under the weather

We've been seeing faces like this a lot around here.



Lila's had a little bit of a rough health year so far. In February she got a terrible cough that kept her up at night, made her grumpy in the day, and stayed for 2 months. We had some scary nights when it was really hard for her to breathe while she was coughing every breath and we had to watch her really closely. Her sickness only started to fade when she got diagnosed with bronchiolitis, started a regular albuterol inhaler at home, and went in for intermittent nebulizer treatments at the doctor's office. We know many kids have it much worse, so we are happy it wasn't more serious, but the poor girl was definitely unimpressed by the inhaler and all the weekly doctor visits (and we were unimpressed by the weekly co-pay and cost of in-office treatments). Just when they were about to start her on a regular steroid nebulizer treatment at home, she seemed to clear up, and we put it on hold.

A couple weeks later she got some sort of nasty flu for 4 days that made her lose her lunch on more than one occasion and stole her appetite for about a week. It was about then that out of nowhere she started wheezing again, without any real implications of a cold (maybe allergies?). But this time it was the worst she's ever been, and for the first time ever the inhaler was doing absolutely nothing.

That night Jon stayed by her bedside trying to get her to sleep, and she finally managed to fall asleep, even though from watching her body you would think she was still wide awake. Her stomach was going up and down so quickly as she tried desperately to get enough air with each breath, she looked tense and uncomfortable, and she was wheezing so loudly that I could hear her from downstairs while she was sleeping upstairs. We were terrified to leave her, fearing that at any moment in the middle of the night she could become so exhausted she would pass out. After calling my sister who's a nurse and going over her condition, at about 11:30pm we decided it was best to take her into the hospital.

In the ER they immediately saw her oxygen levels were too low, put her on oxygen, gave her liquid steroids and antibiotics, gave her several types of medication through a nebulizer, then sent her off to get a chest x-ray. It came back showing a tiny case of pneumonia, and they decided to keep her overnight. One night turned into two, explaining to us that it was vital to treat her very aggressively during her first hospital admittance for (possible) asthma. The doctors were optimistic this would make her body more responsive to treatments in the future, and hopefully less susceptible to needing the treatments, especially avoiding more extreme cases like what had brought her there this time. Aside from hating all the monitors stuck to her little tummy, chest, and foot, and desperately wanting to run and play, Lila did really well for a little 20-month-old baby. Sweet, sweet, baby.

She's doing so much better now, and just has a couple steroid and albuterol treatments every day to keep her in check for the next month or so. All the discharge papers listed her diagnosis as "Asthma and Upper Respiratory Infection," although they never said that exactly to us, because we've learned that technically she can't be diagnosed with asthma until she's five, since chances are high it could go away by then and never develop into lifelong asthma. Asthma is something I had as a kid, and Jon's dealt with it during allergy seasons in the past, so it's not a shock to us, we're just happy there are medications to help her so she can breathe normally. It's so sad to watch her work so hard for breath, so seeing the changes they were able to make on her during those two days in the hospital was so great. She was back at the park climbing ladders and flying down slides just a few hours after getting home from the hospital—you would never know she'd ever been admitted.

Jon was with her when she got released, and he said she ran the entire way out of the hospital all the way to the car. Barefoot. In pajamas. With mangled hair. Yelling, "Home! Home! Go! Mommy! Wan! (Van)" the whole way out. Cutest thing ever.

Thank you for all your love and support while we were in the hospital with her and for all your concern since then. We're all so happy to have her home and healthy!




And this guy continues to be entertaining as ever. He sure missed his sister and he's been super helpful with her nebulizer treatments every day, trying to make her happy while she's strapped down to an oxygen mask, if that's possible :) His expressions kill us.

the new babe {fashionably late}

lila gwynn smith
{pronounced "lie-luh" not "lee-luh" or "lil-uh", and "gwin" not "gwen"} :)



July 27, 2010
4:28 am
7 lbs 15 oz
20.5 in

We've clearly been behind on posting, but with not much time to catch up, we'll just skip the last three months and get right to the important part.

Our little girl arrived 6 days late, and after literally having tried EVERYTHING to get her out sooner (walking, running, jumping, eating spicy food, walking half-on half-off curbs, hiking up huge hills, bouncing on an exercise ball, going up and down stairs, and yes, anything else you're thinking of), we are absolutely convinced that none of it works. The baby will come when the baby wants to come, and your body will spit it out when it wants to spit it out. Take it from us. If those things have worked for other people, I'm pretty sure it's because they were about to go into labor anyway and they falsely attributed their success to the last thing they were doing. Totally not a believer. But we're so happy she finally came and that everything happened all on its own!

The best news of the day was that I opted for an epidural this time, which was every bit as awful to receive as I'd imagined, but as soon as it was in place, I was loving life. We talked. We slept. We laughed. I could LAUGH. I totally enjoyed it and couldn't believe how nice it was to not be hyperventilating and worrying about how I would survive a head coming out of my body. No need to suffer willingly twice! We got to the hospital at 11:30pm, and our little lady was born by 4:30am. It was awesome. She was a perfect, purple, squishy, screamy, newborn. We're suddenly a family of four, Van's a big brother, and we've got our hands full. But it's so much fun, even when we feel totally crazy. :)

The hospital day in photos...









Fresh out of the oven.




Obviously a daddy's little girl from day one. Her face clearly says "see mom? I can get whatever I want from him!"






Flowers from my lover.




Van's so sweet to her, it's the cutest thing to watch. He wants to kiss her on the head and hold her all the time (even though that only lasts about 5 seconds, we're sure it's safer that way).






Those beauties on the right are one of my token symptoms of the last month of pregnancy. And it took a big nasty week after delivery to get them down to normal size. They're super painful, don't fit anything, and I can't believe I don't have foot/ankle/cankle stretch marks to show for it. Four weeks of hugeness. Even my toes were getting rolls. oh. my. gosh. I couldn't BELIEVE how little my feet were when I finally welcomed them back last week. It was a beautiful day. Jon's so proud of me for posting this photo online, I'm so embarrassed by them. And I hate feet. But the little girl on the left, I like her lots.


Going home outfit. We had to put a bow on her head to remember she was a girl, or we kept calling her "dude" or "buddy" out of habit with our little man. We're sure she'll grow out of the "I-could-be-a-boy-or-girl" phase and into her girly self soon enough. :)


Waiting for Jon to roll up in the getaway car just over 24 hours after birth. We were on the accelerated leave-the-hospital plan since my mom would be in the airport flying away 48 hours after birth. That's what happens when babies hang out in the womb almost a week longer than expected.


First almost-family pic, sans Van.


I love her eyes in this photo! Headed home!

weddings. ours. theirs.

Tomorrow is our anniversary. three years. It makes me happy just to think about it.

I know in the grand scheme of things, three years sounds like a relatively short amount of time, but I can't BELIEVE it's already been that long! Our little life together has seemed to fly by at killer speed, complete with 2 apartments (3 next month), 1.5 kids, a new business, a marathon for each of us, and lots of roadtrips, plane flights, late nights, callings, friends, site-seeing, and small moments that all add up to one big wonderfulness. One big craziness, imperfection, kaleidoscope of days and emotions from every end of the spectrum, but yes, one big wonderfulness.

I feel so lucky to enjoy all the craziness, imperfection, ups and downs, and unpredictability of life with my perfect fit. We both love ice cream and neither of us can ever manage to go to bed on time, so we figure we were pretty much meant to be.

How fun though—and entirely not what I ever would have imagined or even thought about three years ago—that we have a business together, and today on that little business blog we posted our very first wedding. Not ours as in where we were wed. But ours that we shot together, as photographers. (that totally shouldn't be legal...people shooting other people's WEDDINGS having never done so beforehand. Never. Seriously, these people must have been crazy going out on a loony limb like that).

And how fitting that this first wedding of ours happened here in DC, where we both had to move to find each other. And that their ring ceremony and luncheon took place on the very lawn that we first conversed and unabashedly flirted after Jon sat next to me and my roomies on a blanket during the ward luau. That's a pretty rockin' lawn in our eyes.



And how equally fitting and ironic that this Friday, when we will be shooting our fourth wedding (we're behind on posting, imagine that...), is May 14...the exact date we met 4 years ago when Jon took my new member picture at church since he was—get this—the ward photographer. !! Life has a way of going in beautiful, unexpected circles.

A couple days before photographing our first wedding last month, I was doing a usual sort through our iTunes genius recommendations (LOVE that feature, we're such new music addicts), and one of the recommendations that turned up from recent purchases was a song that was on our wedding video (thanks Joel, you're awesome!). I was excited to find it, bought it instantly and didn't think much of it. But the next day I was listening to our iTunes as I cleaned up the kitchen after Van went down for his nap, and when that song came on, I couldn't believe the flood of fun, happy memories that came back because I'd heard it so many times with our wedding video. I was suddenly so excited for that wedding we had that week, to know that we would be capturing (hopefully...trying to capture at least!) memories for this couple like all the memories I was remembering at that moment. (to hear the song, go here)

What a FUN thing to be a part of, what an awesome job, and what a crazy, (and I can't say this next word enough...) unexpected road that brought us here.

And what a perfect time to celebrate our own lovely wedding day, even if it won't be celebrated with our typical little getaway roadtrip since we'll be shooting a wedding and taking our cute kid to an airshow instead. I'm okay with that. We'll celebrate by having ice cream and staying up late, which pretty much means we were meant to be.

LOADS of love to Jon and this crazy life we get to lead together. happy three!

do as we're {always} doing

Just when we're convinced he absolutely ignores us the second either one of us straps a camera around our neck, he goes and proves that not only is he paying attention, he's also taking concise note of each important step of what we're doing to make that big black box operate.

This is HILARIOUS. When we were in Florida a couple months ago for Jon to attend Photoshop World (more photos to come, but in the meantime, check out beach pics from the trip here on our photog blog in case you missed them), one night in the hotel room I was trying to clean up a little before Jon got home really late from his classes. Van was mid clothes-to-pj's change hanging out on the bed, and when I turned back to put his pajamas on, I saw this.



then this,


and then this.


When I first saw him I laughed out loud and told him I wished I had a second camera to take pictures of him doing that, and then it hit me, I DO have a second camera!! What a convenient purchase that was! Granted I had absolutely no time to change my settings for fear I'd miss the moment, so the color is absolutely awful, but I had to post them anyway! It was just too cute!

I LOVE that he put the strap around his neck, attempted to get the lens cap off (he'll get that soon enough, I'm sure) and knew exactly how to lift the camera to his face to take a shot. Even if the whole thing is the same size as his head. He was so proud of himself, and I was beaming. And totally laughing. This kid is a blast, and we can't get over how much he takes into that little brain of his already! Kids are so dang smart.

HOW Design Conference {6.23-27.09}

My work finally sent me to the coveted HOW Design Conference in June which I've been interested in attending for the last 4 years, ever since I've been there. It's probably the biggest graphic design conference in the country and this year it was in "Weird Austin", which I quickly learned was its nickname.







1. AUSTIN TEXAS
The city was definitely a little strange, granted we only hung out in the main downtown area of Austin which brings out the crazies. Probably the two weirdest things were the "Weird Austin Museum" that we went to on the first day and saw all kinds of two-headed animals and shrunken-headed men, I didn't include a photo of this place, a little too weird. The second thing that was weird is that there are occasional cross dressers that walk the streets, I saw a kid about my age in a dress looking all dolled up acting nothing was weird at all, and there's even a famous street walking cross dresser who's about 58 years old named Leslie Cochran, if you don't believe me look him up on Wikipedia.

One of things to do there in the evening is go to a certain bridge and watch millions of bats fly out from under bridge to fly away and go catch their food for the night. The bats were coming out in swarms and kept coming for 10 to 15 minutes.





I did like all the art on the walls of buildings as I walked around the city, it wasn't just ugly graffiti but pretty creative designs. I also liked the capital building there, it's a cool looking one.








Since the moment I laid eyes on this beautiful, blue-tiled wall, I wanted to have a photo shoot at it, which we did.




While we were trying to get this jumping photo we had to keep jumping because there were so many cameras on timers taking pics at different times. I put my camera on video without telling anyone and I caught everyone busting some sweet moves :)



2. HOW DESIGN CONFERENCE
I made the most of the conference by attending every possible event that was offered, taking copious notes as I enjoyed the classes, meeting as many people as I possibly could each day, and making a point to meet every presenter that I enjoyed. Two of the best presenters were LDS designers from Salt Lake City. Some of my favorite classes included "Good vs. Great Design", "50 Ways to (Almost) Get Fired", "The WOW Factor: Developing Strong Presentation Skills", and "Visual Story Telling".


I was interviewed by the HOW conference peeps and now I'm famous.


One really neat thing we did before the conference was a thing called studio tours where they take us on a tour of 6 different design firms located in the Austin area and we got to see how their business functioned and what kind of design work they would do. It was amazing to me how different each of the firms were with what type of work they took in. I have a couple photos of those firms below.




This is an inspiration wall inside the company Milkshake, since I saw this I made myself an inspiration wall at work.


Another cool thing at the conference was a typography exhibit that had a bunch of amazing posters, I could have spent all day looking at those posters. It would be fun to work on a poster like that some day.




I attended the "Keep Austin Weird" closing reception and dance where we lit up the dance floor! I donned some sweet white spectacles and some glow sticks as a belt buckle and shoe laces. It was a good time, as you can clearly see for yourself in the photo.