Happy Birthday

So here she is. Ms. Kaylee, turning 5 this week.

Kaylee- I need you to slow down. I know it defies all space/time conundrums, but please make it happen.

So this plea of mine- it begs the queestion- would I rather have you how you were a year ago than how you are now? The answer to that is a big fat resounding NO, because you are so dang cool the way you are now and I never even knew a year ago how cool that was. But even if I know this in my head, I still need time to stop and stand still (forever) cause you can't possibly get any better. Or can you? Head says yes. Heart still holds on to my little babies. All of them. Too hard to grasp how you could get even better with age cause you are so wonderful now. Mommies are illogical in this way. Too much thinking with the big red organ pumping away in our chests and not enough thinking with the gray matter.

So stop. But don't stop. You know what I mean?!? Thank you for listening to mommy.


This was quite a photo shoot. I wanted pictures of Kaylee as close to her 5th birthday as possible. So in preparation of a Kaylee + Me Photo Shoot, I bought her a bunch of rockin clothes.

In size 4/5.

Which was dumb because we all know she is a shrimp and still wears 3/4.

And then the morning I wanted to do it, Jesse beat me out of bed (which just dosen't happen. Ever.) and before I could mutter "where are you going?" he already had his cycling clothes on and informed me he was going on a 50 mile ride. GRRRRRRR.

I managed to sneak off with her that evening. It was especially hot and humid. And Buggy. And pretty yucky light. Couple that with Kaylee somehow knowing I was being "Super Dripping with Sweetness Nice Mommy" in order to keep her happy and get good shots, instead of my normal self, and I had quite a misbehavior on my hands.

What you don't see here is her climbing on top of my Suburban. With her new boots on. And sliding down the front window, making sounds reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard. And me sweetly and calmly asking her to get down as politely as I could instead of screaming "What are you THINKING? ARE YOU CRAZY?? GET OFF THE CAR!!" like I might normally do. And her ignoring me because she SOMEHOW knew this was not normal mommy, this was "I Really Want Good Shots For Her Birthday Album So I Will Allow Her To Misbehave Because I Don't Want To Upset Her, Mommy."

So here are the best shots of the evening.

Depelchin Family Fun Day

I recently did a pro-bono/volunteer event for Depelchin Children's Center-  Family Fun Day.

The families that have adopted children from Depelchin get together and it is a time for the parents and kids to interact with other adoptive families. Sadly this was the last Family Fun Day, as they lost their grant.  Here are some of the beautiful faces of Depelchin. 

And my favorite image from the event. Gotta love that priceless expression on her face ;-)!

Here is a little more information about this awesome organization.

For 117 years, DePelchin has been serving the children and families of the Houston area.  The agency was founded in 1892 by Kezia Payne DePelchin to shelter orphaned children. It was originally named the Faith Home, because Mrs. DePelchin had faith in the wonderful business leaders of Houston to support her cause. Although she died within a year, the community leaders, touched by her passion and mission, became united in their determination to carry on her work.

Just a couple more

There were so many pix from this session I love, I had to post a couple more since I finished editing them all last night ...

I love this family!! No Really, I DO!

So I normally don’t post this many pictures in a sneak peek, but since this is one of my BFFs (or one of my GIRLS if you will) of all time, the post is going to be a bit longer. And I also don’t usually get quite this personal with my posts, but again, it’s the whole BFF thing talking.

And also. I started this blog with really short posts, because I was trying to maintain a "professional" image. But it wasn't working out too well, cause I'm just not that serious of a person. It got really boring, really fast. And I just don't want this blog to be boring. I don’t want to write “these clients kids were so cute. Blah, blah, blah.”  I want it to be FUN and REAL like I strive so HARD to make my photography.

Laura, love you like a sister. I just love and ADORE those beautiful children of yours. And since it would be weird to say I love you John Michael (LOL!) I’ll just have to say you are all not LIKE family, but you all ARE family to me. In so many ways.

So in the interest of making this real, let’s take a very short trip down memory lane.

Remember driving around in my convertible as 16 year olds listening over.and.over.and.over to Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine, Madonna's The Immaculate Collection and Dr. Dre’s The Chronic? UM yeah, that’s only THE best music combination of all time!  Having a bad day? Program those albums in random order into your iPod, add Ditty by Paperboy, and you'll perk up instantly!

Remember our very first road trip to New Orleans in college ? And how I had to tell you to ignore Alicia so she would quit making jokes so we would quit laughing so hard since we all needed to get to sleep? And how it didn’t work because she just kept on cracking us up?

Remember your wedding? And particularly our bridesmaids photos with your little brother kicking and writhing on the floor in the not so distant background. Now THOSE are some real life photos.

Remember my wedding? And how I bumped my head on the table at my rehearsal dinner so that I had a huge knot on my forehead on my wedding day? That was awesome. I looked HOT! But you DID do a nice job on my hair ;-)... it kind of made up for the monstrocity on my FACE.

Remember when I called in sick to work so I could rush to the hospital to see you as you came out of your Csection surgery? I do believe I got some of his very first photos ;-)!!

And now. We already see a love connection between your guy and my Kaylee. How many times have we busted them sneaking off to smooch?  And the thought of being future in laws makes us oh so happy.

And Jesse makes fun of the two of us together. Trying to plan things. Both so laid back that the details, (like the actual meeting time and place) do not matter to us cause we just know that the important thing is that we WILL meet up.

This drives him bonkers. But I don’t care.

No, we don’t get to talk every day. But we don’t need to.

LOVE you!!!!

And because I know you appreciate a good outtake even more than myself, here's a GREAT one for ya. It's fairly reminiscent of the one of ME you have FRAMED on your wall.

Saturday Morning

It is unbelievably quiet around here. The kids spent the night at Grammies and Jesse is essentially comatose when he sleeps. Leaving me alone with my big shiny new computer he came home with the other day. He knows the way to my heart -not through diamonds and roses, but through Apple and Canon!  Am I a nerd or what?

Anyway, realized I forgot to post a few recent pix of my kids in the post below, so here ya go:

Presley- Why oh why does she have to look so much older in this picture?

Jude- yes. that is a FORTY DOLLAR T-SHIRT I bought for him. Is that not the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard? Who spends $40 on a Tshirt for a toddler?!? But what you can't see in this picture is that it is a limited edition Beatles T (only 500 made) that says "Hey Jude" at the bottom.  So I really had no choice but to buy it. It was destiny.

Emily- seriously don't know who taught her to work the camera the way she does. She even knows how to catch the good light.

Kaylee- sweet funny Ms. Personality Kaylee. And yes, she is wearing a Beatles T too. Albeit not a $40 one.

I grabbed some friend's kids to test out a new location. While I LOVED the location, I am a little afraid to take any clients out there because the grass was REALLY tall and although I'm not scared of snakes- lots of other people are and who knows what was lurking in those tall and glorious weeds.

Hmm- That was a run on sentence, and my 8th grade English teacher would be so disappointed in me.

Anyway- it's really too bad, because the location would have rocked otherwise. Maybe we'll get some boots on and try again.

Bye for now, I am off to photograph a pro bono event for an Adoption Center. CAN'T WAIT!!

Well Behaved Children

I saw on another photographer's website profile a list of things she liked. One of the things listed was "well-behaved children." Say what? I think that's such an odd thing for a children's photographer to write. I wonder if she would like to photograph my kids. Sure, sometimes they are the sweetest, most well behaved little humans on the planet, but more often, they pull a stunt like this: full on tantrum in the middle of the Wal-Mart, kicking and screaming, writhing on the floor, dress pulled up over her head. She may as well had a microphone because the volume levels she achieved were unbelieveable.

Reason for the trantrum? Against my better judgement, I had let her push the cart down an aisle, where she promptly rammed it into a 70 year old Grandma and a display of Ramen Noodles. So I took the cart away and the tantrum ensued.

This my friends, was the sweet face of my Presley that caused all the ruckus. I know, hard to believe right?

My one and only experience at a mall chain photography studio (hey! I had a coupon for a free 11x14!) was another diasaster. The opposite of the tantrum described above. They tore that place up! Zipping in and out of backdrops, pulling props off the shelves, running into other's shoots- yep, they did it all. The "they" I am referring to is Tweedledum and Tweedledee- aka Presley and Kaylee.

I'm not sure I even have a point here.

But to give equal footing to all my children in this post...

Emily -not sure who taught her to put on that "I'm so bored with you supermodel look."

And sweet baby Jude. Can you believe my dad took a brush to those curls this weekend? I mean, heLLO! Did he not realize he turned a head full of glorious curls into a fluffy 80's Dukes of Hazard 'do?

I Don't Know How You Do It

I've heard the phrase "I don't know how you do it all" too many times to count. Four kids+ Corporate Management job + side photography business that is exceeding my initial expectations... Yep, I've been called a SuperMom more than once.

Let me let you in on a secret. I'm not really all that put together.  You'll have to forgive me if things like this happen on our shoot.

Driving my Suburban at the speed of light to a shoot because I was already running late. I called Jesse on the way to rattle off a list of things I wanted him to accomplish while I was gone (he just loves it when I do that).

Him: Where are you?
Me: On my way to my shoot. You knew that.
Him: You DO know Emily is in the car right? She was pretending to be asleep and I couldn't get her out, so I left her in there.
Me: UM. NOOOOOOOOO. Didn't know that.

Sure enough, my little stowaway was in the back seat. Still pretending to be asleep. Had I checked my rear view mirror as I peeled my SUV out of my driveway backwards, I may have noticed.

That's how this shoot started. How did it end? Oh, with me leaving my green phone and keys in the green grass somewhere along the half mile we covered while shooting. And my clients helping me search as the sun was rapidly setting. How I found them still remains a mystery.

Oh but the shots in between- the glorious shots of this wee one and his big blue eyes. MMMMM.

My shoots certainly aren't boring... but that means my pix aren't either!

San Antonio Road Trip, Part Deux

When I met the parents of these two, they did not have children yet, but they did have two cats with two eyes. No, not two eyes on each cat, two eyes total!  They were and continue to be big time animal lovers, which I think contributes in part to why they are SO fun and laid back.  They were fellow graduate students at Trinity University with my hubbie Jesse (where Mom is now a professor), so it was only fitting we do their children's shoot there.

I love the way big brother is gazing adoringly at his little sis in this picture!

Oh, and did I mention that is where Jesse PROPOSED to me?

On campus, in front of the chapel.

Over pizza from Little Caesers.  He was sweating nervous bullets and I turned into a crying, sappy mess. It was SO perfect.

Oh, I almost forgot this little tidbit. This wee one was getting a bit tired of being the center of attention. We resorted to the one thing Mom knew would get her attention.

Tacos.

Can't say I blame her.

She was SOOO rejuvenated after setting eyes on a bag full of bean and cheese goodness!