loft3 photography

Category Archives: spaces.

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the deck.

June 27, 2010 – 9:01 pm

ever feel like you spoke too soon? as the words are flowing out of your mouth, your mind is thinking, i shouldn’t have said that. that was me, today.

ali’s friend, britt and i threw a babyshower for ali here today. if you read the father’s day post, i referred to my deck that we’ve been slaving over for almost

two years. we’ve successfully had dinner and hung out there a ton of times now, but this was the very first time the weather was supposed to be nice AND

we were having a party. let me say that again, the weather WAS SUPPOSED TO BE NICE. riiiight. so in my spare time (HA!) i bought a bunch of cute

decorations and spent approximately 3 hours this morning getting ready for the shower. at 12:40pm, i got in the shower, got fully ready (including hair

and makeup!), and had 4 minutes to spare before guests started to arrive. i couldn’t believe it! any woman knows you’re still preparing as guests arrive,

never a spare minute. some of her friends arrive and say, ‘thunderstorms on the way.’ WHAT?!?!?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. i immediately said,

‘wow. it’s true. as i finished preparing outside, i told adam how perfect this day was going to be and i was pumped about the shower being on the deck.’

i spoke too soon. UGGGGH!!!! we went outside to see black clouds creeping over and then the wind picked up. i was screwed. a handful of us grabbed

everything to take it inside. then i realized. oh crap. the inside isn’t ready for a party AT ALL. the excitement of being ready before people arrived was

a faint memory. the rest was history. so the point of this post is because i snapped some pics mid setting up because i was so proud of my deck.

it looked amazing. and now i will show it off. just because i wasn’t able to today. this is the before picture. sorry about all the trashcans

taaadaaaa!

the shower specific stuff wasn’t out yet. i figured i should take pics without it so we can use these images one day when we are selling the house.

from this view you can see a lot of stuff that isn’t done as far as the building is concerned. don’t look too close.

you can see why this project has taken forever. we worked weeknights and around our shooting schedule on the weekends. i think all of my family

touched a hammer or a drill at some point for us. THANK YOU! my friend tom who is an engineer, got us going and then adam’s dad guided us the

rest of the way. rain, heat, snow or dark didn’t stop me from working, once i was out there. i’m sure i could have just hired out, but the feeling of

accomplishment is amazing. and really, knowing that i could even do such a thing, is SO cool. as far as sealing/staining goes, yes, i will hire out. lol.

here’s a quick iphone pic from the shower.

oh, and i found this gem as i was digging through the external hard-drives to find the ‘before’ shot. this was just a regular night. ali was living with

us at the time and we decided cooking dinner with wigs on is way more exciting. adam was not surprised when he got home. this is not abnormal…for us.

yada yada yada. i’m exhausted. and now we must eat dinner. i made chicken pot pie from scratch. peace. mel

By melanie | Also posted in personal. | Comments (10)

Nori’s Nursery.

December 18, 2009 – 5:30 pm

well folks it seems as though God has different plans for the birth of our baby. a lot of you were aware that adam and i attended 12 weeks

of Bradley Natural Birthing Classes. Most of you repeatedly told me how insane i was and many swore i wouldn’t make it. It was something

we both became very passionate about and were SO excited to experience. At 30 wks we found out little nori was laying transverse

and she should have already been head down by that point. i wasn’t worried cause she had plenty of time, but that day started the wild

goose chase to fix the situation. i researched the heck out of ‘breech’ presentations online and began doing EVERY technique/procedure that

seemed to work for everyone else. as the weeks went by and the doc’s started using that dreaded term “c section,” I started becoming a little

bit crazy. we took it up a notch and instead of “laying on a 30 degree slant”, adam would put my legs over his shoulders and hang me

completely upside down! nothing. i paid hundreds of dollars to every sort of therapist/chiropractor who swore of 97% success rates for

flipping breech babies. nothing. the last option was at 37 weeks, we checked into the hospital (bags packed in case of emergency), and the

doctor performed an ECV on me. while it was very painful and left me bruised and sore, it wasn’t successful. at this point, many offered to help

us find a doctor who would deliver a frank breech baby. but with much meditation, prayer and finally acceptance…we have decided everything DOES

happen for a reason. the baby and i are currently healthy and we’d like to keep it that way. we know there are millions of healhy babies born via

c section every year, it was just not the birth experience we had hoped for our baby. i know, i know, we aren’t in control of anything, and we

need to accept that because this baby will soon dictate our lives…we get that. lol. and too, like everyone has been preaching to me during

this very emotional week, in the end when you have a happy healthy baby in your arms, you will forget all of this. we can’t wait for this moment.

so needless to say they have scheduled the surgery for 12-20-09..SUNDAY! before christmas!!! i also am VERY excited that my best friend of like

20yrs will be attending the surgery. Emily is a Physicians Assistant who personally knows my gynos, i’m so happy she will be by my side for this

huge moment in my life, as well as to calm my nerves…annnnnd to pick adam up off the floor in case he passes out. :-O

anywho, i could go on forever but instead i’ll leave you with some pictures of her room!

————–

I’ve finally gotten the nursery to the point where i have to accept, i have no time left to make it any cooler. adam gave me FULL responsibility

for decorating. can you tell by the crazy amount of color?! he did however insist on a green shag to simulate ‘grass’ in her room.

yes, we hand painted those stripes, the flower boxes, knobs, glider… Nonni (my mom) made the curtains and then i just used

the extra material to cover the glider…which was my grandmas

Nori Jo Pace. our good friend’s mom shared that name with us and i was in love. i was even more set on it when we discovered what it meant!

in japanese: Nori=believe

her middle name is not only a big time family name on both of our sides…it’s actually both mine and adam’s middle name!

Jo/Joseph.

in italian: pace=peace.

many of you have heard me tell the story of adam and i in italy discovering his name meant peace. i knew it was 100% meant to be

since my whole life i’ve been that girl who wears, says, draws, etc, the peace sign every chance i get! too bad jo doesn’t mean ‘in’

because how rad would that be if her name translated to “believe in peace!” For months i had to convince adam that was going to be

her name. People even gave us gifts with “nori” printed on it way before adam said yes to it! ha! finally one night we duked it out in a

game of rock, paper, scissors there was a large crowd to witness ME winning AND uncle eric has it on video! fair and square. Boom.

my good friend angie made this for us. adorable.

38.5 wks pregnant. (9 1/2+ mths.) confusing isn’t it? lol. we had so many intentions to do cute things during this pregnancy…but our biz

took all of our energy. so the cute christmas card i wanted to do with my belly painted as an ornament…that’s NOT going to happen :-/

a note for clients: if you have recently placed a print/cd order than you should already know the situation. hang tight. for those of you who were

about to place an order, that’s fine..but just know i’ll be on “maternity leave” until march. the only photo work i will be doing is editing shots of nori!

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please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this new journey! while i will be the first to admit how nervous i am…adam is so very excited and

claiming he’s too anxious and ready to be nervous! we for sure will be welcoming visitors, just text or call me!

next time i’m blogging…i’ll be a MOM. (of a human that is! i love you lilo! ha! ) peace, soon to be parents!!! aghhh!!