Morgan and Drew
Morgan and Drew were just SO cute for this Christmas session. And I was in photographer heaven - the house we shot this in was just fabulous! Long hallways and arched doorways, french doors everywhere, this incredible staircase, and even Christmas music being piped throughout the house. And just to make it sweeter, this house is the same one where Morgan and Drew’s parents’ engagement party was held 12 years ago.
Morgan LOVES to sing and play the piano (a gorgeous Steinway!) and regaled me with the Princess version of “Twinkle Twinkle”, which was quite imaginative and included witches and dragons. A girl after my own heart. And Drew… well, he likes to crawl really really fast, especially away from the camera! Plus, he’s taking a few steps already!
So we had a blast, and here are some of the cutest pictures ever - they totally get me into the Christmas spirit. These pictures seemed very well-suited to texture, so you’ll see lots of variety in the way I developed them:
OK, here goes… Paul, Eliza, Emma, Jack, Ben, and Trent.
What a wild session this was! An extended family all home for Thanksgiving, with six of the cutest kids you’ve ever seen. Suffice it to say, I had a time choosing which of the zillion great pictures to put in the blog, and finally decided just to put one picture of each kid plus one of each sibling set, and one of five of the cousins together (the smallest cousin had to decompress for a bit and take a little break from the porch swing picture).
Paul:
Eliza:
Emma (Decompressing with her sucker. Suckers make me happy too!):
Jack:
Ben:
Trent:
Thanks, guys, for an awesome session!!! I hope you have all recovered from the week and have had safe travels back home.
Filed under Recent Posts | Comment (0)Happy Birthday!
I cannot believe my son turned 7 last week. Does it really go this fast??? He was born on Thanksgiving Day and was in a big hurry to get here, just like we were in a big hurry to finally meet him. And now here he is in first grade already, and the most wonderful son I could ever have wanted. William is the superhero of our household; the creator, inventor, and tinkerer of all things styrofoam and string and tape; the big brother extraordinaire; lover of Harry Potter and Jack Sparrow and all things imaginary and wonderful and magical; slayer of bedtime monsters; master of paper and pen and paint; and the original thief of my heart. I love you, my dearest boy.
Caroline loved the blue Batman cupcakes!
If you ever think our kids are not watching everything we do, think again:
And here are a couple of pictures from our Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, we ate off of our best china we used paper plates and plastic cups this time. Not very fancy, but the food was fabulous, and no dishes! I just can’t deal with lots of dishes at this stage in my life. My sweet Caroline now has an obsession with hoods, and refused to take it off all day.
I am thankful for so many things, and grateful for my family, students, and friends. I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season!
Filed under Recent Posts | Comment (0)Macy and Solomon
Macy and Solomon are the sweetest sister and brother! I was so glad to get to know them a little when I arrived at their house to take some Christmas pictures and their parents weren’t ready yet. But that was ok, because I love talking to kids. We were looking at the gorgeous tree and they pointed out all the pictures of themselves in ornament frames. There was a picture of Sol in a sailor suit, and I asked him if he got to drive the boat (he wasn’t really on a boat in the picture). Sol whispered to me, “I was the captain of the ship. And the bathroom was a can!” Out of the mouths of babes… I never was clear whether or not they have actually been on a boat with a can for a bathroom, but I know that to a 4 year old boy that would definitely have been the highlight of the trip, imaginary or not.
And Macy looked so grown-up in her fabulous outfit complete with sash rescued from the doll clothing where she had been making good use of it. I am sure Barbie looked quite stunning in her red sash evening gown.
So here are some pictures of this lovely family in their beautiful Christmas house. To me these pictures look like the scenes from ‘The Nutcracker” when all the people are going to the party at Clara’s house. Can’t you just hear that music in your head?
Colton
I donated a session several months ago to the 65 Roses Silent Auction benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and Colton’s family was the lucky winner! We had a great time at the Experiment Station taking pictures. It was really chilly out, but since I got to wear my coat the whole time the wind didn’t bother me at all 
The temperature didn’t phase Colton one bit, however, and he ran around exploring the area. He especially loved the “giant paper clips”, which is what my son calls one of the more interesting sculptures out there. I’m not sure what the round spiky circular sculpture is made of, but it is really really cool and always makes neat artistic photographs.
I’m really sad I didn’t get a picture of the moment when Colton’s mom tried to gently wipe his nose with her jacket (because all moms would rather have our clothes stained than see our children with runny noses) and instead he completely blew his nose into it. Which is exactly what my son would have done. It was definitely what I call a “lifestyle photography” moment, but one that I’m sure they are glad has not been forever immortalized.
Colton was so full of energy and was the sweetest, smiliest kid! What a pleasure it was to meet this beautiful, loving family. Thank you for purchasing this session benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation!
I’m in love…
My son has a task at school called “Living and Non-Living”, where they are supposed to draw pictures of living and non-living things (he draws things like dinosaurs and rocketships. No matter that dinosaurs were living but aren’t anymore… that’s just too complex. What category would they go in anyway? Ex-Living? But I digress…)
I am in love with a Non-Living thing… my brand new lens. I have drooled over this lens for a year and I finally own it! Top-of-the-line Canon EF mm f/1.2 L USM for those photogs amongst you. Yes, be jealous. This great lens is SO fast and quiet, and allows me fine depth-of-field control and superb low light shooting. So my next clients are in for a treat.
Here are the first shots from my new baby - William was too busy being Batman for lots of shots of him, but Caroline let me take some pictures of her. And no, it isn’t some black-and-white lens, I was just in a black-and-white mood tonight when I developed them.
I even let my husband take a picture. He did pretty well!
I love Halloween!!!
Here are a few images from our fabulous annual Halloween party. What a perfect night - crisp and cool, but not so cool that the kids had to wear coats over their costumes like we always had to do as kids. I still remember having to wear my boring old coat over my spectacular Isis costume when I was seven. Thanks, global warming! All the kids ate pizza and cupcakes before trick-or-treating en masse (I’m sure the neighbors loved it when we swarmed their houses), and everyone had a great time. I apologize to all the neighbors for my daughter announcing “I’m a bee!” and then walking straight into all their houses like she owned them - looking for more candy, I guess. I didn’t get pictures of all the kids at the party, because my little bee was keeping me too busy to carry the camera around. I could have carried the camera and my bee at the same time, but that pesky glass of wine kept getting in the way. I don’t think I even saw my son, Jack Sparrow, the whole night, except as a blur running past.
And many thanks to all the guests who didn’t make too much fun of my last-minute Kmart witch costume that William picked out. I don’t really think witches wore red and black velvet dresses with corset-style tops, but everyone was kind enough not to point that out.
See you all next year!
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