Well, as you know, that crazy cousin of mine is engaged!  While her soldier was home for two weeks of R & R (he’s back in Iraq now, unfortunately), we did a quick engagement session.  There’s no way of knowing when Spencer will finish his deployment but, while we wait for him to come home, I hope these pictures will keep Cate company.

To see more from our shoot, go here.

3:12 a.m., today: “Amy Beff, is it mworning time yet?”

4:56 a.m., today: “It’s mworning time!!!”

7:12 a.m., today: “Do you like my baby clothes, Amy Beff?”

Monday’s are awfully nice when you wake up to baby girls in footie pajamas.

It’s hard to believe that it has been a year since I photographed baby Landon’s arrival into the world. Landon’s mother, Ashley, has been one of my best friends for over a decade of my life, so it is awfully special that I get to photograph her children throughout different stages of their lives.

A couple of weeks ago, while I was in Knoxville, I photographed Landon for his one year old photos.  While I was there, we grabbed a few of the whole family, too!  Ashley, how is it possible that we’re old enough for one of us to be married and have children?  And for the other to have five little girls running around her house?  Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were spending hours putting hot rollers in each other’s hair?

To see more from our afternoon together, go here.

A couple of weekends ago, I got the change to photograph the Roberts’ baby in Knoxville.  Amber is best friends with one of my best friends which makes Amber and I best friends by best friend relation, don’t you think?  Or something like that.

To see more from our shoot, go here.

I’m from a rather small family that is brimming with estrangements, whether it be parent and child, siblings, etc.  Calling it “estrangements” is, at times, putting it nicely.  As I was driving home tonight, I started to think about what it will be like when my family dies.  A morbid thought, perhaps, but when you’re a single girl in your mid-twenties, sometimes you think about things like that on your way home to an empty house.

It made me think about orphans, as most things do these days.  I’m in the store buying a Pez dispenser to go in the fabulous five’s stockings?  Orphans.  I’m rinsing the dishes before I put them in the dishwasher?  Orphans.  I’m sitting at my desk working on an important report?  Orphans.  I just can’t help myself.  It’s orphans, orphans, orphans all the time.

So, I’m driving home thinking about what it would feel like to be without any family left when it suddenly occurs to me: orphans.  Orphans are, quite literally, without immediate family (or at least immediate family that wishes to care for them).  I started thinking about how little children just can’t survive like that, without someone to help feed them and clothe them and protect them. Well, maybe they can survive… but can they thrive, really?

And then I thought about older orphans, the ones that genuinely don’t have anyone.  I imagined how they must feel, leaving their jobs at the end of the day and going home to… nothing.  No parents, no siblings, no person who shares their bloodline.  By the time I pulled into my driveway tonight, I realized I have a serious problem on my hands.

How am I going to find a house big enough for all the baby orphans and the teenage ones, too?

When I finished trick or treating with Juliana and Olivia on Halloween night, I honestly wanted to head home for an early bedtime for us all.  The girls needed to eat and I planned to fix something quick when we got home, throw them into pajamas and get everyone in bed as early as possible.  I was tired and had a big week at work ahead of me.

As I was putting them in the car, I kept thinking about an advertisement I had seen showing “scary face pancakes” at IHOP.  For a couple of dollars apiece, each girl would be given a round pancake with plenty of whipped cream, Mini Oreos and candy corn to use to “decorate” her pancake.  I knew the girls would like the pancakes and love the experience, so off we went to IHOP.

The restaurant was practically deserted when we came in; a man sat diagonal from us, enjoying some coffee and reading through papers from his laptop bag.  The only other diners in the restaurant happened to be a mother with her two young children sitting at a table near ours.

After I ordered our pancakes, I couldn’t help but watch the woman.  She was alone with her two children and, as I watched her listen to them recount every piece of candy that had received that night, I recognized the single mom in her.  I am not a single mother, but I am a pretend single mother many nights of the week.  For some reason, just knowing that another woman had brought her two young children to IHOP for scary face pancakes made me feel a little less alone that night.

And then her husband came out of the bathroom carrying a third child in his arms.

I guess he had been in the bathroom when we came in; he certainly wasn’t sitting at the table at any point while I was watching the other “single” mother.  He kissed his wife as he sat down at the table and, after helping one of his children cut into his pancakes, he began to pour syrup on his own pancakes.

As I sat there watching them, I felt a whole new form of longing wash over me, one that I’ve only discovered since having the girls come into my life.  Since their arrival in my life, I’ve naturally assumed that feelings of loneliness would begin to fade as the girls began to take up more and more space in my home and in my heart.

What I have found, however, is that while they do fill an amazing hole in my life, they do not fill that of a companion that I’ve wanted for so long.  I can have a picturesque evening full of fixing them dinner, giving them baths and tucking them into bed with a kiss on the forehead yet still go to bed alone, no person having ever asked about how my day went.

I went to bed last night, thinking I would go to bed early myself since I have a lot to do today.  But I couldn’t sleep and, as I laid there staring at the wall beside my bed, I suddenly had a thought that chilled me to the bone.

There is no one to listen to me at night other than God.

I once read somewhere that the best part of marriage is having someone to acknowledge that your day-to-day life matters, that even the small things that happen to you matter to at least one other person on the planet.  Lately, I’ve been so subdued, so quiet.  I guess now that the excitement of the last month or so has settled down, I can hear the quiet more clearly.  All of the weddings are over, past dating relationships of mine are finally at a point of closure where they’ll never be reopened, etc.   I think the finality of it all has just kind of stunned me into silence.  If I’ve learned anything through the past few months, it’s that closure is one of the most relieving feelings to experience.

It can be quite frightening, too.

When I got into bed last Friday night I realized that, for the first time in months, I had a fairly free Saturday ahead of me.  Sure, I was keeping part of the fabulous five throughout the day but I was still pretty free.  And so, on Saturday afternoon, I texted my college girls and asked if they might want to come over for a home cooked meal that night.  Thus implying that I was going to cook.  And that it would be edible.

I’m happy to report that everything I fixed was edible except for the corn and, please, how was I supposed to know that corn can burn?  Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous in your life?  Martha, I bet your corn burns on top of the stove all the time, too.

In all, I had six college girls over, three members of the fabulous five and myself which means cooking for ten unless you also count Snuggles y Cuddles which makes it twelve and, interestingly, it just so happens that Snuggles y Cuddles love burnt corn!

At some point during dinner, Olivia pulled her whole “naked baby!” routine.  I think my college girls were expecting me to force her to put her clothes back on but, hello, I have far more important problems on my hands such as trying to figure out how I’m going to marry myself off now that Bank Boy has moved away.

For dessert, I put candy sticks into various flavors of apples and then brought out bowls of caramel and crushed nuts so that we could make caramel apples!

Get this — I’ve never had a caramel apple in my entire life.  Unfortunately, since I ran out of apples that night, I still haven’t had one but don’t you worry.  I’m moving “try a caramel apple” to the very top of my to-do list, right after “create profiles on various online dating websites.”

Oh, I kid.  Kinda.  Maybe.  Okay, I kid.  But if I’m still single at 27…

After I pulled out the baby wipes to clean up all the crowd age eight and under, I asked my college girls if they’d like to help with our bedtime routine.  Instead of our usual routine of me reading a book before we go to bed, the girls lucked out and got to hear each of my college girls read a book of their choice to them.

Before we said goodnight and turned out the lights, we all said our prayers together.  I am happy to report that no one prayed for relief from food poisoning, which is definitely a step up from typical meals at my house.

A couple of weeks ago, a family from Atlanta came into town so I could photograph their son, Danl (pronounced Dan-el).  The mother, Destiny, has read my blog for awhile and we’ve emailed back and forth some.  When she asked me to take her son’s high school senior portraits, I was excited that we’d get to meet — off the blog!

We had a great visit and, believe it or not, we even managed to get a few photos of her son in between our conversations.  Near the end of the shoot, Destiny pulled a box out of the car that contained not only a gift for me (what?!?) but also a gift bag for each of the fabulous five!  I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of the bags before the girls tore into them, but they were darling.  She even included Disney princess CD’s, which happened to come in handy given our activities last week!

Enough about girl talk, though.  Let’s get to the pictures!

(Click any image to view in full size.)

To see more of Danl’s senior session, go here.

Before I tell you about my adventure in taking two members of the fabulous five trick or treating this past weekend, I have a couple of important things that I’ve been meaning to tell you:

1. Last Friday, when I went to my bank to make a deposit, Bank Boy informed me that he’s moving back home (Maine, I think?) to “help out his parents.”  So, apparently, I was the only one who felt our connection when I asked for a pen and deposit slip each time I came through the drive-thru.

2. I’m not kidding you, I was sitting there waiting for a receipt from my deposit and I thought “If Bank Boy is moving home, I’m going to be single forever.”  I mean, we had a connection. Except… apparently we didn’t.

3. Of course, I never actually knew Bank Boy’s real name.

4. But still, I just thought you’d want to know that it’s now confirmed: I’m going to be single forever.  I’ll likely need to rename this blog to Old Maid So Fabulous.

5. Or, if I get desperate, MENistry So Fabulous.

So, anyway, trick or treating.  The last time I went trick or treating was when I was in elementary school, right before my mom decided that Halloween was the devil’s holiday.  Sure, I was occasionally allowed to attend a fall festival at a local church but dressing up as a princess or fairy?  Why, I might as well have just dressed up as a big-haired girl going to hell in a handbasket.

On Sunday afternoon, mom asked me twice if I was taking any of the girls trick or treating and, thinking I wouldn’t have any of them with me, I told her that I wouldn’t be engaging in any such satanic activity.  But then Ryan called and asked me if I’d keep Juliana and Olivia for the night and suddenly I had two little girls in my backseat that were wanting some Snickers and I don’t mean giggles.

I didn’t have outfits for them, so I thought quickly and announced that Juliana would be trick or treating as a gymnast and Olivia would be going as a ballerina, mainly because if there’s one thing I own, it’s an abundance of leotards for little girls.

After dressing the girls, we headed to a local street in our town that is shut down every Halloween so that thousands of people can trick or treat on the street while the police keep a close eye on all the little gobblins.  Each house on the street decorates as a different theme, so I knew the girls would love walking up and down the sidewalks.

For the record, mom, Juliana’s face was already painted as a pumpkin when I picked her up.  And yes, that’s a pumpkin not a “devil face.”

For the love, is that not the cutest expression on Olivia’s face in the next picture?

The girls had never been trick or treating before, so I think they were a little overwhelmed.  They held hands as we went to each house which I thought was just darling.

About halfway through our journey, we took a little break to survey the accumulated candy.

The woman I work for just so happens to live on the street we were trick or treating on.  I take the girls to their house quite a bit, so it was fun to see their expressions when we walked up to find the outside of the house decorated like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

After we visited with them for a bit, I started to get a bit overwhelmed by how many people were on the street and how difficult it was to keep the girls right beside me.  We snagged candy at a couple more houses and then I decided we were done trick or treating for the night.

The girls and I hadn’t had dinner, so I took them to IHOP so we could make some “scary face” pancakes.  The joke ended up being on me because have you ever tried to get whipped cream out of two little girls’ heads full of hair?  Talk about a treat.

When we finished, I called my mom to tell her we were done so that she could be released from her praying and fasting for our souls.  When I asked her what she was doing, she informed me that she had just been to buy some candy to hand out at her door which was interesting, you know, given the fact that a mere two hours before I had been written out of the family will for my participation in the act of trick or treating.

As it turns out, the pastor of my mom’s church lives in her same neighborhood and when she found out that he and his wife were passing out candy to the neighborhood kidlets, she decided she might as well play with fire too by handing some candy out.  The highlight of my evening was getting a call informing me that a little girl had shown up on her doorstep wearing a wedding gown and carrying a suitcase in which she collected her candy.  The girls’ theme?

Runaway bride.

Edited to add:  I just spoke to my mother and she would like for you to know the following: just because she gave out candy doesn’t mean she supports Halloween (please, I’m just writing what she told me to write) and that in addition to the runaway bride, there was also a boy on her front step wearing only a pair of boxers.  She isn’t sure what he was supposed to be dressed as, but she wants you to know she still gave him candy.  EVEN THOUGH SHE DOES NOT SUPPORT HALLOWEEN.

Olivia and I are in a fun season of life where she appears to be very attached to me.  She’s pretty independent, but lately she wants to do everything with me whether it be folding laundry or cleaning the kitchen or even taking out the trash.  I’m not sure what has brought on this sudden attachment, but I love it considering I’m pretty attached to her, too!

For her date in October, I decided she would go grocery shopping with me by herself.  This thrilled her to no end, especially since I let her put some of the items into the cart for me.  We talked the entire way through the grocery store and I do mean the entire way through the grocery store.

I’ve gone grocery shopping with the fabulous five before and I’ll be the first to admit that it is hard to make your way through the aisles with a bunch of little girls tagging along.  But I can’t help love taking them to do simple tasks like this; it means more to me than some of the more “fun” things we do.  I want the girls to have fun with me, but I also want them to have normal with me.  For a lot of mothers, taking a child to the grocery store with them would be normal.  For most of my girls, these normal experiences are new to them because they haven’t really done it with an older female mother-type.  They adore doing mundane tasks like grocery shopping and you better believe I adore it, too.

All the dates for October are up now, from MacKenzie’s trip to Starbucks to Angelina’s new haircut to Aviean’s visit with my family to Juliana’s romp in the leaves and, of course, Olivia’s stroll down the grocery aisles.  Five posts in one day?  Yikes — I hope you’re not overwhelmed!