Guest Post: Allison Carenza (Photographer and Looky Loo Light Inventor)

   Allison approached me through e-mail a week or so ago, asking if she could write a guest post here for her Looky Loo Light. After checking it out, I told her sure. She's such a great photographer and she has such a cool product! I thought some of you may be interested in having a Looky Loo Light of your own.

So here she is to tell you all about her Looky Loo Light. :-)

     Hello to the fans and followers of Amy's blog!  I'm so thrilled to get to be a guest blogger today. 

    I’m here to tell you about the Looky Loo Light, a product I took from idea to reality.  As you
know Amy is obsessed with taking pictures of Jackson, but it can be difficult at times because Jackson loves to be on the go, so getting him to stop and look at the camera can be nearly impossible at times.

  
    The Looky Loo Light is an attachment for any DSLR camera that allows the photographer to consistently get photos of kids peering right into the lens.

    Let me back up, my name is Allison Carenza (www.allisoncarenza.com) and I'm a photographer in Kansas City, Missouri. I've been professionally photographing kids for over 8 years now and when I look back at my work, I get teary-eyed thinking about the impact the images have made on the families I've worked with.

    There aren't many jobs where you get to give your clients something that will literally last a lifetime! That's really what drove me to invent the Looky Loo Light. I wanted to give the best possible images to my clients. So a couple years ago I started tinkering with the idea of building something that attaches to the hood of my camera with colorful flashing lights. Fast forward a couple years, and I now use the Looky Loo Light in almost all my shoots and it works great!

    The images I've been able to capture are game changers. The parents are always blown away with how well the Looky Loo Light works. Parents have said things to us like “I have seen Harper go from a wiggle worm to completely still and staring at the camera” and, “My kids were cracking up the whole time. I think the Looky Loo Light got my husband and I to relax and look at the camera too. He can be camera shy."

    I have had such great success and realized other photographers and parents need their very own Looky Loo too. So I took my prototype back to the drawing board to make it even better! I've added three sound and light programs, streamlined the design and added a brightness control so it can be used in a variety of settings. With those updated electronics that are awesome, we are ready to start sharing with the world!

  
    We decided it was a good idea to launch our Kickstarter campaign to tell the world about the Looky Loo, allow them to be the first to own one, and help raise funds for bigger production. Help us by being one of the first to own a Looky Loo Light. You will be so impressed with the images you're able to capture. :) Just go to our Kickstarter page and buy your own:

http://kck.st/1kz8UQK

Thank you so so much Amy for your support!  We have big hopes and dreams for the Looky Loo and any help, even if it's just sharing the link on your page is much appreciated.

All the best!

-Allison

www.lookyloolight.com

29 Week Bumpdate + A Nursery Update

How Far Along: 29 Weeks + 2 Days.

(You can check out my 29 week post from when I was pregnant with Jackson here.)

 Size of Baby: (According to babycenter.com) 29 weeks: Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (about the size of a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain.
(Baby Girl is still measuring a week ahead, so she's likely a little bigger than these estimations.)

Total Weight Gain/Loss: I had a dr. appt. on Monday. They didn't say how much I've gained so far, but I believe its right around 25 pounds.

Maternity Clothes: Yes, all maternity clothes.

Gender: Its a GIRL!!!

Movement: Yes, she's moving around quite a bit now, and I love it.

Food Cravings: No real cravings this week, just really thirsty as I've been this entire pregnancy.

What I miss: Just being able to do normal things without feeling tired or out of breath. I also miss being able to wear my wedding rings, which I haven't been able to wear for quite some time now. :-(

Sleep: Having to get up several times a night to use the restroom and just can't seem to get comfortable sometimes.

Symptoms: A growing belly, and some sciatic nerve pain that really only seems to hurt when I over do it. I'm also having a few Braxton Hicks contractions here and there and I've also had a little bit of heartburn in the evenings. Thankfully Tums seem to be helping with that a lot.

Best Moment this week: Getting a lot done in the nursery over the weekend. My sister is making the bedding, curtains and recovering a chair for the nursery! I'm so excited and can't wait to see it all done. She and I also got a majority of the stuff in our office out and moved downstairs on Saturday and then my Dad and I picked out the paint color and moved the desk and computer downstairs yesterday. We also got everything to re-do the walls and we bought the chandelier. :-) It's all looking so cute.

Here's a little sneak peak at what is done so far.

I also got to schedule my c-section date at my dr. appt. this past Monday. We should be meeting Baby Girl on April 28th, unless she would happen to come sooner. :-) It's so exciting to have a date set. I also had my glucose test done and that came back great!! :-)

 What I am looking forward to: Deciding on a definite name for baby girl and getting her nursery all done. I'm also looking forward to my baby shower next month and of course meeting her on or before April 28th!! :-)

Project 52 2014: Week 7

"A portrait of Jackson, once a week, every week, in 2014."

 Jackson sneaking a drink from Papa's Huge cup!!

*Linking up with Practising Simplicity.*

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day Everyone! 

Yesterday, Jackson had his first Valentines Day Party at Pre-School! He got to bring a Valentines Day Box and Valentines for his friends. :-)

So I found this little Valentines Day Box kit at Hobby Lobby and put the box together and it turned out super cute. I also found Jackson a cute little shirt to wear to his party from Carters. :-) I bought Skittles Valentines and Jackson helped me sign them all for his friends.

My mom picked Jackson up from school yesterday, so when I got to her house after work I snapped a few pictures of my little Valentine and his box of goodies.

We had dinner there and my sister and her family came over too. I got Mason and Landon Valentines Day shirts as well, so I got a couple pictures of all three boys in their shirts. They are too cute if I do say so myself!

Tonight we are just celebrating at home. Jake is making Filet Mignon for dinner and my 2 sweet Valentines and I are just going to relax!

And because I always like a comparison, here are all 3 of Jackson's Valentines Day pictures. ♥♥ He's getting so big.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day!!

Jackson Lately

Jackson is getting so big and learning so much, I just don't want to forget a few new things he's been doing and learning. :-) He's come such a long way in the last month or so. His speech has improved tremendously and he's saying so many words now that I can't even write them all down. It's amazing how it just kind of happened over night.

First of all, he's doing really well in pre-school. After his first day, there were a couple weeks of dropping him off where he would cry and not want us to leave him. Thankfully, he would only cry for a second and then go about his day just fine. Nevertheless, it was hard to leave him knowing he was sad. Thankfully, we've had a good 2 weeks or more with no crying!! :-) He's doing very well there, learning a lot and he brings home an art project every day. He always points out his school when we pass it and really seems to be doing quite well there.

He's learned several of his colors and knows them very well. He knows, Blue (Bwoo), Yellow (Yeow), Green (Geen), White (Yight), Pink (Ink), Purple (Pur), Orange and Red (Yed). :-) 

He's been doing better about cleaning up his toys and he loves helping us do whatever we're doing. Saturday he had a great time helping us put the groceries away. I hope he always wants to help this much.

We've taught him how to rub noses and how to tell secrets. It's the cutest thing. He doesn't really say anything, but he whispers in your ear and it's so sweet.

He's learned a few of his shapes recently and I think they may be working on this in school too. He knows Star, Circle and Triangle so far.

He's started to become interested in learning his letters too, but he calls every letter "C". :-)  However, he can say all of his letters if you point them out and tell him what they are.

We're not really potty training yet, but he's seemed to have a little more interest in it now that his cousin Mason is potty trained. He has sat on the big potty a couple of times in the last week (which he was always too scared to do before) and he talks a lot about going pee on the potty. I'm hoping these are good signs and we'll have a success on the potty soon. :-)

With all the progression we've had in learning new things, one thing we've digressed on is sleep! And this mommy is not too happy about it. He had been doing really well before our trip to AZ, but since we've been home he's been waking up multiple times a night (sometimes as many as 5 times)! He gets up, opens his bedroom door and stands at the gate and whines/cries til I go in his room and either rock him back to sleep or lay with him til he goes back to sleep! This routine is getting real old and I'm exhausted the next morning. Anyone know what I can do to solve this problem. We sleep trained when he was in his crib and were very successful, but I'm not sure how I can do that again with him being able to get out of his bed now.

 Some of his favorite things right now are:

-Playgrounds and Playing with other Kids

-Fruit Snacks, Chicken Nuggets, Fish Sticks, Oreos, Cheez-Its, Apples and Watermelon

-Any shows on Disney Jr. or Super Why

-The movie Cars

-Coloring

-Playing with Cars
-Apple Juice
-Bath Time

So that's what Jackson has been up to lately. 

He's at a really fun age and I just love watching him learn so many new things. He's such a sweet boy and we love him so much!

28 Week Bumpdate and a couple Sneak Peeks.

How Far Along: 28 Weeks: The start of the Third Trimester!

(You can check out my 28 week post from when I was pregnant with Jackson here.)

 Size of Baby: (According to babycenter.com) 28 weeks: By this week, your baby weighs 2 1/4 pounds (about the size of a large eggplant) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes.

 

Total Weight Gain/Loss: I had a dr. appt. at 25 weeks and was up 19 pounds then. She was measuring 1 week ahead as she has been for a majority of this pregnancy. I go to the Dr. again next Monday, so I'll have a better idea of my weight gain then.

Maternity Clothes: Yes, all maternity clothes.

Gender: Its a GIRL!!! I think we're really close to a name! I hope to share it soon.

Movement: Yes, she's moving around quite a bit now, and I love it.

Food Cravings: I did have a craving for Mexican yesterday, so we had it for lunch and it was very yummy. :-)

What I miss: Just being able to do normal things without feeling tired or out of breath. I also miss being able to wear my wedding rings, which I haven't been able to wear for quite some time now. :-(

Sleep: Having to get up at least once a night to use the restroom and just can't seem to get comfortable sometimes.

Symptoms: A growing belly, and some sciatic nerve pain that has actually felt a little better this past weekend. I'm also having a few Braxton Hicks contractions here and there and some pain under my right ribs, which I had with Jackson as well. I've also had a little bit of heartburn that comes and goes.

Best Moment this week: Picking out the fabric for Baby Girl's nursery bedding. My sister is making the bedding, curtains and recovering a chair for the nursery! I'm so excited and can't wait to see it all done.

Here's a little sneak peek of the fabric we got. I really love it!

We also got fabric to recover Jackson's infant car-seat rather than buying a new one. She was able to work on that yesterday and got a majority of it done!! It turned out so super cute!! I just love it.

What I am looking forward to: Deciding on a definite name for baby girl and getting her nursery ready. I'm also looking forward to my next Dr. appt. where we'll get to schedule my c-section and have a date to look forward to meeting our sweet Baby Girl! My baby shower is also something I'm looking forward to which will be next month! I can't believe we're already in the third trimester!!

A comparison at 28 weeks pregnant with both Jackson and Baby Girl.

Project 52 2014 - Week 6

"A portrait of Jackson, once a week, every week, in 2014."

 Jackson at the Phoenix Zoo on Sunday.

 

*Linking up with Practising Simplicity.*