Tag Archives: real life

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headshot editHello Everyone! Tara here.  I am the lucky first Tiptoe lady in line to bring you my All About Me post so let's get this contest going, shall we?

I am the oldest Tiptoe lady at 36 (gasp!) years of age. I totally feel like I am somewhere around 28 though, on a good day! I was actually born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania but moved to Charles Town when I was 5 years old. Because it is such a small town, I do still tend to feel like a transplant, even 31 years later. I live in Kearneysville with my husband, Donnie and 2 kids, Maddox and Gabriel whom I love and a dog, Milly and cockatiel, Bubbles whom I do not love. As you might can guess, I am not an animal lover!

I, along with my two partners, Lisa and Jennifer own Tiptoe Studios. I actually retired from shooting about a year and a half ago. My current role is scheduling sessions, handling emails and phone calls, assigning shoots, handling the financial aspects of the business and conducting mostly all of the ordering sessions. You know, all the fun stuff, lol! I do thoroughly enjoy what I do and appreciate every day that I have the opportunity to be my own boss and set my own schedule. It gives me the flexibility to be more involved with my kids' school and leaves plenty of Me-Time which I absolutely require in order to stay sane!

A few things that make me, me...

I am a closet introvert! It is through a lot of practice and effort that I can definitely handle myself in a crowd, but what you don't see is the part when I go home and isolate myself in a quiet room by myself to "re-charge my batteries"...for a few hours...and normally with a glass of wine!

I am not a fan of big emotional displays. Or small emotional displays. Or of emotions in general. Please do not cry in front of me unless you are watching a Tiptoe slideshow or you are a small, hurt child.

My nails are painted 99.99% of the time. Plain nails make me sad. (But I don't cry about it, lol!)

My sister is a nurse who happened to also be a hairdresser once upon a time, so she still cuts and colors my hair. My biggest repeat request when I have her do my hair is to not make it look like "PTO mom hair". On that note, I am currently the PTO president of my kids school and have been for the last 5 years!

I love TV, like, ALOT. I frequently put every TV in my house on the same channel when I am watching a show so that I can wander from room to room, cleaning or whatever and still be able to keep a continuous eye on said show!

I do not like blueberries, raw onions or wasabi. A few other dislikes are capri pants, Subarus and Kanye West.

As soon as I drop the kids off at school, I crank the radio up and sing (loudly) along to 80's rock, 90's alternative music or gangster rap, just depending on what mood I am in. AND I think I sound great AND I don't care who sees me rockin' out!

I love TV shows, movies and books about an apocalypse! It can be any apocalypse, zombie, power, natural disaster, whatever.  If it's about the end of the world, I am fascinated!

I retain a lot of useless information about a wide range of topics. But, hey, when I am ready to go on Jeopardy, I am going to kick ass!

Us girls...

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The boys...

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In parting, I will leave you with what I think is some pretty damn good advice...

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XOXO,

Tara

 

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So to any of our Tiptoe people who are local know that we just got hit with the biggest SNOWMAGGEDON we have seen in quite some time! While many people around here are all upset about being stuck inside, I live for days like today where everything is beautiful and white outside, it's not windy, it's fairly warm, and has just the perfect even lighting there is. So my poor Olivia realllllllyyyyyy didn't want to go outside for pictures but I traded her letting me take some pictures of her for an ice cream sandwich!  I WIN!! WOOO HOO!!  Enjoy some of our snow day fun!! snow-2 snow-7 snow-8 snow-11 snow-16

 

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Since we are right in the midst of wedding booking season, we thought it would be fun to have a special wedding-booking-promotion! So, here it is!

Wedding drawing 2016

It is super easy to be eligible for this drawing! Our requirements:

  1. You are getting married
  2. You are getting married anytime in the year 2016
  3. You realize that no wedding compares to a Tiptoe Wedding and you immediately book us for your big day 😉
  4. You pay your deposit, amount determined by the wedding collection you choose
  5. Your deposit is paid to us within the months of January or February
  6. That is all...

See how easy and painless it is? Everyone who books their Tiptoe Wedding in the months of January and February will be entered to win 1 Grand Prize of 20% off of your chosen wedding collection (Elopement, Brilliance, Opulence Collections). Our winner will be randomly selected on March 1st, 2016.

What are you waiting for? Book your wedding consultation now!

XOXO

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hardwood2 hardwoodSo as lots of you all know, we have been in our house for almost 2 years now. When we decided to build, first thing my husband and I did was search the internet high and low for a house plan, I mean we literally spent hours and hours searching for something that was going to suit us for the rest of our lives. We knew the house that we were going to build was going to be our FOREVER house so it had to have all the "things" we needed from a home.  Our main priorities were a first floor master bedroom, so that when we get too old to walk the steps we didn't have to worry how we were going to get to the 2nd floor,  seperate closets for him and I, I don't think I need to explain too much there (LOL), a space for the kids outside of our living room, a garage, and an island in the kitchen.  Not to much right?? Well it was! LOL...  Finally after a long, long time of looking, we found the perfect set of house plans for us! Now a harder part, finding a builder that was going to build a great house and not be over our budget... So after meeting with a few companies we went with Third Day Builders. They are a local company and after viewing several of the beautiful local homes they had built, we decided they would be a great fit for us!  And for anyone who has built a home before you know that just when you think you were getting to the easy part, because nothing should be more difficult that deciding on a home and finding the perfect people to build it, you find that you are spending every waking hour deciding on cabinets, knobs, countertops, doors, trim, colors, ahhh the list goes on and on... And me being a terrible on the go decision maker, I would want to go and see all the options and weigh out how each one would "go" with the other, then wait a couple days to see if it still felt "right", until it literally was driving me nuts... But the one thing that I knew I was sure of was dark oak hardwood floors! The decision for that came so easy!! And now 2 years into that decision, well lets just say, it was not one of the "smartest" ones I made. Don't get me wrong these floors are beautiful when they are freshly cleaned, but with our busy, busy lifestyle, mopping honestly only happens once a week! And even when it does happen they only stay sparkling for about 3 seconds, because here comes baby Tre with his sippy cup that leaks, and goldfish crackers, that are way funner to stomp on when he drops them, than to pick them up and eat them.  Ahh big sigh, there goes my clean and beautiful hardwood floors...  LOL! The best things I can take from my easy decision of the floors is that "we live and we learn" and they won't be babies forever, so enjoy every last goldfish crumb I have to sweep up....

-L

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Oh.. I wait all year for this!! Vacation time in Oak Island, NC!! =) We had a rough start to our week with baby Tre getting double ear infections for the first time ever! And we may have spent our first evening in the urgent care, and he may have broken out into a bad itchy rash 4 days into taking his antibiotics.... But..... It was still an amazing vacation!! We went to the HUGE 4th of July parade in Southport, NC (if any of you have seen or read Safe Haven, you know what a huge festival this is), we spent most days on the beach just relaxing and watching all the kids. This year we took a day trip down to Myrtle Beach to do Broadway at the Beach's aquarium and Wonder Works.  We did some shopping, ice cream eating, exploring the island, and our annual photo shoot in our evenings and it was AMAZING (I included pics below)! It was so nice to take some time off and spend it with my family, not worrying about all the things that come with life! Cheers to vacations!! OINC-739 OINC-730 OINC-723 OINC-718 OINC-694 OINC-679 OINC-675 OINC-665 OINC-663

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Ok, so this is a totally personal post, but I felt like it could relate to some other ladies out there! Recently, I did a bible study with a small group of great and wonderful women, the study was called Breathe.  In a nutshell, it was about the bondage we have to busyness. How we busy our lives, rushing from one thing to the next and we never take the time to just BREATHE. How we need to try having some quiet, peaceful, reflecting time. Time to refocus and find the right path for us.  Priscilla Shirer, the author, made one example of her obsession with belts. She demonstrated with a huge belt loop, holding what looked to be 100 belts, all shoved together and unorganized, some even with tags still on them. She said that she was obsessed with belts, they were her favorite thing.  She pointed out that she could never find one that she was looking for because there were so many. She couldn't enjoy what she had because she had overloaded her closet with them.  So instead of them being something that she loved, they quickly had turned into something that was more of a problem/ hindrance for her. Every time she needed one she didn't even want to fight the battle.

And boy oh boy did this speak to me because this was literally an analogy for so many aspects of my life...

First and most obvious, my whole closet was the same as that belt loop of hers... jammed packed- I had so many items filling my closet: shoes, purses, wallets, scarves, pants, jeans, shirts, make-up, jewelry, fingernail polish, and literally anything else you can think of, that I wasn't enjoying anything that I had bought! And to top it off, I had done the same thing to my kids closets! I bought those items thinking they would make me happy or make my life better in some way for having them... but digging through our closets everyday to find an outfit was making my life worse and causing me so much more stress.  I could never find ANYTHING. Definitely not what I had in mind when I bought the items!  So to fix this - I cleaned out each of our closets! And honestly, I don't even miss a single thing that I got rid of! ....... Breathing a little easier each day!!

Secondly when I have a passion for something, I go hard for it! For example photography- I am obsessed with my job! I was always on the look out for the next thing, a new edit, a new shooting location, a new filter, a easier way to do something, a new way to find clients, how to get more clients, a new special we can run, I have felt like I was spinning and spinning in circles and not really getting anywhere.  It was exhausting! Instead this year it has been my goal to just BREATHE and take the time to really hone in the skills I already have, and just be ME in my photography! I love that saying "Be yourself, everyone else is taken" because it's so true, no one else is ever going to look through the back of my camera and 'see' the same thing the way I do! I have to have more confidence in that!

Third, my family life, I was filling everyday with them with a list of to dos. Whether it was grocery shopping, to after school activities, it seemed like there was no free time to enjoy our family as a whole!  We were just running from place to place. We have since tried to slow it down and geez I have seen such a difference in our lives! I feel like a have gotten the chance to look at my kids and husband and really SEE them. The beautiful creatures they are! I may be more in love with them now than ever before.

Reflecting back over the past couple months, I know that this BREATHING exercise has been working! It really is a relief when you are not worrying yourself with the clutter of what is next and just realize how amazing your life is.   I am seeing how beyond blessed I am, from my family, my friends, my job, and my God!  Things have just seemed to find their way to me and I don't feel like I am missing anything because I am not searching!! It has been a huge weight lifted from my shoulders.  So I guess my point is to try to take inventory of your life figure out what is important and allow some breathing room for it!  🙂 breathe

-Lisa

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I remember people telling me right after I had Maximus to enjoy every second because they grow up fast.  Boy is that so true.  I still can't believe he is 4 and my Maverick will be 2 in a little over a week.  I just want to freeze time and what better way to do that than to do what I do best.  Capture it.   So instead of the usual iphone photos I usually take, I got out my big camera and decided to just capture them doing what they do.  Maverick, reading his book in the rocking chair that was his brothers.  The same chair that I nursed both of my boys in and rocked to sleep every night.  Maverick getting his hair out of his face and sucking his paci, those little chubby fingers and long eyelashes, him cuddling his "baby" (glow seahorse), Maximus playing with his ninja turtle toys, him standing on the stool getting a snack, his toes that will never be that little again, and that  mole on the side of his foot.  I don't ever want to forget these little things, because they mean so much to me.  If anyone is interested in a "lifestyle" session where we capture your kiddos or your family at home give us a call.

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At 20 years old, I'm the 'baby' of Tiptoe.  Being the baby means I'm the only one who isn't a mommy.  So when the girls are all chatting about their kiddies, I'm just smiling, nodding, and silently being thankful I'm not the mother of a child.  All the while, one of the little ones is full-on squeezing a Capri-Sun all over the floor and laughing at the sticky mess I'll have to mop up later.

Okay, okaaay!  So they aren't total hooligans.  They're actually really sweet and well-behaved in between temper tantrums. I'll probably be a mommy one day, but hopefully not for another 10+ years.  I'm still having temper tantrums of my own while dealing with college shenanigans so there's no way I could handle another little Ande having a tantrum.

I am currently a mommy of some sort though.  I have a couple girls.  The thing is...they're ferrets. So it's different.  But!! It's also the same on a minor level.  They need the basics; food, water, poop duty, and an ocaisonal bath.  Julie and Joanna also demand attention ALL the time.  It doesn't matter if I've just gotten home from a fourteen hour work day or if I'm dead alsleep in the middle of the night.  Play time is a must. Every. Single. Day.  And whether it's voluntary or not, I am involved in play time.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm the mother of a set of toddlers.  Except these toddlers steal your wallet.  And your shoes.  And pencils/pens along with everything and anything they can get their little paws on.  Then they put it all in a designated pile under your bed.  But that's not all though.  These 'toddlers' also dig the dirt out of the house plants, chew on your toes, chase the cats, and oh! let's not forget that they take pure pleasure out of pooping in various corners of the house.  Keep in mind, this is all part of 'play time'.  It's great.  We have a lot of fun....

So although I'm still a 'baby' I'm also experiencing a tiiiiny sliver of motherhood with my girls. And although they're trouble beyond belief, I love them both to death and wouldn't trade 'em for the world.

Joanna;

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& Julie;

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Both my nuggets together;

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I was browsing Facebook the other day during my spare time when I came across a link one of my 'Facebook friends' posted on her timeline about the "fake photographer epidemic".

The column was definitely, in a way, humorous.  It made a few good points about what a photographer ISN'T, but it never said what a photographer really IS.  It got me thinking about what makes a photographer a "photographer".

1. Photographers immerse themselves in their profession.

At Tiptoe, every one of us is constantly on the lookout for inspiring places, objects, and ideas. We get this image in our head and we work to create it in real life.  It's one thing to have the creativity and imagination to shape that image, but it's another thing to actually be able to make it happen and make it look good.  Aside from making this pioneering image come to life, we have to make it all about you (that's the fun part!)  And from there on, it's an endless cycle. Our lives revolve around creating the perfect photo.

2. Photographers constantly improve.

Like any other professional field, there is ALWAYS room to advance in the photography field! Whether they are skilled in landscape, editorial, or wedding photography, they should always be inventing new techniques and exploring and experimenting with new ideas.  As long as the creativity is flowing and the practicing is constant, improvement will follow.  Here at Tiptoe, we are still learning tons of new things about different ways we can use our Photoshop program and we've been using Photoshop for years!!  The learning never stops!

To me, that's what it means to be a photographer.  It's not because of the camera someone owns, it's not about the editing program they have at hand, nor is it about having a Facebook page dedicated to their skill...It's all about the skill they possess and how they use it.

Comments or questions welcome!!