Snapshots & My Thoughts by Ailee Petrovic
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Personal

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Personal

Week in Review

It’s been quite a week at the Petrovic household. Last Tuesday night, I went into Emi’s room to turn off her little lamp and she was fast asleep in a crib covered in throw-up (unfortunately all over herself too!). I woke her, bathed her then she went back to sleep and seemed fine the next day; however, Isla stayed home from school on Wednesday because of a bad cold and cough… which she gave to Emi on Thursday. Isla still has the sniffles, but Emi is now on day five of a nasty cold – constant snot, low grade fever and a deep cough (all night long!). Is there anything worse than your babies being sick?! I hate it! Praying that everyone is fully recovered soon. We even had to miss Emi’s baby dedication at church yesterday, which I’m bummed about. We’ll get her dedicated next time though!

Since we were all sniffly, we stayed inside for Houston’s version of snowmaggedon (i.e. 0.5 in of snow on the grass!). It was exciting nonetheless!

With this said, I had four sets of photos last week, and I have lots of editing to catch up on! I’m taking party pictures tonight, then two sets tomorrow – one on Friday, then newborns on the 23rd and I’m done for 2017! Woohoo! We’ll be in Colorado for the last week of December/first week of January, and I plan on relaxing! Can’t wait.

Some highlights from the past week include:

  • Visiting my recovering-from-surgery best friend, Brittany, with the girls and Amanda. We’re going again tomorrow to see her! We love our visits – Brittany is the funniest and always has us in stitches.
  • Eating family dinner on Sunday at our house! One of my favorite traditions.
  • Taking Meredith’s nursery photos (or Piper’s, more accurately!) – I didn’t want to reveal too much so there’s two photos below, but so much more to see – soon!
  • Photographing one of my favorite ‘lifestyle’-esque family photos at The Menil. It was such a natural session and I loved the family!
  • Snapping photos  of the most beautiful 40th birthday party! Every detail was so perfect.
  • Taking some photos for Jennifer Welker of Golden Thread at her house.
  • Getting my butt kicked at Orange Theory – I was sore for days after Thursday’s class!! Mike at San Felipe is intense! Monica gave me the most GORGEOUS custom ornament (below!). I love it.
  • Working on getting my craft/party closet reorganized with the help of our sweet cleaning lady, Alma and her daughter, Sarah.
  • Finally working on my annual photo book – details to come soon!

I hope you’ve had a great weekend and that your week goes well!

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Isla Loves

Babbleboxx Kidspiration: New Products We’re Loving!

Earlier this month, I received a Babbleboxx delivery – a box filled with fun, educational toys for Isla, gorgeous sparkling ballet flats, a pretty-patterned and very useful duffel, and a few other exciting items that I’ll go into further detail on below.

I loved everything we received and I plan on gifting several of the items to the little ones in our family for Christmas this year.

Helio: Night Light Projection

Of all the items in this Babbleboxx, the Helio projector is our favorite. This award-winning children’s educational night light projection system has a number of different screens you can put on that projects different lessons onto the ceiling (or a wall would work too!). Isla loves having a night light, and this has replaced her old Paw Patrol one. She learned every planet (Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, the Sun! I’ve got them down too!) within the first week of using the projector. It’s amazing. We’ve moved onto different animals and how long they sleep for, and I’ve ordered a few discs from their site: Addition and Nursery Rhymes.

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Décor

The Eskridge’s ‘At Home’ Family Session

Breaking news: It’s snowing in Texas. Literally everyone is freaking out, including me! Poor Sasha. This is what he hears from February until well, today: “Ugh, Houston is so hot!” “I am so sweaty – I can’t wait until winter!” “When is it going to get cold?” And then, 46 degree days arrive and I’m all: “THIS IS MISERABLE! I NEED TO GO TO THE BEACH!” Ha.

I digress. Back to the topic at hand: The Eskridge family.

After my clients and I agree upon a date for their family session, I send them a document with photos of a few favorite locations across Houston and have them pick where they want their photos taken. A lot of the time, people choose the same spots – which really is fine, since being familiar with an area is very advantageous with photography. However, on occasion, I’ll have clients who want something a bit different (which is so exciting!). This year, I had two families who didn’t want the typical “green space” photos. One opted for an all-white studio (can’t wait to share some of these!) and the other, Monica of Paper Flour Ink (whom I’ve talked about on here quite a bit recently), who suggested we do them at her house. Well, I’ve been to her insanelystunninginteriordesigngoals house before and was totally into this idea.

Their front yard is gorgeous. The courtyard is gorgeous. The backyard is gorgeous. The recently renovated pool is gorgeous. The fining room is gorgeous. And last, but certainly not least: The Eskridges are gorgeous. And there you have it – a winning combination for family photos. Keep on scrolling to understand exactly what I’m talking about!

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Week in Review

Week in Review

A very slight dip in the weather, the looped Glee Christmas soundtrack and a lit Christmas tree has finally got me feeling a bit festive! I have two more weekends of family photos, then I am done for the year, as we’re heading to Colorado right after Christmas. I am ready to relax! And by that, I mean plan Emi’s first birthday party (sob).

I am in the middle of finishing up edits on a family session from the weekend, so this week in review will be short and sweet (I totally write these as diary entries and pretend nobody is reading – perhaps they aren’t?). Alas, some highlights from the past week include:

  • A fun family day on Saturday – we went to the new Sugar & Cloth colorwall, adventured around Discovery Green, ate lunch at Tout Suite, then went to go and meet Santa. Isla nervously ran up, showed him the list she wrote, then ran away and started crying – which was great for Emi, whom, gauging her sister’s reaction, did the same. We didn’t even get a photo of Isla, but did get a classic crying one of sweet Emi girl. Don’t worry, I scooped her up very quickly.
  • Celebrating Emi’s 10-month-iversary!
  • Visiting one of my best friends, Brittany, who has had a rough 2017 and just got home from the hospital/surgery last week. It was good to catch up and she had Emi in fits of giggles, which was the cutest.
  • Photographing part of Meredith’s house remodel. It’s all goals, goals, goals. I don’t want to spoil the reveal, but shared two photos of her gorgeous guest bath!
  • Seeing Emi progress in her walking and standing. I still can’t picture her walking by herself, but it’s insane to even see her stand for 10-20 seconds by herself before buckling those knees to get into her favorite crawling position.
  • Photographing Monica’s UNREAL gingerbread “house” – i.e. Minute Maid Park. Scroll down – you have to see this! We also did two Orange Theory classes together and I totally got my butt kicked both times.
  • Stamping, sticking, assembling Christmas cards – just waiting on one last touch before they go out! And I got a new Artifact Uprising photo book in the mail. Happiest mail day!
  • Photographing Britt’s sweet babe, George, for his five month update. I’m obsessed with him!
  • Eating an impromptu lunch with my sister, Karine, as she is now working near our house!

I hope y’all have the best week! Christmas countdown: 21 days! Unreal!

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Personal

Emi at 10 Months

I was checking out at a cute gift store today, and the cashier asked how old Emilia was. I told her, “Ten months today, actually!” And she replied, “My son was ten months just yesterday… and now he’s almost a college graduate.” For some reason, this almost made me cry! Trying not to focus on the time-flying aspect of Emi’s first year, and more on the positive: how much more fun our life is with Miss Bemi Bootie in it.

First, let me review all of the names she has accumulated over the first year. Emilia is most often called Emi. Also referred to as The Goose (Sasha’s favorite), Bemi Bootie (my favorite), Emerson Bo Bemerson (Isla’s favorite), Emi Emi 2×4, Squashers (Sasha’s second favorite), Squash & Squeeze.

People tell me all of the time that she looks a lot like Isla, but also very different. I have moments of thinking the same. Emi has many different expressions (most I find cute, but she makes this disgusted, scrunchy nose face that makes me laugh…) – some of them are identical to Isla’s as a baby! I cannot wait to see who she looks like when she’s older!

If you want to make Emi laugh, you could a) Hang her upside down or flip her over on the bed, b) Turn on JT’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” and let her bop up and down to the beat, c) Animatedly read her favorite book, “Goodnight, I love you,” d) Nuzzle your face into her stomach and blow on it, e) Let her splash you in the bath… a lot. Lots of other things do the trick too, but these are my go-tos.

Miss Emilia looks very Scottish with her pale skin and strawberry blonde (read: red) hair, but her favorite food is Serbian vegetable soup called chorba. She freaks out when she eats it. She also loves broccoli as a close second, Silk yogurts, stewed apples, puffs (well balanced diet!), hummus and beans.

Emi’s new favorite habits are making the loudest noise by covering and uncovering her mouth with her hand, sticking her tongue out and spitting (very lady-like), scaling rooms by walking with her hands on the wall, clapping (especially to “If you’re happy and you know it…”), waving bye-bye by opening and closing her hand, saying, “BEH!!! BEH!” when Belle comes into the room (exactly how Isla used to say it) and Dada to Sasha. Mama is still very hit or miss (thanks, kiddos, for this!), but Sasha’s mom thinks she’s got Baba down pat! Ha.

I’m documenting this in writing: If we have another child, they will not have a ‘set’ monthly photo because come 10 months, these are so difficult. Emi is pinned from flipping over and crawling away with my foot in the photo below and my hand in another. It’s so tough for active little ones, but I’ve got to finish what I’ve started! Cannot believe I only have two more months of it.

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