My “mini clone” Gaby is now in the third grade and is just beautiful and amazing in every way. My little man, Jon-Jon, is now in the first grade and is such a litte ball of energy!

If you follow me on facebook, you will also know that we are having another baby! I am not pregnant though. We are in the process of adopting a newborn baby!

2011 was an amazing year both in my personal life as well as in my business! I am so excited for what is to come in this new year and hopefully here soon, I will be flooding my blog with tons and tons of sweet and precious baby pictures of our new little one!!

For now, though, here are some amazing new shots of my precious family, including our little doggie, Lucie!

A wonderful and very talented friend, Summer Safrit of www.realpromisesphotography.com in Hendersonville Tennessee, photographed my family in two different sessions this past fall. Thank you Summer for capturing my family! We love you!!

Until Next time…
Angela Crutcher Photography
www.angelacrutcherphotography.com
Middle Tennessee, Nashville Tennessee Child and Family Photographer

For all of March, the regular $250 session fee has been replaced with a $100 session fee! Book NOW, there is limited spaces available and will only last Until March 31!

*Session must take place by March 31, 2010. Minimum order requirements still apply. *

And what would a blog post be without pictures, right? So I’ll leave you with a few new images of my silly little, snaggeled-tooth, almost seven year old baby girl!

Until Next time…..
Angela Crutcher Photography
www.angelacrutcherphotography.com
Nashville Tennessee Child Portrait Photographer

I know many of you have been asking for an update on when Jon’s next cleft repair will be. We finally have a date set for the operation. It will be on Febuary 12, 2009. Wow, just a few more weeks. I am so not ready for this. We are all nervous about this operation. Our fisrt cleft repair was when he was 10 months old. He couldn’t talk yet and couldn’t fight back yet. Now he is four and is autistic. Jon will be in an enourmous ammount of pain after surgery. That is the part I am scared of. That is what I am dreading. No mother wants to see her baby in pain.

For now though, I am not going to stress over the things I can not change. I am going to celebrate my beautiful boy and this blessing that is my life!

Yes, you will notice that Jon has long hair. We love it! The first shot you will see that he has curly hair. The last shot you will see what his hair looks like when I brush it straight.

Now, what would a blog post be if I did not post some pictures!? Remember I traded photo sessions with another wonderful photographer in the early part of the Fall? Wel…… I have our pictures!! I am so thrilled with them! They truly show how crazy, fun an lovable we are! Erin did a wonderful job and I believe we have just started a new tradition between our two families! Thank you so muche, Erin. You were a blast and the kiddos love you!

Jon will be undergoing three surgeries beginning in November. Jon’s tonsils and adnoids are deformed because of the cleft and need to be removed for his health and safety. His tonsils are extremely enlarged and pose a risk of him not breathing well in his sleep. So the first two surgeries will happen next month. He will heal from that and get through the holidays and then he wil undergo the most serious surgery of his life….a second cleft palate repair operation. That surgery is scheduled to happen this January, just after his 4th birthday. This operation is a lot more difficult than the first cleft repair was. They have already told me to “prepare for hell”. Appearently this operation will cause a lot more pain then the first one did. 

Honestly, I am freaking out. I hate that he has to go through all of this pain. I have so many fears right now. God, I hope this will be the last operation he will have to endure! We are so lucky and blessed to have a very strong suppoprt system of friends and family to help us through this. I don’t know what I would ever do without them!

So, for now, I am enjoying my baby boy just being a boy! I am trying to not think too much about what is to come in the upcoming months. That’s why I took these pictures of him last week. In these shots, he is just being a happy little boy! No worries of Autism, or education or operations. Just my Jon-Jon being his fun loving, michevious little self! I also had to pay him $1.11 for this shoot! haha! I had a pocket full of change and slowly gave it to him to keep his interest with the camera!  This session with Jon lasted about 10 minutes. That’s all he would give me. I’ll take it!

When did she grow up right before my eyes? I can close my eyes and see so vividly the days she first crawled and walked. I can close my eyes and hear her sweet little hum that she would do while she was feeding herself. I miss that little hum. I can close my eyes and remember so vividly her sweet Shirley Temple curls. The way they felt like silk. The way they smelt like baby shampoo. They way the wind would blow them. I really miss her baby curls. I can close my eyes and remember so vividly her sweet voice on the day she met her baby brother. How sweet those little words “My Jon-Jon” were! I can close my eyes and remember so vividly the day she covered her baby brother and herself in diaper rash cream and then tried her best to deny she had anything to do with it. Gone are the sweet baby days where everything is cute and sweet.

Now are the days of sibiling rilvelry, mischievous behaviors that get blamed on the dog (even though we have never had a dog) and dramatic tantrums that result in locking herself in the bathroom. Being older also has it great moments though. Now are the days of compassion, love, opinions, knock-knock jokes (that make no sense at all), grown-up decisions, maturity and being the best little 5 year old a mommy could ask for! Now are the days of homework, slumber party’s, girl scout meetings, field trips, new friendships, no naps, trading lunch with the person across from her and recess (which Gaby has already declared her favorite part of school).

So to celebrate Gaby’s new step in life, I took her out for a very special photoshoot to kick off the school year!  She had a blast going school clothes shopping and she picked out every outfit she has! So I grabbed her favorite new school clothes and took her for a little country adventure. I was amazed at how grown up she looked in her school clothes. WOW! She really is not a baby or even a toddler any more. She is a 5 1/2 year old, amazingly gorgeous little girl!

Oh, and of course we had to do some umbrella shots! We were running pretty low on light by this point (it’s getting darker earlier already) but still got some great stuff from it!

After firing all of my sons doctors last summer, I started on a quest to find the best doctors around for him. We found a wonderful new ped for Jon and she actually WANTS to help our son. She diagnosed my Jon with Sensory Integration Dysfunction and Disruptive Behavior Disorder on our first visit with her. She then referred him to a wonderful private children’s psychologist for a behavioral and developmental assement. Well, we recently had our first visit with our new psychologist and we made some real progress for the first time in our journey. Our psychologist believes that Jon-Jon has PDDNOS, a form of high fuctioning Autism. He also believes that Jon will definitely be diagnosed with ADHD once he enters into school.

This journey has lead us down many paths, including some paths I wish we never had to go down. This path has taken an emotional toll on all of us. It was such a relief to finally have a doctor believe us. To finally have someone WANT to take the time to help us and our son felt like such a blessing. Our journey is far from over, but for the first time, this journey has made real progress. Our journey will now be filled with regular psychologist visits, lots more behavioral and occupational therapy and some major questions about what is best for our son and his education and his well being, amongst many other things that have yet to be forseen.

For now though, I sit here looking at my precious, shaggy-haired, quirky, little man and I can’t help but have tears in my eye. Tears of relief, tears of wonder, tears of sadness, tears of pride, tears of happiness and tears of love. I am so proud of my Jon-Jon. He’s an amazingly strong child and has overcame more in his life than most of us have.  Jonathan’s journey has only just begun and yet he has quite a story to tell!

The following images are recently shot images of my precious boy. Images that profoundly speak to me. Images that show exactly who my boy is. Some of the images are from the beach and others are compiled from a few different adventures I have had with Jon the past few weeks. So here he is: my car loving, dinosaur collecting, toy lining, hyper-yet-shy, quirky,  long haired, oh so funny, amazingly sweet Jon-Jon.

Momma, God made all of this for us. All this beauty surrounding us…..God made it….Momma, God is pretty awesome, huh?

Wow. My 5 year old just said that? I sat there, with a tear in my eye, so proud of my baby girl. So proud of my little angel. When did she grow up? When did she stop being my baby girl? When did she become a wise little woman? I’ve seen such a transformation in Gaby recently. She really is growing up right before my eyes.

As I did the following shoot with Gaby, I couldn’t help but sing the song “I Hope You Dance” quietly to myself, while capturing the wide-eyed wonder and amazement in my not-so-baby-girl.