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I could let these photos speak for themsleves, but I just have to say a few words about this wonderful family. Tricia invited me over for a glass of wine a few days before the shoot so we could talk about what she was looking for in their shoot. While we did spend a little time talking about the shoot, we spent most of the time talking about our kids school and how to deal with all the budget cuts we are facing. Derek & Tricia are totally involved parents, and it is always nice to spend time talking to parents who are doing whatever they can to help keep our kids schools great. I brought Zoe over with me that night so she could play with the girls and she had a blast. She even said I could offer up her beautiful dresses that she NEVER wears if the girls wanted to wear them for the photo shoot.

These girls made my job way too easy.  Sophia & Marissa are not only beautiful and funny, but also very well behaved. I think I am going to send my kids to Derek & Tricia’s parenting boot camp! Like I said..beautiful.

While I make sure I get the shots of everyone looking at the camera for grandma to hang on the wall, my favorite shots are always the “in between” ones  of the family just being themselves. Those dresses could not have been any more perfect on them. And the light..oh the light. I really don’t need a fancy backdrop to make me happy. Give me a nice street for the light to reflect off of and I am as happy as can be.

The girls played red light-green light, catch, rode bikes, drew with chalk and played hopscotch with lots of giggles thrown in . I loved that I could capture them doing their thing.
Here is a slideshow that makes me smile every time I watch it. Thanks again Timm family for opportunity to capture your beautiful family.

Ohh..how I love this family. This is the fourth time that I have photographed them in the past two years. My most favorite shoot ever is of this family. You can see it by clicking here. Pretty fun, right? Mom Nicole, what can I possibly say about her. She really is an amazing mother and wife, the kind of woman I aspire to be like..even if she is a few years younger than me. Being around her and her family just makes me happy, they really just exude joy and love. In fact..while I was on my way out the door to do their holiday shoot last December, I got a call that I was expecting and dreading. My grandmother had passed away. If I had been going to photograph any other family, I probably would have cancelled. But, I knew that being with Nicole, Tony and the girls would be the perfect way to get my mind off of things for a few hours. Watching the love of this young family was exactly what I needed. I didn’t tell Nicole what had happened until the end of the shoot and if I never thanked you Nicole..Thank you.

Nicole is a very positive person. Always seems to have a smile on her face. She never gets stressed out when the kids aren’t doing what she may had hoped for the pictures and really wants to just capture them as they are. She will do anything to get a giggle out of her girls and I just LOVE this shot of her and little Miss Avery, mid kissing game.

The shoot was not intended to be all about this little one, but she kind of seemed to like the camera so what was I going to do. And the outfit. I always know that Nicole is going to have the perfect clothes picked out. When Nicole could not find the perfect shade of blue for the hair bow, she did what any mom would do, she pulled out stuff from her crafty stash and sprayed some ribbon to match.

The dress, the boots, the hair..too bad you can’t see the cute jeans looking diaper.

Could there be anything cuter than that adorable face blowing some raspberries..I think not.

Big sister Addison. She is a beauty and way smarter than me. None of my tricks ever work with this little one, she looks at me like I am crazy when I aim the camera at her. But I got you Miss Addie. I think this is my favorite photo from our session..so there.

Addison had her cousin Drew visiting as well, and as much as she tried to teach him her tricks of not getting your picture taken by Miss Michelle..I got him too.

The big goal of this shoot was to get a  photo on the bridge with the whole family. Do you have any idea what is is like to get 3 kids under 4 to stay in the same place?! The best way to describe it would be like trying to stuff balloons into the back of a car. You get a few in and set and as you try and hold those ones down to add a few more, the ones that were just sitting there suddenly pop out of the car..yeah, that is what it is like.

Our of order..that is me. Pregnant mom and C 1, 2 & 3 should probably be before this post, but I am once again soo behind on blogging that I give up on the way it should be done. I am not going to even complain about how full my plate is or that I keep adding things to it, because really, who am I to complain. Everything on my plate was put there by me and I am very lucky to be able to spend my time caring for my kids, doing something I love and working on some very fun projects that I can’t wait to share. But, while we are on the subject of full plates, I think the mama of this little guy would probably have me beat. This adorable little guy is the fourth boy to be welcomed into my beautiful friend Leanne’s family.  Yes, you heard me right, I said 4 boys..all under the age of 8. Wait until you get a load of this guys big brothers in my next post. Leanne makes it look a little too easy and somehow does this mothering things with a huge smile on her face all the time.

While I usually stay away from newborns, my friend Aimee asked me to come do this shoot with her. I am NOT a newborn photographer, while not  in the way of wait for them to go to sleep and pose their squishy little bodies. Once they are in position, I get a little antsy and am waiting for them to do something, because lets be honest here.. watching an adorable brand new baby sleep while getting nice and close to savor that wonderful new baby smell would lead me to always come home and google things like “can I still have a baby after I got my tubes tied “. I’ll stick with families with their new babies to capture the interactions and leave the real newborn photography to the professionals like Aimee and my friend Lailah who is the total baby whisperer.

Silly me, I thought that once school started I would be able to get caught up on my blog. I have about a dozen half written blog entries and  maybe need to accept the fact that I may never get them posted. So many fun photos to share but never enough time. For now..I will start fresh..again.

A couple weeks ago I got to photograph Christy and her adorable family. While there are soo many favorites from this shoot that really show who this family is, I decided I would just highlight the few that bring the biggest smile to my face every time I look at them. And in reality, I will never get this entry up if I try and narrow it down to pick a few more photos! I LOVE these photos..love them. They make me happy and once again remind me what my favorite things about photography is. I love to capture the relationships and touching moments between families, especially a mama and her kids.  When these photos were taken, we were actually “done”. I was just trying to get a few quick photos of Christy alone. I asked Jett to stand behind me and help make his mommy laugh, instead he jumped on her and this is what I got. Christy is such a beautiful woman and an amazing mother, and just glows when with her children.

Thanks again Christy for letting me capture this time in your life.