Dance like nobody’s watching.

Or, like Bristol, dance even when someone is watching….Happy Monday

Seriously, I loved spending an hour or so with this sweet boy. He was sitting up, but had not quite learned to crawl yet, and that is often my favorite time to shoot because they can’t get away!

When I got to his house he was all ready for his shoot:

I love chunky babies (well, I love babies of any size really!) but I couldn’t help snapping a few shots of his hands…because they lose this baby fat so fast…

When his Mom stuck this hat on him, I swooned

We let him play on the tractor for awhile, and I love the light and the overall feel of these….

I love this one in both color and sepia, so I decided to just post both

While shooting the one above, his Mom got to laughing and warned me that she sometimes has a ‘different’ sense of humor, then held up this sign and suggested we use it as a prop…I love it! haha!

Emily, he is adorable! Thanks for trusting me to capture him and all his cuteness/sweetness… XoXo

Oh the day of hearts and romance and pink and red and way to expensive flowers I am not a huge Valentines Day girl, don’t get me wrong, I like it. I like the excuse to give cards and candy and have a nice dinner with your significant other, make a special dessert, etc. I even love Valentines Day parties. But, I have never really thought that you should have to go ‘all out’. Even when we were dating (Stu and I) I would tell him “Please do not send me flowers on Valentines Day!” I would much rather him send them any random day of the year, and spend a whole lot less money and they would be so much more special…because it was not ‘expected’. He scored big points one year when he showed up with a cute little Valentines Day bag, a few long stemed roses he picked up at the grocery store, and a few of his old Tshirts for me to sleep in… in my opinion, it was the perfect gift

Another thing I really like about Valentines Day now that we have kids is making cards with Kennedy. And this year, we waited till the last minute to do it (yesterday)! I had good intentions of making some cute Valentines Day decor too, but that didn’t happen

Happy Valentines Day to you all. However you are spending it, I hope it is wonderful!

A couple of things that made me happy this weekend….

Walking into the living room and seeing my girls sitting together, one still in her PJ’s, both dressed as ‘Princesses” (did I spell that right?):

Making punch together:

Kennedy, when she tells me a good story:

Cute tootsies:

Fresh flowers:

I bought those at the grocery store after seeing this post from Young House Love, and honestly, I love how they look sitting on my kitchen table so much that I don’t know why I don’t buy fresh flowers more often!

It was a pretty good weekend… I hope yours was
Happy Monday!

My niece Mya. Ah, she is so precious, but she gave me a fit trying to get newborn pictures of her! In all honesty, I sometimes struggle when shooting newborns. I feel that they are a ‘special’ subject to shoot and I don’t have a lot of the props and other things that come along with getting some of the more unique shots. And when they wiggle and cry scream like Mya did, well, that makes me struggle even more! But, I walked away (two times) wondering “did I get anything?” to come home and find that I did indeed… and that makes me happy

First, a few shots of her sweet nursery:

Our cousin, Katie, made these booties for her…

That cute diaper bag? Made by Monica…

Adorable hat, also made by Monica…

The art is by Julie…

And now, Mya Nicole:

I got her totally settled at one point (unfortunately with clothes I didn’t want her in and blankets too) but since she was so relaxed, I snapped a few pictures anyway.

Then I attempted to get her undressed and into blankets/positions that I wanted…and this is what I got right away:

It is like she is say “Ohhhh, I don’t like this!” So in went the paci…

I think this is my favorite shot:

then we were back to this:

Whew.

Baby Mya (or as Bristol says “Baby I”) we love you sweet girl, hopefully one day you’ll love my camera

Meet Mitch, Mary Ann and Austin….

As we walked out into this field next to their house Mitch says to me “Just be careful where you step, I killed a rattlesnake the other day” and I nearly flipped out! I am terrified of snakes, and the thought of a rattlesnake scared me even more!

I love the look on Austins face in these shots!

This family of three will soon be a family of 4 They are expecting baby #2 in April.

Austin loves his ‘tractor’, and he knows how to work it too

These might just be my favorites of the day

Thank you Mary Ann for asking me to capture these for you…XoXo

I love random pictures. You know, the ones that capture the anytime and the in between moments of the everyday life? Love ‘em! Today, I am going to share a few of my favorite’s that I have captured lately…

Kennedy… (I know every parent says this, but, how are my kids growing up so fast?!)

Kennedy and Bristol dancing, it had rained a lot, and suddenly the sun broke through the clouds…I let them out and they danced all over the place. Moments like these make me adore having two girls so close in age, even more

Kennedy showing me how she can jump off the steps…

Bristol throwing a ball, her Daddy claims she’s got a good arm, he might be a little bit hopeful that one of them takes after him instead of me in that department … (he can handle a ball, and me? not so much!)

Bristol asked me for pigtails one day, so of course I had to make it happen for her!

Oh my goodness, yes, I am biased, but isn’t she a cutie pie?!

I adore her laugh!

I feel like a dork posting this one, but I snapped it while doing a newborn shoot when the baby had to go for a diaper change and I was just hanging out…something about it I kinda like…maybe the round mirror and my round belly? And I know I’ll like it even more when this baby comes and I forget what I looked like

I’ll end with a couple of both the girlies…

Happy Monday!

Ginny wanted Christmas card worthy pictures of her little boy Jax… So, we got together one morning just before the rain hit and got these in a matter of minutes. We set up a step ladder, gave him some ornaments and let him ‘decorate’ the tree (and at the end of the shoot we only had 2 broken ornaments! considering he is all boy, and two years old, I’d say that was pretty good!)…..

Thanks for asking me to do these for you Ginny…it might have been a fast shoot, but it was fun!

So, I finally bought myself a point and shoot camera. I haven’t had one in way too long, and have been wanting to get one for, well, a long time now! With two kids, and one on the way, I found that I was almost never taking my big camera with my anymore. It was just too much trouble. And, I like the convenience of having a small camera in my purse that I can pull out and take quick, random shots with…..like Bristol in her car seat, got it.

Kennedy in her seat…got that too.

Girls after just waking up….

The hubs driving….

Self portrait of me…

Got it, got it, got it.

Kennedy and I were early to swim lessons one day so we pulled out the handy little camera and had some fun

Playdate with friends…perfect time for a point and shoot camera!

All of these were taken with this little guy:

All in all, I love it. I am really impressed with how fast it is. One thing about a point and shoot that drives me crazy is the lag time. Often, you miss the shot just because the camera was not fast enough…. I feel like this one is pretty fast, so I hope not to miss too many shots! And as I’ve already mentioned, it is small and super convenient to pull out and use in a hurry, so that is another big plus for this busy Mommy.
What drives me crazy though, is the fact that the lighting/exposure/image quality is not always the best. But I am used to shooting fully manual on a super nice camera, so by not doing that, I have to take what I get. And it is going to take some getting used too. But I have decided it is totally worth having a not-so-perfect picture as opposed to not having the picture at all.

Happy Monday everyone!

These four kids have been in front of my camera many times now, I love having them there - and even better – they actually get excited every time we have a shoot! Apparently our shoots are fun for them too
This time we did their shoot at Dixie Dreams and I loved shooting there. It was perfect and gorgeous.

Morgan, Ryan, Cameron and Ally…. as they are were in November:

Cameron showing me his moves I love seeing personality in my pictures!

LOVE!

They brought their little cousin, Harbor, for some shots for the Grandparents… Ally and Harbor were so sweet together!

She had just learned to crawl and was showing off for us….

Thank you for asking me to do these for you all!