I went back a few days later to capture the visit of Lady and Lucy Lu, two Standard Poodles and their owners, who make weekly visits to residents. It is an amazing thing to watch interaction between people and dogs. These two dogs bring so much enthusiasm and excitement.

I very much enjoyed my visit and am looking forward to my next visit for more events at Marbridge. When I took the images in on Monday, I took the kiddos with me and they got to say hello to several residents, which was enriching for everyone.

I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I am – of all of us – for making such wonderful contributions to this important charity!

I am now officially beginning my slow season. Orders have all been placed for Christmas delivery and I can now sit down and design my own Christmas card (and hopefully get them out on time!).

I’ll be taking it easy the rest of the month to enjoy time with family (my brother is visiting from Maui!) and experience the magic of Christmas with my children. I’ll also be prepping some fun things that will be going into two really awesome Austin locations. I will blog about each… I am tickled to be invited to these awesome spots…. so stay tuned.

As I enter into my third trimester of pregnancy, I’m happy to announce that I will be taking the month of March completely off! But let’s not leave out January and February… so I have a little special for these months… 50% off session fee!!

Email is always the fastest way to reach me! mariah@mariahmilan.com and telephone is 512-940-6116. I am happy to return all phone calls when my kids are nice and quiet

Have a wonderful week everyone!

I’ll start with a few Finao albums. These are my lovely’s…. I’ll be keeping one in house for showing everyone in person, and the others are going out to a client and to a birth center for display. These come in so many amazing covers. Seriously… hard to pick. I do have full swatches to show off. These books shown are 20 pages.

Next we move on to the Couture Books. These are completely  hand made (here in the US). Both of these are wedding albums, but they make amazing displays of portraits with quotes, song lyrics, ect. This first is a studio sample of the French-Paris line. It comes with a vellum overlay, but sadly my children have gotten to it. So this is the woven cover underneath the vellum.

And finally is the Couture NYC book. It comes with a slipcase and a full image wrap cover. This is going out to El Paso today for Nasla & Amador.

Each of the Couture books shown have 100 pages. This give me lots of room for image display

Thanks for letting me share!!!

My daughter has entered the “Princess” stage. She is obsessed. It’s really cute. And just for everyone who asks me, “I bet you have so many pictures of your 3 year old, don’t you?” this is usually what I get. Well mostly what’s on the right side LOL – growing up with a photographer mommy has really made her shy away from the camera.

Kai’s hair is getting so long and unruly. I cannot bring myself to cut it, so the boy has his hair always any kind of way. I don’t think I’ll cut it until after he’s one. It’s so wispy and sweet.

I hope all of you are enjoying your families and these warm days. I’ll have more for the blog soon!

And before I forget… I’m having a special in July. All sessions in July are $100 ($108.25 including tax). That’s $100 in savings and the GIVINGisAWESOME campaign applies. This rate applies for all Austin photography. San Antonio clients, you get a special too. Please email me for details. And are you thinking of hiring me as your wedding photographer? Reserve your date and receive $150 off your wedding package if you sign a contract before July 31st.

Thanks to you, my fabulous clients, we have raised quite a bit of money for the food bank and hundreds, if not thousands, of meals for those who need them.

But I also fealt like I needed to do MORE. It is with that spirit that I joined two photographer volunteer associations recently.  Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep provides families who have lost a child (up to one year) a free photographer to document their precious child. I had gone back and forth for over a year before I decided to join this group of amazing people. I didn’t know if I could be strong enough emotionally to take on such a task. But I’ve come to the conclusion that I can do it, and I will do it, and I’ll just HOPE that I’m never needed… because no family ever deserves to lose a child.

I have also joined up with the Pictures of Hope Foundation which provides parents a free photography session when their child is in the NICU. You need me, I’ll be there.

Thank you all for your wonderful support!

XOXO, Mariah