You've likely seen these sweeties before on my blog... this time we went fishing! I llllooooovvvvveeeee this family!  Mom and Dad made poles out of wooden sticks... and when I asked these ladies what their fish looked like, they replied "Daddy!"

And here is little brother, aka "boy boy."   Mom brought along his bedding, which was still pretty much brand new, as rumor has it, he has yet to sleep in his crib... ha!

If I don't blog again before Thanksgiving, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Something New

These are a bit different than my typical newborn images. Which turned out to be a really, really good thing... because I think these are some of my favorite newborn shots ever.

These images remind me of what it feels like to have that perfect little newborn and how I could just stare for hours at their tiny, miniature features...and how each little spastic movement as they got used to living in a big world and not enclosed up tight in a womb brought a fresh, giddy little smile to my face... and how each little yawn and sweet smile they gave as they slept brought an indescribable joy that only another parent could understand.

Ahhh, I was one mother that was in pure heaven with my newborns. I didn't mind the crying or sleepless nights, or the sudden loss of any and all personal time or space. I had found (or been given really) a new kind of love so powerful and consuming that made those other "inconveniences" completely meaningless and trivial.  

Courteney, thank you for allowing me to capture these moments. You are so crazy beautiful in your role as a mother and I hope you see that through these images.

xoxoxox

I love my clients

You know why? They are all too sweet and polite to tell me I suck for making them wait so long for sneak peeks.

They get it.

They know I am swamped and have four little kids that come first. They know I put my heart into their sessions and their images. They know I put my heart into other's sessions, so they sit quietly and patiently and wait for their sneak peeks and for me to finish their galleries (even if I am a day later than I promised I would be), and don't bug me because they get it.

Thanks guys. Y'all rock.

And because this mom is especially sweet and I know she has been waiting, here is your sneak peek!

Remember her from this session?  Same awesome cheeks. Eyes are even bigger and bluer now!

Be Still My Beating Heart...

This wee one certainly caught my heart... after she played with and sang to my sock monkey, she did the sweetest little curtsy/bow and then very exuberantly thanked her audience. 

I won't forget that performance for a very long time ... makes my heart smile :-)

And you may remember her little brother from here.   He's getting big... as they all do. *sigh*

We had to cope with some silly plants that decided to explode with stickers all over all of us... the perils of being an outdoor/natural light photographer... luckily it did not take us long to figure out which plants we needed to avoid. Maybe I should have stayed in Girl Scouts a little longer to help me with my botany skills (which reminds me... isn't it getting kinda/sorta close to Girl Scout cookie time? Time to stock up on those Thin Mints! If you have not tried them with Starbucks Coffee Ice Cream, you are missing out on a little piece of heaven!)

Here's the oldest sister (I don't know if you can tell from these pictures, but little brother looks EXACTLY like her!). Isn't she gorgeous?!?!?!  These kids have the PRETTIEST eyes!

Oh, and before I forget... I want to remind everyone that I do have gift certificates available! They make a GREAT Christmas/baby shower/birthday gift if I do say so myself!  They can be purchased in $25 denominations.  If you didn't get all the prints you wanted from a prior session, this is your chance to start dropping hints to the hubbie!

Remember this beautiful family?

Love these guys.

I do love a family that is up for anything and doesn't mind getting a teensy bit messy...all for the sake of art of course.

How fun is this?!?

The session that almost wasn't...

This session was rescheduled SOOOO many times, I think it set a record. We had to deal with broken arms, my floor refinishing project from hell that kept me out of my house and forced me to move sessions around, hospital visits, and torrential Houston weather before we finally got around to shooting. In fact, Mom told me she wanted to hire me way back when I was first starting out and before I was even in business after she saw some pictures I took of a mutual friend.  As it turns out, we went to the same university (not that that's rare around these parts... GIG EM AGGIES!), AND had the same double major (Management and Marketing thank you very much), so it was destined we eventually meet up.

During our initial emails, she told me that "If there's time, I would love a picture with the kids... just so they know I did show up for more than the hospital. I'm our picture taker, so I have very few with any of them."

How many moms feel that way? Its such a sad fact of reality... Moms- if you shy away from the camera, now is the time to take control and put it in your husband's/sister's/friend's hands and ask  demand you get some pictures with your kids!!

(Now I need to take my own advice and teach that husband of mine how to work the camera!

Anywho- I think all THAT deserves an extra large sneak peek, dontcha think?!?

Playing More Catch UP!!

I'm trying to catch up the blog with all of the awesomeness I have been lucky enough to experience lately.

So let me show you my amazing clients, in order from youngest to oldest :-)

5 days old. She was such a chunky monkey for only being five days old! I can't wait to see her again in a few more months when we do pictures again- I hope she holds on to that chunkiness!

10 days old and ready to party. He did not want to sleep for me... I think he wanted to show me what I can already tell are going to be beautiful eyes :-)

7 months old. I am SO incredibly jealous of her pouty lips! Angelina- watch out!

A high school senior. Who brought a huge bag of some of the most rockin' clothes I have seen in a long time.  I'm almost jealous of her wardrobe, but then I remind myself even if I had all these cool clothes, I wear running clothes. Every day. All day. It's hot, I know. It's probably better than the yoga pants/fake furry crocs I was sporting last winter.  Hopefully mom jeans are not in my near future. Don't judge- it could happen to you too!!

It was about 127 degrees outside when we did her shoot, but she's as cool as a cucumber!

And a couple soooooo in love with each other. Oh, and did I mention what hotties they both are? Um hello! Take a look at Mr. and Mrs. Your Hotness.  

Thanks for playing catch up with me!

Baked Goods

A beautiful mother/son session with two beautiful human beings.  The session was a surprise gift from Grandma.  Her sister and I collaborated for weeks to make the surprise session extra special.,and putting our two heads together, we came up with this party for two.  

And you probably remember this wee one teaching us all How to Yawn in this post here.  Now he shows us 

The 3 Essential Steps in Smiling 

by Jackson

And last we have a good old fashioned dance off... the only music being the rap I started spur of the moment to get these kids moving.  I've participated in a couple of dance offs myself ...although they typically involved a little Prince or Michael Jackson... and occasionally Poison. Yes, you read that right. Poison. A la "Unskinny Bop". Oh yeah.

Mini Sessions!

By popular request, I decided to do mini sessions this year!  What's a mini session? A very short (20 minutes) session with me. I have three "concepts" in mind (you'll have to email me for details on THOSE). 

Cost is $275 and this is what it includes: 

- 3 fully retouched digital files with reproduction release (this means you can print as many copies as you want for personal use!)

- (1) 11x14 print (from one of the digital files)- sprayed and mounted for durability

- (25) 5x7 flat Christmas cards on pearl paper

- option to upgrade the 11x14 print to any other product (for example a larger print, or a canvas)

- option to purchase any other products (including additional Christmas cards) at 10% discount

Here are the dates:

October 30 (Saturday)

November 6 - this is the back up date in case October 30 is rained out.

This is a huge savings off of my regular prices and I have very limited spots, so let me know if you are interested and I will put you on the list right away (we will nail down exact time and your "concept" as soon as I get a final count.)

And here is a FUN family session I did last month! This family is from Australia and I probably sounded like an idiot telling them over and over how much I loved their accents and how I was going to start calling sunglasses "sunnies," and coolers "eskies" because I thought it sounded so cool!

This little girl was a TOMBOY... Mom reported she loved making mudpies. I love tomboys... probably because I was a bit of a tomboy myself... I reportedly wore a pair of little boys Levi's 501 button fly jeans for my entire 5th grade career and absolutely refused to wear a skirt no matter how much my mom begged and pleaded with me:-).

I Wonder...

... if her parents got sick of me saying 

"OMG SHE IS SOOOOOOOOO CUTE."

Tags: Houston Baby Photographer, The Woodlands Baby Photographer, Spring Baby Photographer, Houston Baby Photography, The Woodlands Baby Photographer, Texas Baby Photographer

Flying Kites

When I first showed up for this session, Mom explained that the boy's hairstyles were telltale of their personality. I think this picture matches their hairstyles pretty well... who is the mischevious one and who is the rule follower?

I don't normally blog quite so many pictures in a sneak peek, but I just had to with this session... these pictures tell such a story!

It was about 5,567 degrees outside with NO WIND (not even a tiny little hint of a breeze), but that didn't stop us from first flying kites...

Then celebrating with a birthday cupcake and a birthday wish....

Then the heat got to us and we got a little silly...

Love families that want something a little different and a little more fun for their annual family pictures...love these!!

In Love

You know that feeling you get when you first realize you are in love with your spouse (or boyfriend, or girlfriend or significant other)?

And its the same feeling you get sometimes when you look at your kids?  I know you don't feel like that all the time, you would probably explode from endorphins... but every once in a while you just fall in love with them all over again and you get that feeling.

I get that feeling through these pictures of this mother and son.  I can feel how crazy they are about each other.

Back in the Swing of Things

Hi.

My blogging skills have stunk lately, but I am coming back around. Kids are in school now, which means I actually have some time to do this... YAY.

What's new in my world? Well I am glad you asked.  I am going to start this post by pimping out my hairdresser, Melissa, who gave me the most amazing treatment yesterday that, has liberated me from the flat iron forever!

Can I get a fist pump and a whoot whoot?

Before the treatment, my hair was, well- nappy. After treatment, it dries straight (but not too flat) and the best part is, even in the hurricaney, rainey season of Houston, Texas, there IS NO FRIZZ.  Let's hope I am this excited about it in a week or so, cause right now I still can't believe its MY HAIR on top of this head.

It kinda feels like a wig. In a good way.

And meet two beautiful young women who already HAD awesome hair :-).

If you have not already gotten your senior pix done, give me a holler!

Happy SIXTH birthday Kaylee!

Kaylee. My crazy, crazy little Kaylee.

Six years old. Kindergartner. Wow.

This is who you are at six years old:

- You have never. And I do mean never. Met a stranger.  To you, everyone is a friend and you are as comfortable with the random person sitting three tables over at the restaurant (that you likely yelled across the restaurant to) as you are with your sisters.  I love this. I love how uninhibited you are around people. You love everyone- you wrote your kindergarten teacher a note telling her you loved her before the first day of school. I get a little lump in my throat thinking about how truly and perfectly innocent and  so very Kaylee that gesture was.

- Loud. So, so, so very loud. Not that we are quiet around here, but wow- your voice reaches decibels higher than any other six year old I know. Once I asked you to quit shouting. You replied "I DONT SHOUT MOMMY, I JUST HAVE A LOUD VOICE."  At least you know who you are.

- So very messy. I think that goes with the uninhibited thing. Sometimes you make me crazy trying to keep up with your messes... you're like a little hurricane! You share a room with Presley, who tries so very hard to be clean and organized. I believe its likely a futile effort.  We would probably both be better off if we just shut the door and pretended the mess wasn't there, wouldn't we?

- A blooming artist (I hope!). I asked you if you wanted to play soccer again in the fall. You replied "I just want to do arts and crafts all day mommy," (or rather "I JUST WANT TO DO ARTS AND CRAFTS ALL DAY MOMMY!").

- Hyper. It's hard for you to focus because you need to keep moving. That is, unless you are hyper-focused on something- in which case you can concentrate like no other (this is usually either an arts and crafts project or the TV...you LOVE watching TV).

- Curious. If there is something to be picked up and examined, no matter how insignificant it seems to the rest of us- you have already picked it up, turned it over (even if it is a plug in of wood-stain-removing-air- freshner that ended up spilling all over my newly refinished hardwood floors... oh the thought of this makes me want to cry), and asked someone what it was, what was it doing there, and how is it used.

-Smiley- you smile (a great-big-light-up-the-room smile) all.the.time.

- Funny. You are just a funny kid. You walked into Nannie's living room the other day after playing a computer game, and declared you had just ordered something to be sent to the house for your birthday. We are still waiting to see if it was your imagination or if a big yellow tattooed circus elephant (or something similarly random) shows up on the FedEx truck.

I joke that I am going to get a call one day when you are a teenager and you will have hitchiked to Mexico on a whim and you will be standing at the top of a bridge ready to bungee jump with a group of European celebrities. You're just crazy and random like that.

You are one of a kind. Don't ever try to conform- no one will ever be quite like Kaylee.

I'm so very priveleged to be your mommy.

Headed Out of Town...

... to San Francisco for my cuz's wedding.  But when I get back and get the kids in school, I have loads and loads to post.

I'm going to miss these little boogers.

A Very Bad Blogger

Whooooaaaa, its been a long time since I blogged. Long for me anyway.  I have a good excuse and its The Floor Refinishing Project From Hell which was followed by the Ongoing Clean Up Job From Hell.  What was supposed to be a 2.5 day refinishing job has turned into 11 days of going back and forth between our house and Grammie's house as the floors are stained, sanded, restained, resanded, re-re-stained, re-re-sanded and on and on and on... and who knew so much dust could stick to your walls?  I think we are finally back in the house for good now, although the couches in the garage, the coffee table in the kitchen and the dining room set in Emily's room will have to remain for a few more days until the floors totally cure.  Morale of the story... if anyone tells you refinishing hardwood floors is a quick and easy job- they probably have not done it before.

BUT... they look BEAUTIFUL now so I will quit the moaning and groaning... Yippeeee!!!!!!

Add that to one husband going back to work after a blissful summer off, four kids NOT in school, and some out of town trips and you have one photographer getting seriously behind!

Stay with me cause I have loads of sessions to post, plus some stuff from an AMAZING workshop I attended from the seriously talented and totally magical Barb Uil of Jinky Art!

Here's my boy. I pried the tie shirt off of him long enough to get some pictures. Actually he is doing well with the whole tie shirt issue... he is down to wearing it only 4-5 times a week and not 7. Yay!