Hi all.  Time to dust off the old blog and get this 2013 party started. Three weeks late, but better late than never, right?? 

So, first off I have to send a big, HUGE thank you out to all of the fabulous people I had the privilege of photographing in 2012.  It was the best year yet for my little business and I did no advertising (except for the prints I have hanging up at Lou’s Bootery in Suamico)!  Almost all of my business comes from referrals from you guys so THANK YOU!  Without you I couldn’t do what I love. 

Besides being an awesome year professionally, it was a pretty great year personally as well.  We put our house on the market early in 2012 and sold it in September.  We moved in November and are now residents of Pulaski!  I love small town living and I don’t miss the city as much as I thought I would.  Plus we have a nice little chunk of land that is going to be perfect for outdoor sessions (as soon as the snow melts and it warms up a bit.  The crazy cold weather we had this week isn’t ideal for outdoor photos).  The new house also has a perfectly lit area for indoor photos so I have been photographing quite a bit of newborn sessions out here and it is going great!   

Pauly got a new job in May and is no longer pounding nails for a living.  He likes his new gig and I like that he isn’t laid off for 4 months a year and gets full benefits.  Our boys are getting so big and so sassy and so fun!  I just love being their Momma and watching them grow.  And speaking of loving being a Momma, that leads me to the biggest news of all.  We got a bit of a surprise back in early December when we found out baby #3 is on the way!   I always wanted one more baby, but due to my crazy summer/fall work schedule, we like to plan our babies to be born in the spring.  Well, that isn’t the way this one worked out as I am due in early August, my absolute busiest time of year!  OOPS.   I just keep telling myself,’ everything happens for a reason’ and that ‘it will all work out in the end’.   We told our families on Christmas and their reactions were fantastic.  They were totally surprised (I always told them there was NO way I would ever be pregnant throughout the summer months-again, OOPS!) and there was a ton of tears and joy.  A perfect way to celebrate the holiday season!

Now, the reason I am mentioning this now (besides the fact that this is baby #3 and I am almost 3 months along and my sessions are going to start noticing my ever growing belly) is that things are going to have to change a bit for this spring/summer for Erika Krause Photography.  Luckily I have NO August weddings booked this year (pure dumb luck) but August is my biggest month as far as children and family sessions go.  Because of the baby, I will be taking the last 2 weeks of July and the first 3 weeks of August off.  My boys were each born about 10 days early so I am sort of planning on a late July delivery.  That being said, if you know you are going to need photos late this summer, contact me EARLY!  I am already booking sessions for late August and early July and I expect to be totally booked up in a few weeks. 

One other thing that is going to be changing is the location of our sessions, newborn sessions in particular.  Between May and August I do 90% of my session outdoors and on location and that won’t be changing.    As it gets toward the end of the pregnancy, I may end up having to shoot sessions here at our house, but we have a lovely woods/field behind us and it will work out just fine.  But newborn sessions are a whole different ball game.  I have OODLES of equipment that I bring to client’s homes to photograph newborns.  The loading it up and unloading is fine now, but when I am carrying 20 extra pounds and a basketball belly around , that just isn’t going to happen.   Starting in May (and maybe even earlier if I need to) all newborn sessions will happen at our house out in Pulaski.  We have perfect light and tons of space and it’s been working great! I actually photographed two newborns here in the past two weeks and everything went awesome.     

So, that is that.  I am a little worried about how the summer is going to progress, but there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it at this point so I am trying to relax.  We are getting super excited about welcoming a new baby too.  It is so neat to see Ed and Bob react to the news.  They are so excited to be big brothers, Eddie in particular.  He was still a baby himself when Bob was born, so this is his first time getting to experience this whole thing.  He and I have a couple of apps that we downloaded onto the iPad that shows how the baby develops week by week and he is fascinated with it.  He tells everyone that he only wants a sister and if this baby is a boy, we have to have four kids!  (ha, NOT going to happen!)  We have been telling him that we don’t have a choice in what we get and that we just have to pray for a healthy baby and it is starting to sink in.  Speaking of the baby’s sex, I think we are going to end up finding out what the baby is at our ultrasound in Feb/March.  I sort of wanted to be surprised with this baby as I could care less about the sex, but Pauly told me if it is a girl, he is going to need at least 4 months to prepare himself and buy some guns.  Ha.  Most people are assuming we want a girl, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.  I wanted another baby, not a certain baby in particular and both Pauly and I are sort of pulling for another boy.  We have everything we would need for a boy and most importantly, a super fun boy name picked out, so we’ll see.  It sounds so cliché, but really, all I want is a healthy itty bitty baby to love on again!

Alrighty, I’ll leave you with a few photos.  First, the photo we put in a frame and gave to my mom and dad on Christmas morning.  Took them about 10 seconds to get it, but when they did, it was awesome!  And secondly, the first photo of our little bambino taken this past Monday.  Doesn’t look like much, but I am so excited for that little blob to make us a family of FIVE!