*Erica Joyce Photography* BLOG

Aren’t Mondays just a kick in the face…the realization that the weekend is over…back to work…traffic…a new set of deadlines or goals to hit?!?  I guess I’m fortunate in that I never really have to deal with the “Monday’s” as a firefighter – with our schedule being set the way that it is.  Although I suppose each day that I go to work is like a Monday and a Friday all in one…”I just had two days off, I am at work now, and I’ll have two days off starting tomorrow”, hence the Monday/Friday – wouldn’t it be great if we could all just pick the hours we wanted to work as long as we reached our “required” time?!?

Just a thought.

We had a great maternity session out in Melissa, TX this weekend with an ultra-beautiful mama to be.  This couple looks amazing and we can’t wait to get back out there to shoot their little baby boy when he makes his world debut!  It was a great shoot – despite the 105 degree temps that are just beating us down here in Texas.  It’s times like now that make me really jealous of the temps that those in northern California are getting.  Imagine that – Late July, and the high is only like 78 degrees.  These photos are way HOT too!!!

Below are a few samples from a wedding that I was shooting with the Photogenic Images crew a few weeks ago.

Check out this car they were driven-off in!

One last thing – I almost forget to add!  The company that host/designs our websites, Bludomain – was celebrating their fifth year birthday this weekend with all sorts of contests and prizes…one of the contest was to take a photo of what kind of footwear you had on (I know, what a crazy contest)…so I submitted my photo.  If you will remember last year – I won an iPhone from them in a similar contest.  Anyhow – I WON AGAIN!  This time I won a new website design!!!  So in the near future you’ll see a new and improved Erica Joyce Photography site!!!

Here’s my winning photo:

SO much to say in such little time….this is gonna be a long post – you’ve been forewarned!  Let’s start it off with our most positive – uplifting – awesomest post of all times:

As many of you know, Erica and I have been battling a fertility issue (actually, several issues) for the past few years.  So our history with this has been quite the series of ups and downs – from positive thinking to desperation and everything else in between.  We decided that we would give ourselves one last effort – IVF.  If this didn’t work then we would be willing to accept that perhaps God had other plans for our lives and we would patiently await to see what we were blessed with.

If you will remember back a few posts, you’ll remember that the fertility clinic was only able to “retrieve” 6 eggs – but only 5 actually fertilized…then the day of the transfer we found out that only two had made it to the stage we needed them to be at.  So to give it our best chance of a pregnancy we transfered both little embryo’s and crossed our fingers.  We waited the 14 days and then it was time for the pregnancy test.  The first one came back positive…the second came back positive…and finally our third pregnancy test super-confirmed that we are definitely pregnant. As a matter of fact – Erica’s HCG Beta levels were somewhere around 12,000! I think anything over like, 25, is considered positive pregnancy!

So anyhow – we’ve been ever-so patient waiting for the day when we get to “see” how many heartbeats we have.  You see, at this stage the heartbeat isn’t strong enough to be heard – but you can see it on the ultrasound.  So on Wednesday morning we had to make an emergency doctor’s visit because of some issues Erica was experiencing…our appointment was suppose to be today to find out the heartbeat counts.  Everything turned-out fine with Erica, and they said everything was progressing normally….then came the ultrasound.

——— scanning with the ultrasound machine ———

So then Dr. Kaufman was busy scanning the belly looking for the little suckers….”there’s one”….still looking…adjusting dials…turning knobs…”there’s another”.

Congratulations – TWINS!

That’s right, we’re having twins!  We cannot believe it – it just doesn’t seem real yet!  We feel so blessed, honored & so uber  excited!  What an awesome gift from God!
The doctor said Erica’s due date would be March 15th based on all the timelines we had to follow – but rarely do twins get carried to full-term, so somewhere around mid to late February – our little ones should arrive!!!

A huge, heartfelt thank you goes out from us to each one of you who have supported us through this with your kindest thoughts and prayers!  We are so gracious to have you supporting us – “thank you”.

Check-out these images from the ultrasound – can you make anything out on these – I sure as heck can’t! It looks like a snowy TV screen to me – “someone go hit that thing on the top to see if we can get a better picture”!

Before everyone starts asking – we are NOT finding out the sex of the babies – we want it to be a HUGE surprise for everyone. So PLEASE, don’t try to talk us out of it…I mean really – is it not OK to paint the nursery when they’re like 1 week old – are they seriously gonna remember what color the nursery was when we brought them home?!?  Besides…we love surprises!

We made it to the end of one more week!  Yes!  We have been busy this week with a wedding and three portrait sessions and the outlook remains busy for the next few weeks!  We are though, taking a short little family vacation to Sea World the first weekend in August that I am SO looking forward to!  I haven’t had too much time to review the photos from the wedding, but below are a couple teasers until I can get some more posted!

Also, check out little Cooper below working some camera magic from our zoo session last weekend!

One last note – check out this quote from Brian Dyson:

“Balance In Life”

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air.  You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit – and you are keeping all these in the air.  You will understand that work is a rubber ball – if you drop it, it will bounce back.  But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit are all made of glass.  If one of these is dropped it will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered.  They will never be the same.  You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.”

Are you juggling too much?

We had a great, action-packed weekend with a super-cool wedding at the Fort Worth Zoo on Saturday evening followed by two great kiddo sessions on Sunday!  Little Cooper had his two-year old photos taken at the Zoo as well – and it was all we could do just to keep-up with him!

Celebrating his sixth month of life – we had an awesome photo session with Ryder for his six-month photos!  Poor guy wasn’t feeling too well – but you could hardly tell – he did an awesome job!  Now, you may be wondering about the blog post title – well, in order to keep this rated PG I’ll give you the short story…

At dinner, little Ryder began getting a bit fussy and cranky – so mom went to pick him up out of his high chair, and SURPRISE – – IT WAS A BLOW OUT!!!  He had made a doozy in his chair (really, more on the back of his clothes) – but the best part was seeing his dad’s reaction when Ryder was placed in his arms and the BLOW OUT hadn’t been noticed yet – dad found it!!!  Great job!

IVF UPDATE:
We go back to the doctor this week for our third pregnancy test – and if all looks good we’ll be graduated to an OB/GYN!!!  We’re counting down the time before we can find how many little suckers are hanging-on in there!