Pretty baby on Easter Sunday

Here's my baby girl, almost five months old, in her Easter dress.  She's such a little doll and we are completely enchanted by her.  She's a beautiful little distraction at our house and we love her to pieces.

Marshall :: Hurricane, UT Kids Portrait Session

My big boy starts Kindergarten tomorrow!  Unreal...

Here's a few shots from our little mini session we did to celebrate the occasion.

Birthday Photoshoot :: Hurricane, UT

I was so glad to finish up this session... not because it was done a little while ago, but because it was so darn cute!!!  It was the babe's first birthday and we invited Big Brother in for a few shots.  Tell me what you think... aren't they adorable?

Birthday Sneak

Here's a sneak peek of a little birthday session I did last week.

H family :: 2011

This family session was oh, so fun!  

I loved the vision we had for it and how all of the details just fell into place at the last minute.  

It was so meant to be.

A mighty big thank you is due to those that helped us fit it all together!  

(I'll keep your names anonymous so you're not bombarded with requests like ours- wink, wink.)

Sweet babe.  He is the little bit bigger version of this little peanut.

This shot was an interesting one.  It had been clear and sunny until a couple hours before our session started.  Seconds before we got started the sun peeked out from behind some thunder clouds, but quickly hid itself again.  A little while into our session the grass started glowing like this and I was having a giant debate in my head.  The sun was still a little too high for what I wanted to accomplish, but this break in the clouds was going to be brief... I just knew it.

So we hustled to get it all just right and the bright light coming off of the grass made it nearly impossible to clearly see behind the lens what I was capturing.  Then all of a sudden, a gray cloud above us decided it had waited long enough and giant rain drops started falling all around us...

...so we jumped in the truck!  We played around there for a while, but the rain really started coming down and it was showing up in many of the photos (that's what that streak is in the top left corner of this photo).  So Camie, the best helper ever, corralled the children into the clean, dry car until the rain stopped.

I made Mom & Dad stay in the truck for a while while I shot holding an umbrella over myself.  

(For the first time I felt like I really deserved two assistants and chuckled at the thought of being so high maintenance.)

I love the shots of just the two of them in the truck.

The clouds mostly let up and we hurried the little ones back out before the sun went all the way down.  

It was very "thoughtful" of that rain cloud to interfere until the sun was just about down.

Cassadee had this great idea for their shoot to include story time for the boys.  They LOVE reading books and it was a great way to distract them from getting their pictures taken (every little boy hates getting his picture taken) and to capture what life is really all about for them right now.

I loved the whole series I shot of big brother and Daddy together.

And little brother was being such a charmer the whole time.

One last attempt at getting them all to smile and then we were done!

I want to share a couple things I thought as I walked away from this session.  First, for a family session with kids, bringing a familiar face to assist with delivering tiny pieces of candy and getting some genuine smiles is priceless.  These boys are my nephews, so I'm no stranger to them, but holding a camera in front of my face got them to kind of forget that we were having fun out there too.  So BRING A HELPER.  It also came in really handy to have her there to watch the kiddos while we shot some images of just mom and dad.  Which is also super important!  Second, you can't be over prepared.  We had a tarp to put under the blanket they sat on (for story time) since the ground was just a tiny bit moist from the week's earlier rain storms.  And that tarp saved our bacon when the clouds unleashed on us.  We just threw it over the chairs and books instead of wasting time carting it all back through the field and back to the cars.  It also was very wise of me to throw an umbrella in my car since there was a slight chance of thunderstorms that evening.  Had I not had that, I'm afraid our session would have been cut extremely short because it was really coming down there for a bit.  And third, I know family portraits can be super stressful, but if Mom can fake it that she's having a good time and just wants to enjoy some time with her family the rest of the group will follow suit.  I thought Cassadee did a great job of this and it really helped.

Thanks for the fun photo shoot, H family.  I really enjoyed myself and love what we captured.

18 Months Later

Taft is now 1 1/2 years old!!!  How fun it is to see kids grow.  We thought we'd put Taft in his favorite environment and just snap some photos along the way.  He is such a boy.  I just love it.  He was climbing and exploring all over the place and even ended up in the water at the splash pad.  It was very thoughtful of him to wait until the very end of our photo shoot to get wet though, wouldn't you say?

Don't you just love his adorable bike?  I sure did.

This was a fun session!  We managed to fit a little bit of everything into a three year old attention span.
We had family...

birthday...

and maternity fun.

I love this darling family, and they are going to add another little girl to their clan!  How fun!!!

This little doll was in one of my swim lesson classes this summer and she's so sweet!

I love her cheeks the most!

Mom was a friend of mine when we were younger... I honestly can't believe we're actually grown ups now.

Good luck these next few weeks!!!  Can't wait to meet the new little princess.

I'm sure I'm not the only one looking forward to it...

Angel

This is Isaac.  He's my little Tyler's age (which makes his story a little close to home) and has been on a crazy medical roller coaster the last few months that has left him suddenly paralyzed from the waist down.  I have followed along with his story and cannot believe the things our bodies can experience and the miracles that modern medicine can perform.  I was humbled when asked to snap some portraits of him a couple weeks ago.  He's a tough little guy that has really hung in there and will have quite the road ahead of him.  He really is a special angel here on earth.

Happy Birthday!

As with most things in life, it is so hard to not look forward to what is coming in the future.  No matter what is being experienced NOW, the tendency to plan for the future and look forward makes it so bittersweet when we finally make it to that future point.

As far as kids go, there are great things to each stage they go through.  There are also some not so great things, wink wink.  Then there's always the curiosity towards what is to come.  Regardless of what we enjoy when they're young and what we look forward to in their future, I truly believe that it always ends up better than can ever be imagined.  But it all goes by so fast that it turns into a giant blur as you look back.  Lately I've felt a need to preserve all of the NOW moments so I can look back on them and remember the little things.  Like recording Marshall when he was getting loopy before going under anesthesia for some dental work and Tyler when he loved and hated Daddy's tricks with the flash paper and fire.  I'm also trying to be better about writing down the crazy stuff Marshall says.  I just don't want to forget...

This whole feeling was the basis of my year long project with this little boy.

Taft's mom is a dear friend and I wanted to give her a baby shower gift that was really a work of heart.

I always try to give new moms gifts that I would have loved or items that were beyond useful.  

And I also always try my best, regardless of the kind of gift, to always put a little extra love into it.

Now looking back, I'm so glad I offered this ongoing gift of portraits through Taft's first year.

He's really grown into quite the little man and I love him almost like he's my own little munchkin.  

(How could I not love this chunky little fellow?)

But now he's reached that mega milestone and turned that magic number ONE.

It's hard to call him a baby anymore since he's an active, independent toddler now.  Which, I gotta tell ya, is way better than an infant in my book.  I love toddlers.  They are busy and curious and the funniest little "sponges" to everything around them.

Yet with such a break through, comes a little sadness.  Some tugging at heart strings, I guess.

He'll no longer be little.  He'll always be walking.  His feet will only get bigger and his rolls will only get smaller.

He's a big boy now and I'll miss our monthly get togethers.  

Although I'm sure they'll still happen -old habits die hard- just without the camera.  

Happy birthday little fella.  You're as sweet as can be and I'm so glad you're my buddy.