Category Archives: Mom Blogging

Feed the Hungry Can Contest

THE CAN CONTEST HAS ENDED.

We will share the results and announce the winner here on the blog on Friday, October 23rd.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated!!


Mom Blogging:

Every week the boys and I drop off food as a donation to our local food pantry.  Especially with the hard times people have been facing in this economy, the need is great and the supply is often much too low.  We sat down for our family dinner a few nights ago and said our dinner prayer as usual.  We try to talk to our boys often about how blessed we are for all that we have and how we need to help others whenever we can.  At this dinner, we reminded the boys that it was a blessing for us to have the food that was there on the table because there were many people without enough to eat.  Our 4 year old listened, then looked at me and asked how we got our food when others didn’t have any.  I told him that we were blessed to have our business to support our family and put food on the table.  In a moment that filled my heart, he then asked why we didn’t use our business to help to give other people food too.  Through the simplicity of a child’s giving heart (we are so proud of him), we are introducing our Feed the Hungry Can Contest!

CansforCanContest

For the next four weeks, we are collecting canned food items for our local food pantry.  For every can that you donate, you will receive a .40¢ credit toward any session or product.  The contest ends on Wednesday, October 21st.  At the end of this contest, the person who donates the most cans will receive a free session and a free 8×10 canvas gallery wrap from that session (a value of over $200!).  This can be any type of session:  engagement, boudoir, bridal, trash the dress, maternity, baby, family, or any other type that you choose.

An example of a gallery wrap, though it is a bit larger than an 8×10:

GalleryWrapFront

GalleryWrapSide

Also, the profit from any print or products ordered from the winning session will be donated to Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

Feeding America Logo

If your session is during the month October and you end up winning the contest at the end of the month, we will reimburse you for your session fee and donate all of the profits from any orders you may have placed. And of course you will still get your free canvas gallery wrap from the session.  Otherwise you win a free session and will have until February 1st, 2010 to use your free session.

You can donate your cans by contacting us to arrange a time to drop them off or, if you have a session before the contest ends, by bringing them to your session.  If you do not want to deal with actual cans, you can mail in gift cards for local grocery stores.  Every $1 on a gift card counts as one can and gets you the .40¢ credit.  All cans or gift cards must be received by Wednesday, October 21st, to be counted in the contest.

Of course, if you just want to drop off cans to be donated we would love that as well!  Any of our family members, or any other wedding professionals or vendors who are reading this, bring up your cans too!

Questions about the contest?  Just email us at jasonangelini@aol.com.  We cannot wait to collect TONS of cans and bring them to the food pantry in time for the holidays!  They can certainly use it.  Whether it is one can or one hundred, we can all share our blessings and contribute to help those in our community who are in need.  This is going to be an awesome contest and we are excited to get started!

Here Come the Terrible Twos

Mom Blogging:

Birthdays are hard for me as a mom.  It is amazing to watch my kids learn and grow and develop their personalities, but they are doing it too fast!  Jason took our youngest son out for his two year old session a few days ago.  He’s such a little boy now!  I know they call it the terrible twos, but with how adorable my son is he can get away with it:).  I love his big smile!  He scrunches his whole face up and no matter what is going on when you look at him your whole heart feels happy and you can’t help but smile back.  Jason and I love him so much and we are such proud parents.  We are blessed to have him and his brother and sister too!  Look at him; he couldn’t be any cuter!!!

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Be Careful What You Wish For

Mom Blogging:

For a couple days now, Jason has been bugging me to put more pictures on the blog.  So this one is for Jason (Love you baby!):

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Don’t worry, I promise he won’t show up like this to anyone’s wedding!  He finished shaving after he took the picture.

And just because she is so cute (and everyone can use a dose of cute after that last picture!), here’s one of our baby as well:

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Gotta Share Videos…

Mom Blogging:

Browsing through wedding blogs and talking with other vendors in the wedding industry on Twitter, I come across links for wedding videos that I love and just have to share.  Jason sent me a link to a wedding music video by Lockdown Projects, an awesome company in the UK that Jason also likes because they are big in the snowboard industry.  I think this is just the coolest idea ever, and what a perfect song choice too!  You have to watch this!

Brian & Eileen’s Wedding Music Video by Lockdown Projects

lockdown-projects

I found the next video on Twitter when BrideTide gave the link from the Bride Tide Blog.  I am a big sap, but it made me teary-eyed seeing what wonderful friends the couple had.  I want to know what church let the wedding party do this!  Most churches out here have lots of rules about the ceremony.  Who has a fun wedding party?  It would be so cool for someone to do something like this for the reception entrance!

JK Wedding Entrance Dance:  Best Wedding Entrance Dance Ever from the Bride Tide Blog

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Finally AMC Video, a wonderful videography company that Jason has worked with in the Naples/Fort Myers area, had a clip of a funny and unique toast to a bride and groom on their blog.

Best Man’s Song from the wedding of Sara and Dan from AMC Video’s Blog

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Hope those give all of you a good laugh, and maybe a couple ideas for planning something fun and unique for your own weddings!

Our Gift from God

Mom Blogging:

Nine days past her due date, our family finally welcomed our new baby.  She was born at 11:03 pm at 7 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches.  She made a dramatic entrance in the world!  I thought I’d share some of the birth story for anyone who might be interested.

Jason and I went to a doctor’s appointment that afternoon where I was going to be monitored since I was over a week past my due date.  After an ultrasound, we were told that we needed to talk to the doctor and were put in her office to wait.  When she came in, she told us that there was no easy way to tell us that we needed to go right to the hospital and have a C-section right away.  She said the ultrasound showed problems and we had to do this immediately.  As she walked us out of her office to the door (me in tears) Jason asked about inducing labor instead and I asked if we even had time to go home and get our bag.  She said we needed to go straight from there to the hospital.

Scared about the baby and not really understanding exactly what the problem was, we went to the hospital.  It took an hour or two before the doctor on call from my group came to see us.  During that time, I realized that this couldn’t be that much of an emergency or they wouldn’t have waited so long to come talk to me.  I also told all the nurses that I didn’t understand what was wrong on the ultrasound and that I really truly did not want a C-section.  Finally the doctor came in and explained that the ultrasound showed little to no amniotic fluid and that could be an issue for cord compression.  He said that he didn’t see any reason not to try inducing labor, though I needed to understand that I was at an increased risk to have C-section.  I was so happy that at least I would have a chance of avoiding the surgery!

I started at 3 cm and they broke my water (though there was little of it left) and started pitocin at around 4:30pm.  My wonderful doula Stefany soon met me at the hospital and was just awesome trying to help me relax through contractions and also helping me position to avoid any issues with the baby’s heart rate since cord compression was a big concern.

At around 9 pm there had still been no change despite how intense the contractions felt.  I had the shakes really badly and in the middle of dealing with that and some painful contractions I realized something was wrong.  There were lots of nurses and the doctor in my room.  They were moving me all around from side to side.  The baby’s heart rate had dropped down and stayed down for several minutes and they were trying to help me get into a position where it would come back up.  Finally, after many scary minutes, it did.  The doctor told me that though I didn’t want a C-section, if the heart rate did that one more time we would have to do one anyways.  She also said that because I had no changes to my cervix and the baby was already not tolerating contractions, we might need a C-section anyways.  She told me to stay in the position I was in to hopefully keep the heart rate up.  I had hoped to wait until I was further along before getting an epidural, if I got one at all, but with hours of unproductive pitocin strengthened contractions and now having to stay in one position the entire time, at around 9:30 pm I got the epidural.

God was with us and believe it or not, in a little over an hour after that huge scare, I was ready to deliver!  In just that short time I dilated from 3 cm to 10 cm and in less than 15 minutes of pushing Jason and I welcomed our third miracle, our baby girl who is truly a gift from God.  She was perfect with no issues at all despite the labor scares.  She is absolutely beautiful with dark black hair and grayish eyes.  She was pretty fussy her first night, but who wouldn’t be after all that!  She is being much nicer to us now.

Big brothers came to meet their new sister today and both were so cute.  Our oldest son would hardly let anyone else touch his new sister and begged to hold her constantly.  In fact, he spent the entire day with us at the hospital because he wouldn’t leave her side.  Our younger son immediately reached for his sister and gave her a huge hug.  With some help he held her for a couple minutes and when we took her back he cried out “Mine” and asked for another turn.  They are both already so in love with their little sister and are going to be terrific big brothers.

We’ve had many people ask us what we decided to name her and we’d love to share that with you!  However, we have some internet safety concerns and have decided not to share it on the internet.  If you email us, we’d be happy to let you know!

Here are some of baby’s first pictures, with many more to come in the days and weeks ahead!  Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and prayers, and the congratulations!  We are so blessed!

Getting through a contraction with the help of my doula, Stefany:

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Just after being born:

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Meeting my baby:babe3

Tiny hand around my finger:babe4

Jason already has plans for making his daughter into a “Daddy’s Girl.”  We’ll see!

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Proud big brother:babe5

She already has both of her brothers wrapped around her fingers!babe6

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