What more could you say about this family, other than how sweet they are. I mean, how could they not be sweet, they own Pacific Cookie Company. I don’t have to say much more about those cookies. Anyone who lives in the area and walks by their downtown location already knows how great they are. It’s like a magnet for my husband, he can’t walk by without being drawn in to buy a cookie or two or a dozen.

I contacted Cara (mom of the 2 beautiful little girls) last year to see if Pacific Cookie Company would be interested in partnering with me for a bake sale to benefit cookies for kids cancer. Cookies for kids cancer encourages people to hold local bake sales to raise money to directly support research at Comprehensive Cancer Centers across the country. We met, discussed a few ideas, and like me, Cara wanted to do more. I was able to put Cara in contact with the amazing mom who started the organization and in the end, Pacific Cookie Company ended up being the ones to provide the cookies when someone orders online. When Cara and I initially spoke, we discussed holding a bake sale. This past September, with the help of some other local moms, we were able to make it happen. Pacific cookie company generously donated 500 cookies and through two bake sales at Vine hill School, we were able to raise $1500. I was so honored to be able to do a photo shoot for this amazing family as a little way of saying thank you.

Before I did this shoot, I sent out a questionnaire to Bonnie to learn a little more about her family. Fun loving, competitive and dramatic were the 3 words she used to describe her beautiful daughters. I not only LOVE that in the short time that I spent with them, it was clear to me how accurate those words were, but also that Bonnie is so in tune to her girls and is able to describe them so well. Bonnie described herself as relaxed, which I clearly saw when “competitive” child climbed very high up a tree and it did not seem scare Bonnie at all. Bonnie & Paul, your girls are beautiful and I can only imagine what life is going to be like on your house in a few years! It was such a pleasure to meet you and I hope that you love the photographs.

Where do I start with this family? We have been planning this shoot for about a year and was so excited when we finally were able to make it happen. I knew this would be a fun shoot, because what else could it be with 4 crazy kids and a very large dog?! As an added bonus, Brian is into photography so I new he would be very patient as we played. As you will see from many of the photos of Brian, he seems to know how to work the camera. That must have something to do with his acting, or was it singing and dancing past. And Marnie..well she is just beautiful, you put them together and look at what you get.

And baby makes 6.

A calm and peaceful Brian, Marnie and Baby R while chaos surrounds us.

I got plenty of perfectly posed photos that will make grandma happy, but my favorites are usually the ones that happen in between and show what life is really like.

In addition to these photos, they played in the leaves, tickled each other on the couch, played some some Beatles rock band on the Wii and piled on a very large dog named Reggie who came into photos whenever he wanted.

Thanks Brian and Marnie. I could do this every weekend for your family. It makes the chaos at my house not seem so bad ; ). Can’t wait to do it again when the little one can join in the fun.