Kittens

Our cat Lilly had her two little kittens on Feb. 6th.  I'm glad she only had two, I didn't think she would have that many being she is such a small cat.  

Here's the little mommma

Here's her kittens just about 10 hours old

here they are at 10 days old, with their eyes almost completely open

 And here are pics I took yesterday at 15 days old.  They are getting cuter by the day (thank goodness)
We will be keeping one of them and giving one away in about 4-5 weeks.

Lilly seems to be enjoying being a momma, she let's us hold them but gets a little nervous if they start to whine.
This will be her only litter, I will be getting her spayed.

loss of a family pet

About a month ago we had to make the hard decision to have our cat Annabelle put down.  We had her for almost 7 years,  from the time she was a little puff ball.  

This summer she had pawed at the screen door to get outside and when she ran out, the door slammed on her tail and she kept on going.  We took her to the vet and they said she had pulled a spot in the vertebrae of her tail about 1/2 inch apart.  Her tail would now only drag on the ground and she had no feeling in it.  We waited to see if the problem would heal over time, but it didn't, it only got worse.  The tail accident also caused her to lose bladder control, so she had to become a permanent outdoor cat.  The bladder problem caused her kidneys to start failing and she was getting to be a hunched over all the time.  She was in pain and miserable, so we made the decision to let her go.

Annabelle was the best cat ever, she was more like a dog.  She followed us everywhere, and had to be apart of everything we did.  Sam would go fishing down at the lake, she would follow him and sit next to him while he fished.  The kids would go outside to play and she would want to be a part of it.  She also loved having her picture taken.  She always knew when I was getting ready for a session, I would pull out the lights and the backgrounds and she would just plop down on the background and wait for me to take her picture. In this photo, I was taking Shelby's pictures and Annabelle had to follow us and be in at least one of them.

 At Christmas time the kids would be unwrapping presents, she would be there right in the middle of it.  

 Here she is watching Sienna in the right hand corner.

 Anyone that would come over, Annabelle would come and greet them right away, and of course they would always comment on what a beautiful cat she was.  Even people who weren't fond of cats liked Annabelle.

My oldest daughter, Shelby took it the hardest.  She was 4 years old when we got Annabelle.  Shelby would dress her up in doll clothes and push her in the doll stroller.  

Annabelle was also Shelby's first patient when she would dress up as a Veterinarian.  Shelby would pretend to give her shots and Annabelle would just lay there, happy to be playing along.  I have a video of Shelby and Sawyer doing a little skit as Mary and Joseph and they wrapped up Annabelle in a blanket as baby Jesus. 
We have lots of good memories of Annabelle as well as photos being she loved the camera.  She will definitely be a cat we will never forget.

We do have another cat.  Her name is Lily, she's a good cat, but she's no Annabelle.  A few days after Annabelle died, we found out Lily was pregnant.  That helped to ease the sadness, and the kids were excited about having kittens.  Lily had two kittens a little over a week ago now.  I'll post some pictures in a day or two.

Health & Fitness....personal rambling

EXERCISE....oh that dreaded word.  Who here loves to exercise, raise your hand.  Ya, just what I thought, not many of us.  One of my goals for 2010 was to get back into shape and really take control of my overall health.  I want to be able to be on my feet for 12 hours holding up to sometimes 5 pounds of camera and lens with more gear hanging from my shoulder, photographing a wedding and not be out of commission the next day.  That's what was happening last year.  I would spend a whole day photographing a wedding and the next day I felt like I had been hit by a Mac truck; all my muscles were sore and I could hardly get off the couch.  It seemed it would take me until Tuesday to get back to normal.  Enough of that!  I love photographing weddings and I don't want to waste a day laying around because I'm so drained.


The training has begun!  No, I'm not standing on my feet for 12 hours holding a camera to condition myself.  I'm doing a combination of Muay Thai and workouts with my personal trainer....5 days a week. What is Muay Thai you ask.


Well it's a form of kickboxing..Thai kickboxing, where you throw a lot of knees and elbows.  The class I'm in has guys and girls in it and some of them are training to be fighters.  I'm not looking to get into the ring to fight, I'm doing it for the fitness aspect and self defense.  I feel empowered that I am learning the skills to defend myself if anyone tried to attack me.  Unfortunately we live in a world that has some crazies in it and I don't ever want to be a statistic.  And in the words of Mr. T "I pitty the fool, who'd mess with me" HA!


I won't lie, there are days I dread going, because I know I'm totally going to get my butt kicked; but I go and I feel great afterward.  My energy level and my mind are renewed and I have a better attitude and any grumpiness I had before I worked out is suddenly gone.


I was working out last year, but I wasn't giving it my all.  I didn't have the eating aspect of it worked out.  I was still eating junk here and there and not being consistent in making healthy food choices.  I've been at it for about a month now and things are changing.  My measurements are going down, my body fat percentage is going down.  I can't say the same for the scale yet, but that will come.  My trainers gave me a nice lecture which was "stop looking at the scale" and go by how your clothes fit.  I can do more push-ups and squats and jump rope longer than I could before....things are definitely changing.


Once a month I'm going to post my progress just to help keep myself accountable and to see how far I've come.


If you are looking to change your health with personal training and martial arts, Bill and Heather Mayfield are the trainers to go to.  They have martial arts classes for kids as well as adults.  For more information about their martial arts school and personal training click here to visit their website.


If you want to see what Muay Thai looks like, just google it, it will pull up a bunch of videos on Muay Thai fights. Here's a link I found that demonstrates what some of the training looks like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2RlFrRbB1c

Sienna is 4! Owensboro KY childrens' photographer

My baby girl turned 4 in October and I'm just getting around to posting these.  As my kids get older I always ask them if they have any ideas for their portraits.  Sienna loves to play dress up and since we did a princess theme last year, she decided she wanted to try a fairy theme.  So we did just that. I think she makes a pretty cute fairy.

 I think this one is one of my favorites.  

If you would like to see more images from this session you can click here to see them on my Facebook page.

www.stigmanphotography.com

The Saints go marching in!

Way to go Saints!  It was great to see them win the Super Bowl.  What an awesome play by Porter with the interception and touchdown.  Of course you can't forget the commercials....I think Doritos had some of the best ones, with E-trade coming in second.  My favorite Doritos commercial was the one with the little boy, his momma and her date.  I could have done without the half time show-maybe just cause I'm not a big fan of the Who.  Overall I'd have to say it was a good Super Bowl Sunday, of course hanging out with great friends and eating some good food made it even better.

Superbowl

It's that time again.....SUPER BOWL!   I was really excited about football this year because the Vikings were doing great.  I was really looking forward to the Super bowl being I thought the Vikings would be in it.  But, unfortunately the Saints beat the Vikings in overtime and I was heartbroken.  Even though the Vikes lost, I will  always be a Vikings fan.  (gotta cheer for my home state -ya sure don'tcha know)  So now who do I cheer for?  I should cheer for the Colts being the Saints roughed up Favre.  But I don't like the Colts, plus they've been to the super bowl twice in the last 4 years and have won a super bowl already.  The Saints have never been to the super bowl.....so I'll do what's logically fair.  I'll cheer for the underdogs, the Saints.  So who will you be cheering for?

Family session-Owensboro Family Photographer

Meet Pastors Brian and Jessi Gibson of River City Church. I photographed their growing family back in November. Jessi had wanted something urban looking for their Christmas cards, so we went downtown and had some fun with their session. Here's a few of my favorite images from the day.

I told Brileigh to give me some attitude, and that she did. She's so cute.

I also got to design the church Christmas cards this year. Here's the front of the card.

This was the back of the card.

If you'd like to see more images from this session in a slideshow you can click here.

On a side note:

If you're looking for a church or would like to check out River City Church, services are at 9a.m. & 10:30am on Sundays and 7p.m. on Wednesdays. Brian and Jessi are awesome pastors and would love to have you visit River City. Ok, so I'm a little biased because it's my home church, but really, you will think they are awesome too! I think it's safe to say River City is the fastest growing church in the Owensboro area; they started out 5 years ago with just a few people meeting at a pizza place to outgrowing 9 places and now moving into their newly remodled 50,000 sq. foot facility. (The former Service Merchandise building)


For more information on River City Church go to www.rivercitychurch.cc