Ice Cream, Old St. Charles, Balloons…and over 100 degree weather!  More to come soon!

My visit to Virgina Beach was perfect!  I finally met little Becca and let me tell you, I’m in love with her.  Let’s just let the pictures talk on this post.

Before we start-please note:  These pictures were taken with an old camera and are not the best!  I was there to visit, enjoy, and spend time with my BFF and this new little cutie!  I didn’t go to take pictures so I didn’t travel with a good camera..so the pictures you are about to see are for me to remember my trip to visit my best friend and her new little baby!

Here is Amy and Becca on the beach!  We went for a quick walk on the beach in between Amy’s doctor appointment and Becca’s doctor appointment!

Here is Becca’s first picture with her Aunt Katie!

Doesn’t Amy look amazing for just having a baby?!  Lucky her!

My favorite! She’s sooo precious!

Pineapple Princess 2.0

Here are a few pictures I stole from Amy!

We had a lot of fun over the long weekend!  Amy and Becca come to St. Louis in two weeks so I get to see them both again soon!

Here is the sweetest little thing ever!

This session made me so excited to come home and edit because, well just look at her!  I am so lucky to be getting all of these amazing people to photograph lately.  Beautiful from head to toe!  Emma’s parents were both so sweet and laid back during her session.  I think Emma gets her personality from both of them because she was willing to sit in feathers and in a bucket with little to no complaints.  Oh and check out her facial expressions in these pictures.  We were all getting a kick out of her modeling skills during the entire thing.  Emma has so much personality already.

I love a baby in a huge bow!  Really, I love all bows and I love all babies!

Look at those baby blues!

For sure one of my favorites!!!

All smiles in this one!

When Emma’s mom was little she had her picture taken in a sailor outfit.  I love that she put Emma in one as well.

Does this one look familiar?  Well, if not, go to the top of my blog.  Yes, I finally had time to update my blog header!  Emma makes an appearance with this one!

The next few just make me melt!

Love, love, love this little girl!

Put Something In |  Shel Silverstein

Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-grumble song,
Whistle through your comb
Do a looney-gooney dance
Cross the kitchen floor
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.

Invitation | Shel Silverstein

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

I’m walking away from this summer like every summer, so excited to start all these new, fresh, best practice teaching techniques in my classroom.  This year I’m going to start doing “Poetry Friday”.  The kids will come in and have their own poetry and song book party.  Yes a party!  A reading party!  I won’t go into the teacher specifics as to why, (fluency, sight words, etc).  I’m just so excited because last year on the second to last week of school,  I implemented a poetry week.  I cannot tell you how much my kids loved that week.  Some brought in their own poems, wrote their own poems, and I could really tell how excited they were about poetry.  I already made a huge sign for my classroom that I’m going to hang up on the door every Friday.    I love short, simple, poems that are meaningful, silly, and sometimes leave you wanting more.  I cannot wait to do this with my kids this year!  I think the poems will bring our class together and help build our classroom community.

Shel Silverstein has always been a favorite of mine! I love how he challenges you to be a thinker, an achiever, a dreamer, and a creator.

Meet Megan, another Lafayette Senior! Megan is a sweet girl and she was so relaxed during the shoot.  She wanted everything very natural and laid back…and that pretty much describes exactly who Megan is!  I’ll start with a favorite, because, I tend to do that!

Megan loves to sing and is part of choir at school.  She’s also a cheerleader for basketball and football!

Megan is thinking about going into pharmacy when she graduates!

I love, love, love this one!  Megan was so awesome to get on the ground to get the shot.  Isn’t she so pretty?!

Yes, she is.

Megan is a big fan of black and white images.  I think black and white fits her personality, very classic and simplistic!

Megan has a ton of natural beauty and as I was editing the pictures, I couldn’t help but notice her eyes in every picture!   It was awesome meeting you Megan!  I’ll have to go up to a Lafayette football game to watch you cheer!

I used to always say that. “Summertime is my favorite time.” Well it is. I also love fall, and spring, and come to think of it winter.
Ok, so I owe my blog a little personal attention. You know, personal, as in information about my life! The problem is this: I’ve been busy. I know it’s summer and I’m a teacher, but summer is busy for me.

My summer days are dwindling and soon I’ll be back to being Miss Stasiak, First Grade Teacher. I’m excited about getting back to school but I’m still loving the freedom of being able to sleep in. I say sleep in, but really, I haven’t been doing that past 7:30 in the morning. There is something about waking up early and drinking a cup of coffee and not having to be anywhere in a hurry. Coffee is something I’ve been doing a lot of this summer. I hope it doesn’t become too much of a habit.

This summer, I’ve worked hard. My blog has shifted a little bit more to my photography sessions and less about me. I’ve been super busy with my photography and have loved every single minute! I met my goal for summer sessions and I hope to keep adding sessions on my calendar. I’m so excited about all the awesome people I’ve met through my photography. I’ve been able to photograph babies and high school seniors, two of my favorite kinds of sessions. I also am working in some family sessions, which I love just as much!

I haven’t forgotten about school, nor have I really even taken a break from being a teacher. I’ve been to so many workshops and been working on so many new things I want to implement into my class this year. I’ve been up at school working on various things, but still not able to get in my class. Today I went up thinking that everyone would be gone and I could get some work done in my classroom. I found out that there are still some kids up there for the extended version of the already 6 week summer school. My class is one of just a few that are still in use and will be for two more weeks. I try not to worry too much. Even though I have a lot to do in there, I know it will all work out. Last year I didn’t get a ceiling and carpet in my class until a day or so before open house. So, I know I will get it all done this summer!

What else? I’ve been crafting, reading good books, visiting the pool, walking Scarlett, running with Shawn, and going to fun events around St. Louis. We’ve really been making the most out of summer. Do you remember that thing I told you awhile ago about taking a picture every day? I told you I was going to take a meaningful, artistic, and creative pictures every day. Well, I’ve sucked at doing that. Sooo, my summer hasn’t been all about meeting goals!

I’m still planning on visiting my best friend, Amy, at her home in Virginia Beach with her new little one, Becca. This weekend some friends and I are going to go on a float trip. A few of us have decided camping is a good idea. Yes, today’s low is 96 degrees and we decided camping is a good idea. I’ll let you know how that goes! Until then, I’m going to keep working on making the most of summer.

How sad is it that I do not have a picture to go with this personal post? Not a single picture! I wasn’t going to even post because of that reason!

A quick preview for Megan!

Great to meet you today, Megan!  More to come soon.

You already met Taylor about a week ago!  I was so excited when she asked me if she could have a photo session with just her.  We wanted to do something a little different this time and after seeing the photos I think you will agree that we accomplished that!  Taylor is so gorgeous…I kept telling her how pretty she was, well…because, look at her.  She is also the sweetest girl you can image. We had a lot of fun on our shoot, which makes taking the photographs so easy!  It’s always my goal to get to know the person before I start shooting them.  I really believe that if you can’t break through that outer layer, the photographs just won’t be real.   Well, Taylor is so easy to talk to that the we immediately started to have a good time.   She really trusted my ideas and we were able to get some really creative shots.

I think this one just captures her perrrrfectly.  She’s such a natural.

This is Taylor, but not to be mistaken with Taylor Swift.  I know they look so much alike!  I’m not a major Taylor Swift fan, but I am listening to her as I upload this.

(Yes, I’m serious! Ha!)

In love with this one.  She’s just so darn pretty!

Another favorite!  Have I said before how much I love it when girls are so natural and come without a ton of makeup on?! Well I love it.

Fun, fun, fun!

I try to stay consistent with my image style and the next two do not fit into that category.  However, I think they are so fun and I have to post!  I can’t decide which I like better, but I’m leaning toward the first one.

Taylor, have a wonderful senior year!!!

Shawn and I are on a kickball team with some of our friends and the team has evolved into new friends as well.  We played last Fall on Sundays and had a blast!  This season, the whole organization faced a lot of…uh, publicity…and it ended up giving the organization a bad name.  The whole kickball thing is way over 1,500 people!  So a few people got out of hand and all of us got kicked out of Tower Grove Park.  Which, I get because if I was a neighbor I would fully be annoyed if people were really doing what they claimed.  Really though, our team goes to have a good time and the majority of the organization is made up of young professionals who just want to get out for a bit and have fun.  So because we got kicked out they sent us to these, “parks” which are like little blotches of grass scattered throughout the city.  Then when the spring weather set in, we were only playing once a month, if we were lucky.  Every weekend it would rain, rain, and rain some more.  So last week, we finally finished up our spring season!  Yes, it’s almost the end of summer but we finished up our season!  Oh and guess what?!  Our team won our division!  Ohhh ya, we are division champs.  Which, is not entirely of any help from me.  However, I did get a few RBIs…and if that’s all I did, well at least I did that.  Oh, I’m a mighty fine catcher too.

Here is our team!  Sorry the picture isn’t bigger, it’s what the ump took after we won!!!  Of course I’m not wearing the team shirt because I didn’t want to get a farmers tan!  We’re very excited to play again in the Fall!

Taylor went out for her own Senior Session with me today down in the city.  We had so much fun together.  When I got home I uploaded all of the pictures and of course I had to edit a few!  As always, more to come soon!