Last week I was picking up lunch. No drive thru and 3 kids. Boo.

As I parked Kennedy said “Momma I wish I could just stay in the car.” and I thought to myself “meeeee too” But, of course, I told her I could not leave her in the car. As I tried to grab my purse and hurry them out, she kept trying to reason with me. It went something like this:

Kennedy: “But Momma I will be fine!”
Me: “Kennedy, no. Someone might get you!”
Kennedy: “The doors will be closed.”
Me: “Someone might break the window.”
…then I thought “did I just say too much?!”
Kennedy: “Why would someone do that?”
Me: “There are bad people out there, honey.”
at this point, thinking, “yep. said to much.” but at the same time… I don’t know… I want them to be a little bit cautious of strangers at least!
By this time we are out of the car and walking through the parking lot. I can tell that Bristol is tossing all of this info around in her little brain. They both are. Then, suddenly Bristol says: “But Momma, God would protect us.”
Wow.
Heart melt.
How do I respond to that? She is right, He will.
But I still don’t want to leave them in the car.
And Kennedy is agreeing with Bristol and waiting to see what I have to say to that.
And then, thankfully, I came up with what I feel like was the perfect answer: “Yes, Bristol. You are right. He will protect us, always. But, He gave ya’ll to me and asked me to protect you. So that is why I don’t want to leave you in the car.”
Then I silently high-fived myself. And thanked God for that little conversation and these precious girls

Playing with their cousins….

Thanks for looking!

Oh Bristol Bee…

Our Bristol Bee turns 4 years old today!

Four years ago she came into this world crying, and crying, and crying. Whew. Those months were tough. I remember being at the pediatrician’s for a well-check once and I had been stuck in that little room bouncing and soothing and doing anything and everything I could do when the doctor walked in. She began the routine exam and then asked “Does she always cry like this?” I said “yes, she does.”
After confirming there was nothing wrong with her, she said to me “It has not been proven, but we believe that sometimes when a baby cries a lot it means that they have a big personality that they cannot yet express.”

Well, in Bristol’s case I believe that just may have been true.
She is full of personality!

She makes us laugh all of the time. She has this smile that just takes over her face and she is….she is our Bristol Bee. She is precious. We love her SO much.

Happy Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Yes, I realize the 4 is backwards… but I didn’t realize till I saw it on my computer! haha

It is hard to get a ‘real’ smile out of her these days. When I point the camera at her I get this totally fake smile, and she can’t seem to help it. Then, when I say “Hey Kennedy, don’t fake it!” She’s all “Mom! I am not! That is my best smile!”
Sigh.
So, the other day when we sat down on the couch while she told me all about her dreams she’d had the night before, I knew I could get some ‘real’ shots of her. So I grabbed my camera and took a couple while she talked….

I am happy to capture her happy – real – smile. But I love this un-smiling shot too

To be honest, I kinda just fumbled through this focus for Click of the Wild.

When Molly first told us our focus this time around. I sort of cocked my head and re-read it. Then I googled it. Yep, googled it. I figured it might help me figure out how to get it in my head better and find a way to photograph it.
I understood the phrase ‘Tried and True’. But how to capture it… I was just not sure.

Honestly, two things came to mind and I never even tried to capture either. But this is what I thought of when I thought of tried and true;

1) My grandparents holding hands.

2) Chevrolet.

Haha. Poppa, if your reading this, yes, I just put you and Chevy together - under the same category, Tried and True. I am sure you would disagree and argue Ford over Chevy, but we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one I love you!

The fact is, I didn’t get either of those shots. While they were better idea’s than what I got, I still think that Play-doh falls nicely under tried and true… It’s true, it’s my go-to activity for my girls when I need at least 20 minutes of them happily creating and playing.  It’s tried and true to make some happy play time. And a big mess. And creating pretty butterflies and people and whatever else. They love it and so do I

haha, this picture is so real. I pulled my camera out just as they were finishing up with the play-dough and Tenley is determined to act like a brat when she see’s my camera pointing in her direction these days. So she threw a little fit.

Now, head over to Click of the Wild and see the full post on how each of us captured Tried and True. And click on each image to see the other photographers blogs

I love the Taylors. Every year they get in front of my camera and I always love the magic that happens. Always.

Chris, Jennifer, Logan and Sullivan… Thank you. Thank you for trusting me to capture you. XoXo

We choose a park/garden in the city this time for their session (The Green in Charlotte). Hang on ya’ll… there are a lot of pictures in this post!

I love this image in both color and black and white…

Sullivan loved jumping into Daddy’s arms..

But Logan wanted his Dad to jump with him. Thankfully he has a cool Dad

Love this one.

I try to capture the ordinary everyday moments. And often instead of ordinary they are sweet or funny, or simply a memory that I want to look back on….
These are a few pictures from my ’Febuary Misc’ folder… these two sisters dressing a baby doll….

And this cutie who woke up from her nap but was not quite ready to get out of her crib yet

Capture some of your everyday moments… you won’t regret it!

Thank you… for looking

It is Click of the Wild time again and Mallory totally took me out of my comfort zone this time with the focus on Unnatural Light. I used my flash more in the past two weeks than ever I think!

But that is one of the reasons I love this project so much. It makes me shoot more, and differently.

I had these idea’s of using dramatic backlight on subjects… but that didn’t happen, mainly because I do not have any off camera lighting equipment. I could have used other light sources, but honestly, I didn’t make it happen. So this is what I ended up with… tulips on my living room floor….

and to give you a good idea of what the unnatural light did for this image, here is a shot without my flash:

big difference, huh? I was kind of impressed ;) But I still prefer natural light! haha

I also took some shots in my hall bathroom, at night. I used the incandescent lights in the bathroom as my light source, no flash this time.

I put the flash back on for this random shot. I kinda like it. It feels so random and bright to have been in total darkness. I went outside around 9:30 at night and took this shot…. I was hot after getting off the treadmill, so the cold felt good, and I got a little more practice using my flash.

These next two shots are Kennedy under the trampoline at night… no flash on this one – just my iphone flash light on the ground illuminating her…

And this shot I turned my flash on….

There ya go, my take on Unnatural Light Please be sure to check out Click of the Wild and the other photographers sites for their thoughts on this focus! And thank you for looking!

Mallory came to my house and captured my girls and I. As we are today.

I know this phase of life with my girls will pass quickly. Although it does not always feel that way, I know it will. And I want to savor every single moment.

I want to remember how I braid their hair and make muffins and paint toenails and read books and tickle and giggle… I want to remember our home as it is right now. Because that too changes. I want to be able to look back and see these walls and furniture, and just see our space. Our home.

It’s not perfect. None of it is. But it is perfectly imperfect. Yeah, that morning my hair didn’t curl good and I wished I had worn it straight, and seeing myself in pictures makes me act like a typical woman and declare ”I WILL LOSE ______ POUNDS!” But mostly, I see us. I see love and happiness and I see our everyday life in these photo’s. That is exactly what I wanted. This is who we are, this is what we do. And Mallory captured it beautifully, for that, I am so grateful

All photo’s by Mallory Dawn Photography.
Warning: this is a lot of pictures! I gave up trying to decide what to post and just posted a lot!

I call these ‘The Christmas Card Shots’ because that is precisely what they are. A cute picture to send out to friends and family as a Christmas greeting. And really, it’s one of my favorite things to get out of the mailbox at Christmas time!
I do these for a few of my family. And honestly, you never know how it’s going to go. Normally we are rushed (holiday’s, bad weather, you know. The norm.) And then add in the oh-my-goodness-my-kid-didn’t-take-a-nap and well, you’ve really got a we’ll-do-anything-to-get-ONE-shot moment! ha.
I love having these two cuties in front of my camera. They are adorable. Fun. Full of energy. Happy kids. And bonus, they think I am funny – and cool! (yay!)

But, on this particular day, Genevieve did not take a nap. Every other day she naps. But not that day! A lot of our quick little shoot went something like this:

But, we still managed to get adorable pictures! I love this one of Jax, I feel like you can literally feel the excitement!

And these of little Miss No-Nap melt me. I think she looks absolutely precious

Next up, we have Jillie, Quincy and their dogs. This was quick and easy.
Funny fact: Allie (the dog on the leash) broke his leash when I stooped down and got closer to get a shot. He almost knocked me and my camera down! haha

My nieces, Mya and Karis. Karis was hungry and I had to leave (we were at our parents house) so this was a one-shot-wonder! haha

Now these two were a dream! And it should have been hard! I mean, Brooks was only a few weeks old. And Willa, a little 1-year-old. I prepared myself. The posing (for Brooks) and getting Willa to get in just the right spot so I could see them both… but amazingly, they settled right in where I put them, Willa smiled and hammed it up for my camera. I loved it!
We were done in less than 5 minutes. Good thing since it was a cold day!

This is what Christmas looks like at our house…

Most of these images were taken with my point and shoot camera. I do this because it makes me feel less pressured to ’get the shot’ and more able to just be in the moment. Stuart actually took a lot of these – as you’ll see, I am in quite a few (shocking, I know!)
Here we are on Christmas Eve….

They each got a night gown for their baby dolls that matched their own

Stuart, with his MawMaw and Mom… I love this.

And now, Christmas morning… kids really do make it magical…

so proud my hubs caught these two moments… I kinda love them

Poppa and MawMaw’s house for lunch…

MawMaw in an apron passing out gifts… this image is exactly how I see MawMaw on Christmas day, for as far back as I can remember….

Selfies with Poppa

The book that Poppa is holding is a book full of photo’s I took of our family last year. I have done this for several years now, and it’s sort of a tradition at this point… it is so much work, but the end result is worth it

and if your curious, I used Blurb to create the book

My cousin’s birthday is on Christmas day (Hannah), and MawMaw always has her a cake

There ya go. Snapshots of our Christmas 2013. I loved looking at these again