ve been really productive in every area of my life which usually is not the case with me. Usually I have to pick a category and only be productive in that one thing while everything else goes down the toilet. It’s like a one track mind on steroids. My brother and I share this trait. After hours of my life wasted on whining to David about why on earth I am like this, I finally quit trying to figure it out and I just accepted it for what it was. My main focus was my photography business and I would get so down when I would think about all the other forsaken arenas of my life. Whenever I would finally take time out to paint my toenails or do something that made me feel feminine I would announce to david in my best 3 year old voice, “I’m like a real girl!”

I don’t know what has changed in the last 3 months, but it’s like I’m a whole new me! You mean I can dedicate myself to my business and have time to shave my legs?? Why, yes! You mean I can do decorating projects around the house and then take a break to cook a meal for my poor husband?? Why, yes! ! It’s all true!! I’m an actual multi-tasker!!! Somehow my brain is now allowing me to shift my focus throughout the day and concentrate on one thing and then switch to the next. I’m really beginning to wonder if aliens took me in my sleep and did something weird to me.

One thing I’ve been mega looking forward to is my entire family coming into town for a few days over the fourth of July. Family is so important to me and having everyone together in one spot- I live for that. I have set that as a goal to get a ton of stuff done in the past few weeks and I think it’s been pretty motivating. We’re finally hanging things that have just been leaning against the wall for months. We are fixing up the guest rooms and getting more organized with our living space. My tendancy is to cram as much as I can in a closet and shove the door shut. Although that seems like the easy solution at the time I think that lifestyle actually induces stress. Especially if you open the closet and things fall out and hit you in the head.

These photos are from Memorial Day weekend when we went to the east coast to visit David’s family. Our little niece was having her 2nd birthday party and I was so excited to be there to do her two year session the day before. These were taken outside the hardware store which happened to be next to the railroad.