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The Way Home

Traveling through life documenting what matters most to our home.

Categories: Family, Life, Photography

Another Arrow in the Quiver

Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.

Psalm 127:3-5

I have been enjoying new found freedoms this year and one of those joys is being closer to family and not missing out in being present for the milestones in their lives. It was a blessing to visit with my Sister-in-law and boys this week. I have the sweetest nephews ever! I loved getting to snuggle with this little guy and capture his story. It has been years since I spent time photographing newborns, but I love the simplicity of these images taken at their own home. My Brother-in-law is an avid bow hunter, so we were able to surprise him with archer-in-training portraits.

Here are a few of my favorite images…

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Categories: Life, Photography, Travel

Postmarked – Mooresville, Alabama

I was on my way home from Huntsville today and I couldn’t help but get off the beaten path to take a trip down memory lane in Mooresville, AL. Mooresville is like a miniature Williamsburg of the South. Have you ever driven through or taken a trip to Mooresville, AL?

It was among these quaint rustic buildings and this perfectly preserved southern town that I fell in love with photography.

We lived in Madison, Alabama 2007 – 2009, so this town was basically in our backyard.

Thanks to Facebook for cataloging all my life memories since 2009, I was able to quickly recover some of these favorite images that were taken of my family at Mooresville, Alabama.

It has been so long since I looked back at the portrait work from my early photographer days as E. Bailey Photography. I had to go blow the dust off an old hard drive to access these images. My style and understanding of lighting and posing has changed over the years, but I am thankful for the opportunity to start somewhere.

I will have to make a trip back to Mooresville one weekend with my girls to check out the JaVa Coffee House and Lyla’s Little House.

Who else is ready for a road trip to Mooresville, Alabama?

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Categories: Life, Photography, Printables, Recipes

Galentine’s Party

My girls love hosting parties for their friends, so this year we hosted our first Galentine’s Party! As I mentioned in my previous Share the Love post, I love all things decorating and crafting for Valentine’s Day. This time of year is usually pretty calm on most people’s calendars, so it makes for good timing to get a group together. For several weeks my girls and I have been scouting out Pinterest ideas and brainstorming the perfect food and crafts to have at their Galentine’s Party.

We were inspired with the beautiful Charcuterie Board food craze! It is amazing how simple food can look so pretty when laid out playfully on a board. We went with a variety of kid friendly foods like heart-shaped ham, turkey, cheese, crackers, carrots, strawberries, and heart shaped cookies.

I was walking through Trader Joe’s one day and saw a box of waffle cones and thought it would be cute to make a fruit arrangement. Of course I wasn’t the first to think of this idea as I found plenty of visual inspiration on Pinterest.

After lunch we passed around the tray of what I am calling Girls Affirming Paper Cookies. Each cookie had a life-giving bible verse that each of the girls read out loud to announce their personal affirmation for the day. We were inspired by these paper fortune cookies.

Choose coordinating printed pattern paper. Use a glass cup to trace a 3 inch circle on the back of the paper. Cut out circles. Print the page of affirming bible verses and cut into strips. Fold circle in half with the verse strip inside. Pinch in middle and attach a glue dot or adhesive. Fan the two edges out to look like a fortune cookie.
Download the page of bible verse strips to make your own cookies.
Girls-Affirming-Paper-Cookie-Verses
Download

After lunch the girls broke into their groups with their friends to bake cookies and complete a craft. We made heart-shaped shortbread sandwich cookies. They turned out, oh, so cute, and the girls had blast mixing up the ingredients and cutting out the shapes. Each girl took a baggie of decorated cookies home to their family to enjoy.

SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup cold butter, cubed
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp cold water
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

  • Mix all the ingredients together in a mixer.
  • Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.
  • Roll out dough on a flour covered surface.
  • Cut with desired shape.
  • Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes.

While one group was baking their batch of cookies, the other group was constructing soothing rice bags. My mother, Vanessa, taught us to make these in various forms over the years. Instead of hunting down fabric for this project, I had another idea that would be easier for my girls to do the sewing to help their friends put together a soothing rice bag. We pop these soothing rice bags in the microwave for 2 minutes and warm them up and lay them across our next back to soothe tired muscles and relax before bed.

We bought a giant bag of rice from the grocery store and added about 10 drops of Young Living Lavender Essential Oil to a bowl of rice and stirred it up well before scooping into the arm tube.

Moms, as you are cleaning out closets and drawers for consignment sales or donation drop-offs, save long sleeve cotton shirts. They make a great tube shape to fill with rice with an easy stitch on both ends.

Outgrown children’s size long sleeve shirts or toddler size pants are the perfect size for upcycling for this project.

Leave my girls a note in the comments and let them know which of their ideas you would like to try at your next gathering.

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Categories: Life, Photography, Printables

Share the Love

We want to share the love with each of you this Valentine’s Day with 8 free custom designed Valentine printable cards!

If you haven’t already downloaded the oh so cute, fun and fresh designs, make sure you go grab them HERE.

I have always loved crafting and designing things for Valentine’s Day. There is something about the simplicity of a heart that catches my eye and draws me in every time. It is fun to stage and create portraits for clients and my own children during the Valentine season. My girls have finally grown out of the stage where it is cute to bring in photographic cards of themselves that their Mom designed. We always had fun with them and I am thankful for the years they indulged me.

Wow, that was a trip down memory lane!

Whether it is Valentine’s Day or any day of the year, sometimes you just need a cute card to attach to a package or send in the mail. If you are a busy mom like me, you don’t have time to get lost reading every card in the Hallmark aisle, looking for the perfect sentiment.

I’ve got you covered with 8 different designs to show your friends and loved ones that you care any time of year. Make sure you grab the pull page .pdf printables at the link above. After your print the 2 pages of Valentine’s, you can trim along the guide lines to make 8 different 4×5 cards.

Connect with me in the comments and let me know how you were able to use the Valentine printables and please share the love by sharing this link with your friends so they can grab the printables also.

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Categories: Life, Photography, Spoiled Rotten Photography

Passing the Purple Crown

Hindsight is 2020

When we are called to leave and start something new, we may not have the vision to see what it will be, but we can have faith in what it can be.

In 2013 when our family was faced with a move to Atlanta, GA I decided to put my established E. Bailey Photography custom photography business to the side to open one of the first Spoiled Rotten Photography franchises. The prior year I had met the owner of the company, Melissa Tash, and was fascinated with the business model she had created. For me this proven successful preschool/daycare/mother’s day out portrait model made perfect sense and was the opportunity I was looking for to regain my weekends and still be able to be a stay-at-home mom, doing the majority of my work while my girls were at school. 

The Lord opened doors and provided the people and resources I needed to get Spoiled Rotten Photography – Alpharetta established pretty quickly. 

Moving into my 3rd year, I saw the potential for adding a photographer to come alongside me as my schedule was beginning to be full. In my own might I tried to fit several people who were already photographers into this role, but it never seemed to work out. Then the Lord opened my eyes to the potential of training the photo stylist/assistant who had invested 2 years of her time with me. One of the beautiful things about the SRP model is the ability to take someone who has never used a professional camera and teach them how to achieve beautiful portraits in all settings, through an intensive in house training program.

In sending Christine through training in 2016, also came her sister Patricia who wanted to be a part of what we were doing. While I didn’t have the vision for triple capacity at that moment, what we created was a beautiful dynamic sister duo who I was able to trust to provide the quality portraits I was used to providing my schools. In the seasons that followed, I was stretched in my ability to manage employees and give up control of different aspects to effectively scale my business. 

In 2019 I was given a job opportunity for the year in Birmingham, Alabama. This meant I would need to completely step away from the on-the-ground operations of my SRP business in Alpharetta. I knew my two photographers wanted to take on more work, so this would be their time to shine as I was able to pass off almost all of my portrait events for the year. We worked in harmony with each other, and thanks to our amazing new proprietary software system, I was able to manage the business remotely. 

After our move was made permanent to Birmingham, we discussed the option for Christine and Patricia to aquire the Spoiled Rotten Photography – Alpharetta franchise so they could continue to nurture and grow the business beyond what I could ever do remotely. This scenario was best for all three of us.

I am excited to announce as of January 2020, Christine Mamon and Patricia Mesi are the new owners of Spoiled Rotten Photography – Alpharetta. 

In releasing my own Spoiled Rotten Photography franchise, it will free up my time and allow me to assist and help with growth for new and existing Spoiled Rotten Photography franchise owners. I love business, business strategy, marketing, developing brands, and developing leaders, so I’m sure I will find plenty to keep my hands busy in the years to come. 

If you have ever considered owning your own business, love children, love photography or have a teachable spirit to learn, this opportunity may be right for you to bring to your hometown. I speak with perspective owners all the time, so ask me all the questions you might have!

It was an honor to receive my Master Photographer award after our 2020 Image Competition!
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Categories: Faith, Life, Spoiled Rotten Photography

Vision

VISION…

Sometimes it is more about putting one foot in front of the other and taking the next step that is in front of you, than seeing the big full picture.

It may sound cliché that I chose the word Vision as my word for 2020, but that is what I desire, clear 20-20 vision for this year and my next 40 years. I can’t think of a better time to pursue new paths and begin dreaming again about possibilities for the future.

I’ve been thinking a lot about things in this life that we have to let go of, so we can grow. It may seem counter intuitive to give up control of one area of our life to grow in another, but often it is necessary to clear one space to make room for the next right thing.

I recently sat in a puddle of tears as I listened to this song after releasing and selling a business I spent the last 7 years building from the ground up. (I’ll save that story for another day soon.)

Let It Go

I won’t cheat on my future with the past.

-Fearless Soul

While I don’t know what the rest of this year, 5 years, 20 years will look like, I do know I am on the path I am supposed to be on.

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Categories: Photography, Spoiled Rotten Photography

SRP Image Competition

One of the best ways to grow in your field of expertise is by evaluating your experiences. Our Spoiled Rotten Photography franchise owners and photographers grow each season through our print competition. After scanning through the folders of thousands of images taken during a preschool portrait season, there are always images that rise to the top pulling at our heart strings. We personally evaluate our favorite images for authenticity, technical excellence, pleasing poses, impact, and composition.

Our SRP Image Competition is one of the highlights of our annual conference each year as we have a panel of professional photographers judge our repertoire of images providing feedback to help us grow as photographers.

Here are the 3 images I submitted for this year’s competition…

My Eye Is On You

In a year where I took an intentional break from a lot of portrait photography work to pursue other opportunities, I am thankful that I didn’t miss opportunities to photograph my own girls.

I entered this image, “Ready to Blossom” in our annual Spoiled Rotten Photography print competition because it makes my heart sing! It is more than a field of sunflowers ready to blossom, it is my baby girl who is living those tween years with grit and grace and it makes my heart leap to imagine the teen that she will soon blossom into.

Ready to Blossom
Flower Girl

Leave a comment and let me know which one is your favorite! If you are on Facebook, check out the images that are winning our People’s Choice Award!

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The Bailey Family

The Bailey Family

Traveling through life documenting what matters most to our home.

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  • The Next Ten Years
  • She Will Be Missed
  • A Creative Escape
  • Marching Into Her Senior Year
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The Next Ten Years

Around this time of year, I always reflect back on this compilation of Holiday Cards I produced for my parents over the years and thought it was time I started a new post to house the next 10 years of life at Arkadelphia Acres for my parents. Each year we continue the tradition of incorporating […]

She Will Be Missed

As I began thinking about playing along with the 2024 Spoiled Rotten Photography Personal Projects, I knew the subjects I wanted to focus on. The bond that Savannah has with our dog, Daisy. Daisy and Savannah will both miss each other next year when Savannah heads off to college! I came across this image on […]

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We Praise God Through the Storm… While we would We Praise God Through the Storm…

While we would have loved to have Savannah home with us for nearly a week for a “hurrication”, a couple circumstances kept her on Florida College’s campus with a little less than half the students. We felt confident in the structural stability of the dorms and the higher ground in Temple Terrace. She was prepped and prepared for worse case scenarios and had her roommate as a companion. They had a trial run with effects from Helene just 2 weeks ago. 

I can confidently say the Florida College campus along the Hillsborough River was probably one of the most prayed over areas in the state of Florida. 

Yesterday, just hours before Milton made landfall, a group of FC moms, grandmothers, and friends met up on zoom to storm the gates of heaven with prayers for comfort and protection for our children and campus. Through it all, we were in agreement that God would be glorified through the storm and in the aftermath.

Milton made landfall sooner than projected and kept moving Eastward without stalling. While the winds and rain raged for 4+ hours, the students were able to go to bed, knowing the storm had passed and they were dry and never lost power! 

The community in central Florida is strong and I have no doubt there will be plenty of kingdom work to be done and ways to serve others in the coming days to help with clean up efforts from flooding and trees down. 

Thank you to close friends and family who were checking on us and her leading up to the storm. We felt those prayers of comfort.

This will be a memory Savannah will carry with her the rest of her life and a testament to build her faith and ability to weather the storms of life clinging to God through prayer. 

#Milton #FloridaCollege #PrayForFlorida
October 1 I am ready to fill my camera roll with b October 1
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Both unique in their own ways, to complete our family! 

#nationaldaughtersday
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One thing I LOVE about NW Arkansas are the miles of paved pathways and trails! After running a mile to the @airshipcoffee yesterday, I had to go back and run 3 miles before treating myself to another cup of coffee today.
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