Carolina Araujo: Tampa Bay Wedding, Portrait, and Boudoir Photographer: January 2009

Jessica | Maternity
Wednesday, January 28, 2009

It's official: there's something in the water in Tampa! Have you noticed that my last handful of sessions have somehow been baby related? Well, who am I to ruin a good thing? Today I had a wonderful session with Jessica. She's due in March and from what she tells me, she's quite ready right now!!

We shot the entire session at her father's house which was gorgeous...and he has great taste, don't you think?

I love these!

These are definitely my favorite type of maternity shoots. Pregnant women are just so beautiful! And holy-amazing-cheekbones Jessica!!

Yay!! I can't wait to met Baby Kiano!

Posted byCarolina Araujo at 11:32 PM

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Labels: Maternity

Happy Birthday to ME!!
Thursday, January 22, 2009

I turned the big 2-8 on the 15th of this month!! Very exciting...getting older and feeling it! My birthday was super low-key this year. Alex and I went out to dinner and then came home and I blew out the candles on my little tiramisu cake! On the weekend of my birthday, I was working on a special project that I'll be announcing very very soon, which I'm sooooo excited about! I can't spill the beans yet though. This past weekend we finally got around to celebrating by going out for dinner, drinks and dancing with friends. Totally worth the wait, good times!!

I have to share with you what I received in the mail a couple of days ago:

Look closely...that's my face 2nd from the right, with Alex to my left, Pat to my right, and Jenn on the far left! Our friend Jenn is so creative and funny. She made a compilation CD of the songs we played on Rock Band over and over and over. The CD had that picture as the cover...I swear that I almost fell over from laughing so hard when I opened the package. The hair, the outfits, the poses, OUR FACES!!! Perfect. I had to scan it in for the world to meet the Maybe Pastries.

In other super duper exciting news: My best friend Carolina had her little teeny tiny perfect baby Lucas on the 19th! He should be making his professional modeling debut on my blog shortly! So I went to the hospital with camera in hand, OF COURSE, on the day he was born. I started snapping away with no particular intentions in mind. I just wanted to capture certain moments as they unfolded. So I sat back like a fly on the wall and just took a gazillion pictures. I came home and started looking through them and decided to put a slideshow together. I am so completely in love with it. I know you don't know the people in the slideshow, but don't you feel like you are right there with them???

Click play and wait for the show to load...

Posted byCarolina Araujo at 9:52 PM

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Labels: Personal

Carolina & Paco | Just Because
Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I totally forgot to mention in their blog entry that Angela and Enrique's wedding was riddled with Carolinas. Of her 5 bridesmaids, THREE are named Carolina. Add to that Carolina the photographer and it makes for a night of me wondering how all of the guests know my name!

Carolina was one of those bridesmaid and this weekend I have the pleasure of capturing the special connection she has with her baby through my lens. The reason that I titled this session 'Just Because' is that there was no special occassion or event for these pictures. Carolina scheduled her session 'just because'. What a great reason! This post has an above average number of pictures. So many great ones to chose from!

Paco was so well behaved. He didn't even complain that I dragged him through alleys - I think he knew we would get some killer shots!

*sigh* I think that Paco and my Baby Bailey would get along just fine. Both are just a tad spoiled!

Isn't she just beyond gorgeous?

I'm going to be a total girl here and say that I just love the fact that Carolina showed up to our session with her hair style to the nines. She looked absolutely amazing!

I love the movement on the picture on the left and the picture on the right...well her smile is just contagious!

No words about the picture on the right. Well maybe just one: STUNNING!

Posted byCarolina Araujo at 9:40 PM

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Labels: Just Because

Lily Rene | Newborn

Don't adjust your television sets ladies and gents. You are seeing correctly, this is third post in 2 days!! I'm on a roll! This is Lily Rene. She is my new little cousin, the latest addition to our family.

Check out the super cute details in her room. Her "grandmother" made the Sweet Lily sign. Super talented! I put grandmother under quotations and use the terms loosely because she does NOT look like a grandmother...at all.

What can I say...the kid's got personality (must get it from her cousin Carolina)! Look at all these facial expressions!

So much hair!

The proud and gorgeous parents!

:-) :-) :-)

Posted byCarolina Araujo at 2:09 PM

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Labels: Newborns

New Year, Old Friends

We had such an awesome New Years week. One of Alex's childhood friends from Toronto, Pat, and his wife Jenn, flew down to escape the cold cold weather up north. But let me give you a little bit of the back story. Jenn officially holds the title of Best Wife of the Year. Pat's 30th birthday fell on New Year's Eve and she had the wonderful idea of surprising him with a trip to Tampa. So about 4 months ago, she put her plan in motion. She purchased air fare and kept the secret until the day before they were to fly down. It would take me 5 paragraphs to tell you about her elaborate plan, but the bottom line is that she totally shocked him, packed his bags, and got him down to Tampa. It's always good time hanging out with these two, never a dull moment.

We took Pat and Jenn to a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game which was great, even though Tampa lost. Afterwards, the most amazing thing happened. We purchased Rock Band 2. I am soooo addicted to that game. I dream about notes flying towards me. It's bad.

Our first night playing Rock Band. I think we played for like 4 hours straight, taking turns on vocals and instruments. So much fun! Sidenote: Even though the Lightning were not playing the Maple Leafs, the boys decided to don their jerseys anyway. Made perfect sense. Sidenote 2: I love you Alex but you have got to be the worst singer ever. It's painful but somehow fun all at the same time.

We spent New Years Eve with Alex's family. I have to tell you guys about this crazy tradition. Every year, one of his uncle's hosts the New Years bash. It is that households responsibility to make something called "Año Viejo" which loosely translates to "Old Year". I'm not quite sure if this is an Ecuadorian thing or a South American thing, but it's crazy. Basically, the host chooses a disliked political or public figure from the past year. One year it was Bin Laden, another year it was Saddam Hussein. They make a life sized dummy, complete with shirt, pants, and shoes. They stuff the dummy with firecrackers, and at the stroke of midnight, everyone gathers outside for the burning of the dummy and the fireworks. It represents letting go of past mistakes and turning over a new leaf for the upcoming year. That's not even the best part.

In past years, the dummy has been male. Throughout the night, every woman at the party HAS to have a dance with the dummy. Put yourself in my shoes almost 9 years ago. Spending my first New Years with my boyfriend Alex and being made to dance with a dummy...having no idea what was going on. Good times! This year they got very creative. Instead of a person, the dummy represented our economic crisis. The dummy was named Miss Recession. Yes! Yes! Yes! A female Año Viejo! Which meant that the men would have to dance with her! And oh boy did they dance. There were close to 30 guys in line to take her for a spin around the dance floor.

Not to be outdone, Pat copped a little feel and Alex put a couple of swing moves on her.

We ended the week with a little road trip to the oldest city in the continental US, St. Augustine. It was really hard being away from Rock Band for 2 days but somehow we survived.

I hope that your New Years was absolutely fantabulous! And remember, when the financial climate starts to turn for the better, don't forget who was responsible for that. Burning up Miss Recession had to count for something!

I also wanted to extend a big humongous THANK YOU to everyone that commented for Cans for Comments. We ended up with about 30 comments, so that meant 30 extra cans to the local food bank, America's Second Harvest that they otherwise would not have received. You guys rock my world!!!

Posted byCarolina Araujo at 3:45 AM

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Labels: Personal

Baby Ryan | Newborn

Happy New Year everyone!! I know, I know...I have been a super duper bad blogger lately. I'm so backed up on blogging and I am really going to try to catch up in the next couple of days! I have an exciting announcement coming soon! I can't wait to share it with you. Hang in there with me please!

First up is Baby Ryan. You might remember Vanessa's Maternity Session. Vanessa greeted me at the door with Baby Ryan in her arms. The very first thing I noticed was that he was the spitting image of his daddy and that he's sooo stinking cute! Check it out for yourself: