Oh my Briella...

Couldn't resist sharing this... My daughter, who is 26 months old still loves to nap, thankfully. Anyway I went upstairs yesterday to get her up from her nap. As I got closer to her door I heard giggling and loud thuds from insider her room. I peeked my head inside and saw Brielle standing up in her crib with ALL of her clothes off doing acrobats. She was jumping, spinning, jumping some more, giggling, throwing herself down making herself laugh. I ran and got my camera hoping to capture this (she had white noise of a fan in her room so she didn't hear me or the camera). Then she caught me and said excitedly 'Hi Momma, I'm jumping - weee wee {giggle giggle}' as she showed me. What a goof ball...Anyway, she's working on potty training so thankfully her bed was dry.

Going Vintage...

I've had a lot of clients ask about my vintage processing. I've shown some on my blog and I usually select one maybe two and antique them for each clients gallery (some of you I haven't 'gone vintage' at all in your galleries - sorry). I don't do more in each of your galleries since it's very time consuming. But if you have more that you want to be 'antiqued' I can certainly do that for you. Just please let me know and I'd be more than happy. At this time, there is no added cost for this additional processing (that is subject to change however). Thanks for asking about it, hope this posting helps.

More client examples below...

I've been 'Tagged' Again!

For those who've not heard of this blogging game, it's a fun game going around (and around) the internet world of photographers called "Tag". If you are tagged, then you tell 8 things about yourself that not many people know about. My friend, Brooke, from Georgia tagged me yesterday--- or the day before, I can't remember. Anyway, here are 8 more things that you may not know about me (and probably don't care to know either). ;-)

1) I love Starbucks! My order needs to be made into a t-shirt (according to my husband and to help the baristas who put up with my long order). I always get a Venti, Tazo Chai Tea Latte, soy milk, no water, no foam, 6 pumps of sugar-free vanilla, 6 pumps of chai, extra hot to 170 degrees. The barista's at Starbucks hate me, I'm sure... I would...

2) I was in track in high school - pathetic with my asthma. But I actually placed in the long jump (shocker since I'm 5 feet 3 and 3/4 inches tall).

3) Singing? I love singing! But my daughter reminds me how horrid my voice is by yelling 'Mommy, don't sing - be quiet'. When I look at her in shock, she follows quickly with a 'Pleeeease'. Then Tyler pipes in saying ‘Keep singing, I love your voice, go on’ (knowing full well, it’s not my voice he likes, rather he knows that B just requested I stop so he’s going to encourage the opposite).

4) The only time my daughter likes me to sing is when she asks me to sing her favorite songs, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’, ‘You are my Sunshine’, the ‘Alphabet Song’ and ‘Oh Suzannah’. All of which we sing numerous times before she goes to bed each night.

4) I was voted class clown in the 3rd and 6th grade. I got detention a few times for my silly charades too.

5) Up until recently I was a freak about sugar with my kids. Yeah, I was one of those annoying moms that looked (and still do really) at the sugar and sodium content of everything and didn't introduce Tyler to lollipops, ice cream, candy, - anything that was full of sugar. I just knew they would be introduced to it someday so I held off as long as I could. In fact, for Tyler's first birthday I made a sugarless cake. It was awful - hard as a rock, so I threw it away and went wild on a normal, yummy, frosting covered, birthday cake. He wasn't all that into it thankfully. I've loosened up a bit though, really I have {wink}

6) I spent one summer staying in my small college town of Pullman, Washington cleaning college appartments (preparing for move in day) and took an andvanced calculus class during my lunch break. I felt bad for my classmates because I would come to class everyday reaking of bleach - even I was dying. Anyway, I learned a lot that summer about the way college students live - oh my...the things I saw were pretty gross to put it tamely. On the upside, I ended up getting an unprecedented 100% on the final! {nerd, nerd, nerd, nerd}

7) I used to be a neat freak when it came to my car. Now my husband won't even drive it (at least not until it's cleaned up to his standards - which he's lowered quite a bit for me). Once I became a mom, my car was something we somewhat live out of. If we need a diaper, I've got one - or 5, if we need a blanket - there's a variety of colors to choose from, if we need a snack - I've got some stale Cheerios. I just call it being prepared while my husband calls it embarrassing.

8) Okay, and finally....remember the song 'Wikki, wikki, wikki,' by Jam On It Productions? That song haunts me.... In Junior High; Michelle, Anne and I won the regional breakdancing contest to that song. True story. I was one of those girls who brought the only pair of parachute pants I had - and put them on during break (or was it recess at that age, I don't remember), and had my cardboard and did dance offs with my classmates until the bell rang. We were the only girl team that made it to regional. Wearing the most heinous (but oh-so- cool then) outfits we went on stage and won the 'break off' to the fake record scratching sounds of 'wikki, wikki,wikki'. Yeah, sad but true...

There you go, more useless info you didn't need to or care to know about me. Now I'm tagging (prob retagging) Kelly, Jessica, Elaine, Danielle, Kristen, and Jodi.

And what is a post without a picture?

Here's an image from one of my recent sessions...

Pumpkin, Spooky Trees, Giggles and Random Pictures

Wow, busy weekend... with the holiday's coming the festivities are filling the air and our schedule. It's always fun this time of the year - I love fall, it's may favorite season! This weekend we dedicated Friday night to our family pumpkin carving/pumpkin party night (the kids like to turn everything into a party even if it's just the 4 of us). Anyway, we turned on Halloween music, got out all the pumpkin carving tools and began to transform our pumpkin. Brielle really wanted to get in on the action, which made me nervous around the tools. So I got out Halloween crafts - a biggy in our house so Tyler & Brielle started doing their happy dance around the kitchen. They love crafts, thankfully, since I love them too. Anyway, the night was filled with giggles, glue and glitter a few moments of complaining (i.e. Tyler saying ' Mom, Brielle, wants to take all my spooky trees away' or Brielle saying 'No Tyler, time out - you go to time out' then she would giggle mischievously). Brielle had to get down of her chair at one point and go into our 'dance party' room and dance to the beat of one of the songs she heard. Then when the song ended, she walked back to her seat and continued with her craft... she's a hoot.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend was full of fun festive activities and of course some work (administrative stuff, order processing, editing, etc.) But I did take some time to look at some pics that I took about a week ago of my little ones. Thought I'd share...

A Couple More...

I haven't posted to the blog in a couple of days since right now I'm playing catch-up on my editing and publishing of images. I finished Kellen's session last night and here are two images I thought I'd share.

More to come soon....

Happy Birthday To Julia, Happy Birthday To You...

It's Julia's first birthday this week, so I wanted to bring a little something sweet and fun to our session this morning.

This little girl was so adorable and gave me (well her grandpa actually) some cute smiles. I love her 'open mouth - I'm so happy - smiles'! She was a little mover too so I was running around following her as she checked everything out. And at the end of the session, the cupcake was hers to do what she wanted. At first she wasn't sure what to think but quickly discovered that it was a sweet treat! :)

Brothers...

Last night I had an adventurous session with two brothers, Pat and Ben. We went all over town from the golf course at the CCSC to the railroad tracks and caboose in town, before it got too dark to photograph. I was out of breath by the end! And I learned something new... a friendly police officer (really, he was friendly - promise) explained that it was illegal to be on the railroad tracks. I had no idea...he understood that we weren't being reckless or doing anything mischievous so he was nice about it. Anyway, I think this is the last time I will be photographing near the railroad tracks unless I find some that are no longer in active use. If anyone knows where some are please let me know :).

Anyway, here is a little peek at some of the images captured last night.

Baby Kori

Oh...I miss the baby stage... taking pictures of newborns makes me want to have a third. I love the little sounds they make, their tiny little hands and feet and the feel of their soft newborn skin. Luckily I get my baby fix when I photograph newborns. Here are some pictures I got to take on Friday of little Kori :)

Serious Little Fireman...

Last nights session was a lot of fun with Kellen who's 2 years old. He took his role very seriously as a firefighter once I showed him the firetruck he'd get to play with. He didn't have time for me and my camera with all the exploring he had to do with the fire truck (but I did sneak in some cute shots of him). Later we headed back to his house and he was excited showed me his cool little push fire truck. Here are a few pictures taken from our session.

Once again, I couldn't resist playing with some of the pictures giving them different vintage looks (one with a dark 'old' tone and one with a cooler tone.

Is this my little boy?

Oh my gosh he looks so grown up! Tyler has been watching me work on pictures from sessions I've photographed and the other day he said to me, 'why don't you take any pictures of me?'. Well as a mom, that made my heart ache and as a photographer I was jumping up in down inside hoping he wanted me to photograph him (he's been so anti-camera, anti-lens in his face for months). I asked if he would do a mini-session with me and his face lit up. So we made plans the next night to have a session. He was so cute and cooperative I couldn't believe how willing he was. Of course, he had tons of ideas and jumped from one to the next before I had time to complete the first idea. Anyway, here he is looking more and more like a young man...and more and more like his daddy.

So Tiny....

This morning I photographed this beautiful itty-bitty teeny newborn (3 weeks old). She has the littlest hands and feet - it's so easy to forget how small they are when they are this young. She is a tiny 7 pounds too, it felt like she wasn't even in my arms after being used to holding to my 2 year old daughter. I just love newborns! Here are a few pictures from our session.

This picture was screaming 'experiment' so I had to go vintage with it too :)

Freckles & Fun

Last night I photographed two kids who were so full of fun, energy and conversation. Sullivan, who is 6, was so sweet and chatty. I loved it! I enjoy chatting it up with kids and learning more about each one of them. I learned that she and her brother share the same favorite color, that she's learning about the animal kingdom at school and that she loves getting dressed up in the froo-froo tutu's and petticoats I brought (thank goodness!). Sullivan and her brother Jay have the most beautiful red hair coupled with fun giggly personalities. They were great to photograph and the camera seemed to love them too :)

What's the Dealeo with Sneak Peeks?

I've been asked by a few clients why they didn't see a 'sneak peek' of their session on my blog. I love doing sneak peeks but if I get your on-line gallery up within 36 hours (or so) of the session, then I tend not to do a sneak peek of your session since all your images are available for viewing in your gallery. I'm glad I'm getting feedback about the SP's - it's always good to know what clients think. Hope that helps explain the reasoning a bit... :)

Adorable Brother & Sister...

I'm so excited about this session - there were so many opportunities for great pictures but and not enough time or light to do everything. These two adorable children, Haley 6 and Thomas 3, were so fun to photograph. They are absolutely beautiful and aside from that they were willing to do all of the crazy things I asked them to do. The backdrop was a dream; cotton fields, a beautiful old white barn, open fields, and more. I've only had a short time to look through the pictures, and after seeing the first few I already have some favorites! Here are just some of the pictures taken yesterday.