Thank you Expertise!
I'm not going to lie. These past 2 weeks have been ROUGH! My 4 year old got the flu. After disinfecting everything and having her quarantined to her room for 3 days trying to keep my other little one from getting. But my attempts failed... my 1 year old got it anyway. Since it would be IMPOSSIBLE to confine her to one room, I decided to just let them roam the house spreading their germs. Eventually my youngest got rid of the flu but got an ear infection and pneumonia at the same time. My days were filled with tears and if i'm being honest, they were from the both of us.
It was a rough week.
So, when I was at my wits end, my husband told me to take a break and go for a drive or something while he watched the kids. So I got in the car and decided to check my email in peace. Well, there it was. It was the first email in my inbox and I almost deleted it thinking it simply wasn't true but I decided to take a look and I'm so glad I did.
My frown was instantly turned upside down. Photos by Ariel was chosen as one of the top 9 Newborn Photographers serving Peoria, Illinois. This is such an honor! I didn't apply for this. I didn't even know they were checking out my website or social media pages or anything. This made one of the worst weeks infinitely better. I came home with renewed joy and energy. Ready to resume the duties of a full-time mommy and *almost* full-time photographer. This article written by Expertise ( which can be found here: https://www.expertise.com/il/peoria/newborn-photography ) reminded me that all this hard work... the late nights editing, the blog posts, the twitter, Instagram, and facebook posts, the contests, the website updating, the quick email responses, the planning, the organizing, etc. its all worth it. It reminded me that my art is appreciated. My art is treasured. It reminded me that me taking pictures for these people... it's important and it's worthwhile. Even when things get rough.
So thanks to expertise for this amazing honor! And thank you to my customers for choosing me to take your pictures! It's all because of you!
XOXO
Ariel