I decided to skip Miscellaneous Monday today because it is time I got done posting my pre-Christmas shoots. I mean really, I am doing spring shoots now and still blogging stuff that I did before Christmas! Time to get those wrapped up… (pun intended..heehee!)

So, today I bring you the Hoinkes Family. You may recognize Sol, the youngest member of the family, I have taken his pictures since he was a newborn. But this time, the whole family got in front of my camera

Love these of Madi… she is just so sweet!

Sol was not into getting his picture made outside. (did I mention it snowed on us that day?!) Anyway, for Sol it was all about exploring instead of taking pictures. So, once we were done we went back to thier house and got some of Sol. He showed me his stocking:

And his dance moves:

Love this shot:

Typically I would blog tomorrow (I am not on a ‘set’ blogging schedule, obviously! But I do try to blog on Friday’s….) but tomorrow I will be participating in the For Japan with Love day of blogging silence. I heard about it over on MomTog’s blog and decided to do it myself.  

Anyway, back to Tiffany and Gabriel This Mother/Son pair braved the freezing cold back in December. They shed their coats, jumped in front of my camera and totally rocked it. Not even kidding.

The day would not have been so cold if it had not been for the wind; it was so windy! But, it did make for some good hair blowing shots!

These next two might just be my favorites from the day:

But then, I love these too!

Tiffany, I am looking forward to doing that warm-weather shoot we dreamed spoke about that day as we ran to our car to get warm! Haha! Thanks again for asking me to do these and braving the cold

Cecilia is a single Mom. Her oldest son Gerardo has leukemia. When her boss (who happens to be a friend/client of mine) found out that Cecilia had never had family pictures taken, he and his wife, and Cecilia’s co-workers, arranged for me to come and do pictures for them.

They are  a beautiful and loving family and I am honored to have been able to capture them with my camera. This is a favorite shoot of mine to date, for many reasons, but one being the raw love and emotion that they were not afraid to show. They simply stepped in front of my camera and hugged and held and laughed and kissed. I gave little direction – there was no need for many words. But I feel like these pictures speak volumes.

Gerardo is sweet and kind, and so loving towards his Mom…

His two-year-old sister Amy adores him!

Andreas is 12, adorable and not into kissing and hugging on his Mom in public!

Near the end of our shoot I asked if there was a certain picture that they wanted to capture that we had not yet gotten. Gerardo and his Mom spoke in spanish for a moment and then he turned to me and said “My Mom would just like a picture of us face to face, looking in each others eyes.” That is when I got these next few, with tears in my own eyes…

What she asked for was so simple. Yet so meaningful. And as they looked at each other he bent down and kissed her forehead…

To everyone who had a part in helping make this shoot happen for this wonderful family; Thank you.

I am sure that Cecilia feels that she received a gift, but when I walked away that day I feel like I was the one who had received a gift. Funny how when we give, we often receive, unexpectedly.

Spring is in the air….

and we are loving it…

XoXo

Crazy as it may seem, I sometimes feel like I don’t take enough ‘anytime’ pictures of my girls. I get so caught up in other things and forget to just pull out the camera and snap a few pictures. Well, generally the camera is out, I just don’t always grab it! But, I did exactly that when I walked down our hall the other day and found Kennedy and Bristol playing on the floor together. I thought “ah, the laundry can wait” and I went about the business of capturing them - in the moment.

Love. Laughter.

And this laughter? Makes me laugh!

Happy Monday!

Another Christmas themed shoot…. This adorable little boy (Emerson) belongs to my friend Julie, and these are some of my favorites:

Ahh, Brooklyn is a sweetie, that is for sure.  We got together for a few pictures for a Christmas card, and that was all we really got to do. It was so cold that her little nose started turning red! So, we didn’t spend too much time out there… but I love what we got.

Silly faces, ya’ll!

Courtney, I am already looking forward to our ‘warm weather’ shoot! XoXo

Miscellaneous Monday is coming a little later this morning … mainly because I did not get on my computer much this weekend. My Birthday was Saturday (last year in my 20′s now ya’ll!) and I spent the weekend with my family and away from my computer (for the most part!) I normally blog on Sunday when the girls are asleep, for several reasons, one being that Monday’s are normally crazy busy. The house is a wreck, I need to go to the grocery store, the post office, etc. But, I did knock out going to the grocery store last night after Kennedy decided to draw a picture of her Daddy and Tyke (who had just been here looking at our leaking hot water heater, yep, it has been a weekend!) anyway, she did her art on the wall. Surprisingly, that was the first time. I was sitting on her bedroom floor playing with her doll-house with Bristol and I heard her crayons flying, and her talking the whole time. There is Daddy…. there is Tyke…. That is when I decided to look up and check out the art, because just hearing her talk as she created was adorable. It quickly became un-adorable when I saw the mess! And so we went out to get a bite to eat and ran to Walmart for Mr. Clean Magic Eraser pads. Lets just say those things are my best friend.

In other news, I received my new business cards, just in time for my birthday! Let me start out by saying that I still feel incredibly blessed to even need  business cards. And even more so, business cards that are unique, my own look, my own brand.

I started out just loving photography. I loved capturing the moment. The beauty. The friends and family. The grass. (that is not a joke, one of my all-time favorite shots is of the grass in my parents front yard! I’ll have to post a picture of that shot soon) Basically I just loved to shoot. I learned more and more. (I am still learning, I don’t think we ever stop learning!) And soon I was holding my very first Nikon SLR. I remember it was a birthday gift from my parents. I remember the feeling of seeing the box. The smell of the camera. The way it felt in my hands. The sound of the shutter clicking. The feeling I got when I heard that shutter click and knew I had gotten ‘the’ shot. I think we could sum it all up in one word; Passion.

I am passionate about photography. I was then and still am now. My photography has morphed into something bigger, I now get paid for taking pictures. And I am so thankful for that. I am not ‘big-time’, in fact, my business is quite small. But it is perfect for me for right now. And we’ll see what the future may hold. However, it is big enough that I felt like I needed my own business cards. But more important, my own ‘brand’. I thought about it for a long time. I tossed around so many ideas. I brain-stormed with my friend Julie. I knew I wanted something simple, maybe a bit whimsical, and definitely modern.  So, without further ado… my new business cards!

I love them!   I also ordered post cards for writing notes on:

I put random words at the top that I feel like evokes feelings of what a picture might capture. And of course my ‘slogan’ of Real life, Captured.

Here is a close-up of the frames that Julie did:

These are just the first two things I have ordered. I need to make a few changes now that I see them in print, but I’ll soon be getting a few more things with my new logo, in fact, I hope to get it here on the blog soon. That is another ‘project’ I need to tackle! But, I was so excited I had to share it with you

Julie, Thank you for doing such a GREAT job and putting what was in my head on paper. Seriously you are so good at that. Even with me hanging over you saying “yes…that is it…. no! I am not feeling it… Okay, walking away now!” hahahahah! Much love!

This post got a little longer than I had imagined. I can’t seem to stop typing! ha! I had a few pictures of the girls I had planned to share, but I am going to bring this post to a close now for fear that it may not get published at all today if I don’t! I’ll share the pictures of the girls another day.

Have yourselves a fabulous Monday!

There is no doubt about it, these kids are adorable! (of course I may be a little bit biased since they do belong to my cousin/friend)

Morgan, Ryan, Cameron and Ally:

I love this one because of the boys looking at each other and laughing… who knows what they were cooking up!

these kids love their baby sister…

I let Ryan show off his personality a bit:

I snapped this picture of the tree when we got done, and I just love it!

 Paulette, enjoy your ‘one’ picture! (wink!) Much love

 I did a Mother/Daughter shoot for Coreen and her oldest daughter Lia awhile back (you can see it here). Since that shoot Lia has grown up a lot and become a big sister to a sweet little girl named Selma. We got together for another shoot back in November and this time Dad and Grandma got in on the fun

Here are some of my favorite shots:

These images of Lia are some of my favorites of the day!

I love this shot and can’t decide which I love more; b&w or sepia, so I am posting both

Lia had brought along her Halloween costume and asked me if I could take her picture in it… of course I said yes! She looked adorable in it

We got a few shots of just Isaac and Coreen…

Thank you all for a wonderful time… I enjoyed it very much    XoXo