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Well, I don’t really, but this little red head was such a cute little stinker! This little guy’s mommy hosted my mini sessions that day and he patiently waited until the end of the day for his turn. He has got the craziest red hair and the most gorgeous eyes I have ever seen! He is a lucky man to have entered into such a great family. He’s got parents who adore him and grandparents who adore him even more. It was an honor guys .

 

I don’t know about you guys, but we are ready for some sunshine this week! Don’t get me wrong…I LOVE (love love LOVE) storms! Nothing makes me happier than listening to the rain…the smell of rain (mmmmm!) the look of dramatic clouds, awesome lightning…ask me about the time we hung out on the roof of our house in college to watch a thunderstorm roll in! That was the coolest thing ever! However, there’s this thing that happens when you become a mom. It sucks the fun out of everything! Okay, I’m only kidding…but really, driving through St. Louis last night with Hailey in the car practically watching the clouds swirling in that nice little circular pattern above us was not cool. Tornadoes were being spotted all around us. Normally I would have been a happy girl to be around all the weather drama. But when you’ve got another little life you’re responsible for, the game totally changes. But we are very happy to be back safe and sound in our  nice little house and out of the crazy storms.

I just had to show you guys this little girl I had the honor of photographing. I know you will all agree with me when I say she is the definition of a classic beauty. Look at that smile! She was such a sweetheart and I loved hanging out with her! She was truly such a pleasure to photograph because she made it easy as pie.

You might remember this post from a while back. I got to hang out with a great group of families for the afternoon and photograph the kids just being kids. The sneak peek did not do them justice, so I thought they deserved a little more blog time . This little guy stole my heart. For real. He was a total natural, loved my camera…and check out that outfit?! Mom is amazing herself!

And lets take a second to talk about that wall…I am IN LOVE with it Katie!! She did an amazing job decorating her little guy’s nursery and I am pretty sure I will be attempting that in my next nursery.

I’m warning you…during my shoots…someone is likely to get tickled.

Sigh…I am so happy to finally be seeing some very welcome signs of spring around here! It seems like lately winter is never short enough.

How excited was I when I was asked to photograph this little girl (and her equally gorgeous siblings this spring!)?! Very excited . She is the cutest little stinker . And she totally knows it.

Can we just talk about how absolutley adorable it is how these little kids get such a kick out of themselves?! The simplest little thing ~ like climbing a set of stairs ~ can make their whole day. I wish I could think like that…maybe that will be a goal. To find pure joy in the littlest thing . Happy late birthday E!

She’ll have a full post dedicated all to her after the weekend…but I know mom and dad are excited to see a little something from last night. We lucked out with some gorgeous weather! And the gorgeous little 1 year old didn’t hurt any .

 

Sweet baby girl,

Each day you get closer and closer to 2 years old. I really can’t pretend that you’re still a baby anymore. You are getting to be such a big girl! For the most part, you are a pretty happy, laid back little kid. And I love it!

You *adore* your toothbrush. Why? I have no clue. But any time we walk  by the bathroom, without fail, you yell “BOO BUSH!!” which sounds pretty much exactly like “BOO BUS!!” (school bus ). And while you don’t know how to say tooth paste yet, you sure do know how to “sign” it…meaning you hold out one hand and use your other hand like a tube of tooth paste to show us that’s what you want .

You amaze us with “your” dogs. We now have 3 big lugs running around this house, and you are totally fearless when it comes to them! Not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing . But nothing is cuter than when you walk up next to Tank and put your arm around his back and just chill . kinda like in this picture.

And its so cool to see you developing your own little character. At the same time, its pretty scary to think that the way your personality develops is greatly influenced by your dad and me. I hope that we are teaching you good things. I hope that we are teaching you to be confident. To be  proud of who you are and embrace every. single. thing. that makes you unique, different, special, awesome, beautiful, amazing…you. I hope we are teaching you to be a kind and gentle soul. To be good to people, to share, to care about others. It’s amazing how far just being nice will get you .

And to end with a quote from another momtographer’s blog ~

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma…which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They, somehow, already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is just secondary.” ~Steve Jobs

I know there are some anxious mommies waiting for this sneak peek. Ladies ~ your kiddos are all rediculously gorgeous! I feel so lucky to have gotten to play with you all yesterday afternoon! The stunning little red head here belongs to a friend of mine from college. She approached me a few weeks ago about doing some mini sessions at her home. Mini sessions aren’t something I’ve done in the past because they require me to be disciplined and strict with a time schedule…which I am not. But this really worked out so well! I headed over to her house yesterday afternoon where she had set up a beautiful little playdate-ish afternoon. The families started rolling in and it truly was just like a play date. The kids all got to be kids and run around the house checking out the cool new toys, the moms and dads got to hang out and let their kids burn some energy. Meanwhile I snuck away with each kid, one by one and photographed them in the different areas of the house. None of the kiddos felt overwhelmed from being focused on too much, and if they got tired of playing model they could go grab a snack or watch some basketball or ride the coolest baby rollercoaster! I think everyone had a blast…including me . This is the session that led to this tweet.

So ladies…enjoy this teaser!  And if you’re interested in setting up something similar, give me a shout!

One of my photography rockstars is Tara Whitney. She’s amazing. Check her out . Too bad she lives out in Cali ~ but I’m working on convincing Justin to go out there for a family shoot…how cool would that be?! Anyway…I’ve been a fan of the out of focus image for quite a while (check out the 11th image…wow, I posted a LOT of that session!). So I was dilerious with excitement when I saw this on her blog! You’ll have to scroll down a bit to see the image. It feels pretty cool to know that I’m thinking along the same lines as her .

Anyway…life happens in the in betweens…that’s what its all about. As I say on my website, “Its the moments before the pose, or after the pose. The moments in between that make the memories.”

So, this morning while Hailey was happily painting with water…I got out my camera to capture these in betweens that we will cherish so many years down the road. Of course, being born in 2008 my daughter knows that there is a picture on the other side of my digital camera, so as soon as I pick it up she is screaming “baby! baby! baby!” {because, to her, every child ~ herself included ~ is “baby”}. Kind of throws a wrench in my plans…but today the water was keeping her busy enough that I could snap away.

So ~ here’s a reminder to all of you out there…with or without kiddos of your own. Take time each day to remember the in-betweens…because those are what are special…those are what will stay with us when they’re gone.

And yes…she did go *there* with the paint water! .

I ‘facebooked’ the other day that I needed to find more reasons to use the word swagger. It’s a fun word isn’t it? Swagger. Go ahead…say it. Now say it with attitude. Swagger. Yeah, I know you’ll all be finding ways to use it this week .

Anyway…this little dude definitely has it. I mean, look at him! If more of my clients showed up to sessions like this, I totally wouldn’t mind.

And this is little dude’s baby sister. She has swagger too…but in a completely different way. This girl does things on her own terms. Period.

We had a crazy (in a fun way!) session on Saturday that resulted in a nasty snowball fight.

We will definitely be getting together again in the spring ~ hopefully baby girl decides she wants to play then .

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