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Yet another session I am so so far behind on. If you missed it, we announced yesterday that we are SO happy to be adding another little Krager to our family in May! My first pregnancy went pretty well. I couldn’t complain about anything the first few months. Sure, I woke up feeling hungover every day and couldn’t make it through the day without a nap in my office during lunch, but I was so lucky to have dodged the morning sickness bullet.This little nugget, however, is a whole different ballgame. So when you add all-day-long-sickness to the crazy fall photographer schedule…it’s not a pretty outcome. Which is why I am blogging sessions from July . Please forgive me.

I am so happy to have met this little family. The three of them are so happy together and were so welcoming to me. We had a great time just hanging out at home and playing with their little girl just before her first birthday. My very favorite kind of session.

Oh just looking back at this session makes me break out into a sweat. I am going to go ahead and say that we did this session on the HOTTEST day of the year here in central IL. I don’t know exactly how hot it was, but it must have been at least 120 degrees with 300% humidity. I kid you not. These adorable littles held it together much better than I did. I was a soaking wet mess by 10 minutes into the shoot. In my defense, I was running around playing Star Wars with them, but still! Ugh.

However…I am so glad I got to meet this beautiful family that Saturday morning in July. Grandma set up the session while her kids were in town with all her grandkids…including a so sweet 5 week old baby girl. It was so great to see these kids just let loose and have fun at grandma and grandpa’s.

Over the weekend I had the absolute honor of meeting three beautiful women. It makes my heart so happy to see a mom with her daughters like this. I can only hope my own daughter and I have a future full of love and laughter.

 And last but not least, part 3. This is my idea of the ideal session. We meet up at home to get those ohsowonderful homey lifestyle shots, then we dress up and head downtown, then we get all casual and go play at the park. Perfection. You see that first full size black and white? The one where they’re all snuggly? Maybe my new favorite .

I am so at home here. As I worked through ‘part 2′ of this session (you can see part 1 HERE), I felt all cozy and warm. Like, I wanted to snuggle with my computer. Weird. I know. But I cant help it. ‘At home’ sessions are my chocolate cake. Everyone is so relaxed, comfortable, themselves. And isn’t that what our goal is during our session? To capture your adorable little family in the most natural way possible? Don’t get me wrong, I love a park session or a fun downtown session, but our lives are not spent all dressed up in heels wandering around the park.

Something magical happens when a toddler gets to show me his room. They often grab my hand and pull me in, so excited to show off all of their treasures. This is what photography means to me. This is where I am at home.

In my own photography (as you can clearly see in my One Frame A Day project) I feel it is so so important to create visual memories of the simple, day to day happenings that we are going to want to look back on in 30 years. Personally, I will be much more likely to pull out the album of a true lifestyle session than a more formal session. I will want to flip through those pages a million times with my grown up babies remembering when she walked around in mommy’s heels and jewelry like such a big girl, or when she first learned how to ride her bike. Or that beautiful-slightly stinky-worn-stretched out-loved beyond belief blankie that made everything better. Or the way only a round of If You’re Happy And You Know It and that dang binki could calm him down when he was really really out of his routine and just needed to be comforted.

Many of my clients are opening up their homes to me and letting me glimpse a sliver of daily life. I hope they will continue to do so because it is the greatest honor for me.

This session was so. much. fun. We basically split it up into three parts, and this is the first. We visited one of their favorite streets in downtown Decatur. There was an adorable little popcorn/candy store that we had so much fun with. The little guy is Ben. He is a character! He would sit and wave at everyone driving by….it couldn’t have been more adorable. And let’s talk for just a second about how amazing these three look! We actually got stopped at one point and Andy got asked if he was running for office . I’m anxious to share the rest, but there were just too many for one post.

This was my first session walking around downtown Springfield. So much fun. I can’t wait to shoot there again. Bonus points if you can catch a little self portrait hidden in there .

Daddy tickles are the best. We dodged the rain tonight and got to shoot outside! This little cutie even got to hear my stupendous rendition of Itsy Bitsy Spider . Lucky girl.

Holy moly. I need to move to California. Like, now. It was somewhere in the upper 90′s with 198% humidity yesterday morning as we began our session at grandma’s house. I looked like I’d just jumped out of the lake by the time we were done, but at least we laughed our way through it.

Just a friendly reminder…I don’t think we do it nearly enough. Not much in life is worth being so serious over. There’s always room for laughter .

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