One more session and I'll be FULLY caught up on my blog! Yay me! :) This was a super fun session....they contacted me about doing an "extended family" session, which I'd only done one of before a looong time ago, so I was a wee bit nervous...but it turned out so great! Everyone in the family was sooo nice and cooperative and really a lot of fun to shoot! :) These little girls were soooo adorable though!!! And, as you can see, the Jones family is expecting baby #5 this year and after 4 girls are getting a boy! What a crazy/fun household that will be! I'm so excited for them and maybe will get to do my first boy infant session this year when he comes! ;) ;) ;) 

 

One more session and I'll be FULLY caught up on my blog! Yay me! :) This was a super fun session....they contacted me about doing an "extended family" session, which I'd only done one of before a looong time ago, so I was a wee bit nervous...but it turned out so great! Everyone in the family was sooo nice and cooperative and really a lot of fun to shoot! :) These little girls were soooo adorable though!!! And, as you can see, the Jones family is expecting baby #5 this year and after 4 girls are getting a boy! What a crazy/fun household that will be! I'm so excited for them and maybe will get to do my first boy infant session this year when he comes! ;) ;) ;) 

 

And here's the latest sweet little girl that came to visit me! Her Momma is my next door neighbor and man do they have an awesome tale to tell for her birth! Little Reagan wasn't due til the beginning of August and unfortunately her daddy was leaving in July for a deployment. So the morning he was leaving, her momma got out of bed and her water broke and little Reagan arrived that day!!! So luckily for her, her daddy was able to postpone his departure and was there for the birth and awhile after for paternity leave. And we were able to get these beautiful pics in before he left! I mean, seriously...how amazing is that??? I was so excited for them and SO happy to capture these precious images for them! Big sister was a little hesitant to do pictures with baby Reagan but I got some of her too :) Love her red hair!!! 

This is another maternity/infant back-to-back that I get to do this year! We are still waiting on baby Starlin to arrive but here are Janell's gorgeous maternity session! I love the colors they chose, super fun and so cute! It's so much fun to meet with first time parents and capture this amazing next step in their lives!!!

And here is baby Kacie! I was excited to have her come and get her pictures done, especially since just a few days later her daddy left for deployment! So sad but I'm happy he was able to be there for his little girl's birth and for awhile after! I LOVE the pictures of him with her! Sooooooooo sweet!!!

I was contacted about this session by this beautiful girl's aunts' and I was super excited to do it! I've only done one maternity/infant back-to-back session before for my sister so I was really excited to do this for Kassidy! Her maternity pictures turned out SO Gorgeous and I am in love with this session!!! I had such a hard time deciding what pics to edit and put up because I loved them all! 

 

In June we made a short trip over to Alabama to go to my Sister-in-law's wedding! I was, of course, excited for her, but also for me because I took the pics! It was a small, intimate little ceremony so it was right my alley wedding-wise and I had a lot of fun with it! 

 

My darling little Elizabeth is growing so fast! I've been using her for little sessions every time she hits another "month" mark :) I can't help it though, she's SO CUTE! :) So here's her 3 month pics....

 

 

and her 4 month pics!!! She's so much more mobile now and rolling everywhere! 

And this one was a post from after my trip that I forgot to publish :) :) :)

This sweet little girl recently turned 1! I remember doing her 2 week old pictures, doesn't seem that long ago! And here she is smashing some cake! :) Her momma is my neighbor and wanted some tips on how to use her new camera so we set up the cake smash and took some pics! It was fun for me, especially since I've had a bit of a break taking pics! And Cake Smashes are one of my favorite types of sessions! SO much fun!

 

 

 

And another I forgot to publish...whoops! Totally missed the mark the day I was working on these last time!

My little sister came to visit while I was visiting home so I took a little time to take some pictures of her and her cute little kiddos!

Another post I didn't hit publish on from my trip home to Missouri! This is my oldest sister's family. I can't believe how fast these kids are growing! 

 

I meant to post this one a long while ago but it got skipped :) One happy thing about my trip home to Missouri was I got to see my very best friend and meet her cute 3 month old little girl! I snapped these one day while they were visiting me :)

 

 

 

The next little girl to visit me was Lillian! She's the sweet little girl of the Tijerina family, who used to be my neighbors but moved off base and this year added baby #2 to the family! I tell ya though, I thought my little baby girl had lots of hair but Lillian has her beat! I have never seen so much hair and such dark hair on a little baby girl! :) LOVE IT! 

 

I've been lucky to have quite a few beautiful newborn girls lately and I've been loving it! I love getting newborn sessions first of all and I've been loving having them close because it's challenging me to try new things so each session isn't "the same". Trying new things is fun! :) First up is little Scarlet...who is the newest baby of a friend of mine and who was the biggest baby I've had visit me actually! :) Her birth weight was 10 lbs 13 oz! I love me a chunky baby though!!! :)

 

I captured this homecoming a few weeks ago in the wee hours of the morning (which happens quite a bit with homecomings and opens up quite a few challenges photography-wise :) ). It was a lot of fun and this couple were very happy to be back together! 

 

Military Homecomings are one of the perks of being a photographer in a Military community. I love all the sessions I do but Military Homecomings are just a super special moment to capture. Deployments, well let's just be honest, they suck! :) But unfortunately, it happens...a lot around here, and the homecoming is such a highly anticipated moment! Capturing that moment is an honest joy and so happy! Whether it's a wife waiting for her hubby, or a wife/mom and kids...it's always awesome! 

This Homecoming was from a few months ago (I'm behind on my blogging :) ). This little guy was an adventurous little thing and kept us busy til his daddy got there! I love seeing dad's come home to their little ones! SO sweet!

 

A couple weeks after my daughter was born, my husband left for his deployment and a week later after that I took a trip home to visit my family! While I was there I took some pictures for my family...starting off with my super cute nieces Brinlee and Jerica! I have some super cute nieces that's for sure!

 

 

After my visit home, my dear niece Carmen came with to help me out for a bit and I took pics of her at the beach! She's much pickier than the littler girls but I think she's gorgeous :)

Believe it or not but 2 1/2 months ago I had my sweet little Elizabeth! We very anxiously awaited her arrival and now all of a sudden it seems like time has gone super fast! I've really enjoyed having a newborn around again though, especially as cute and sweet and ultra cuddly as this little girl! I've also had fun taking lots of pics of her! Having a newborn at your 24 hour disposal is awesome for pictures :)

 

I can't remember if I've mentioned before or not but this past year I did a lot of work for a fellow photographer, Kelly Cortes, who is the creative awesomeness behind Creative Imaginations Photography. I had found her on Facebook after I moved to NC since she was a local photographer (although she is based in FL but has a branch up here since she has a nice clientele built up in the area from living here before) and I love to follow other photographers. Anyway...one day she posted that she was looking for a photographer in the area to cover Military Homecomings for her...I answered it and started working for her and am SUPER glad I did! I had been thinking of doing homecomings for awhile but am glad that this opportunity came up because she definitely has more of an "in" in this area than I do and I've been able to do and learn a lot under her mentorship. :)

I have had a LOT of fun doing homecomings for her and am so grateful for the experience they've brought me and for the opportunity to capture such a wonderful moment for these families! As a military wife myself it really touches home and it's hard not to get emotional doing these sessions. It meant a lot of late nights/unpredictable times but so worth it! Especially capturing a dad's first time holding his child...those ones get me the most!!!! I think I did around 15 homecomings last year for Kelly and it was really so great! Here are a couple of links to a few of them that I did. 

Butler HC

Atwood HC

Vu HC

Boni HC

Towards the end of the year Kelly's other associate photographer in the area was out of town for awhile so I got to take over some other sessions for her, including some family sessions, a maternity session, a Mom and me session, and a 9 month old session. I was excited to add some more sessions to my experience with her! 

Maternity Session

Mom & Me Session (This has to be one of my favorite non-homecoming sessions I've done for Kelly...I LOVED how it turned out and being able to focus on doing a larger variety of mom/daughter pictures since that was all that the session was for! Normally in a family session I only do a few of mom/daughter since there's a lot of other poses with other family members that need to get done. It was fun to just focus on mom/daughter for this one! 

Craig Family Session

Bean Family Session

9 month old session

Anyway, it's been a wonderful opportunity/experience working with Kelly and learning from her. I've been able to go to her for advice, critiques, even shadowed her at a wedding before I did Tim and Maurissa's, and it's been awesome to have someone to talk photography with! I'm super grateful for all her help and look forward to learning more! I am sad this year will be a lot slower for me session wise but am glad I was able to do so much last year and know I wouldn't have been able to do half as many sessions as I did without her!  Yay for stalking Facebook right? :) So thank you ever so much Kelly! You're simply amazing :)

And last but not least...some maternity pictures I took at the beach...well my hubby took them for me since they ARE of me (we even used my 4 year old to take the last pic ;) but I edited them and they turned out pretty cute for the few we did so I'm putting them on here anyway :) This is me at 38 weeks! I wanted a few pics at least of this pregnancy that weren't just belly bump shots on my cell phone so when we had this gorgeous day last week I took advantage of it! We are super excited for baby #3 and are SUPER ready for her to arrive! Hopefully any day this week she comes and I don't go over! I realllllly don't want to go over my due date! So ready and excited to meet her! This is the last blog post I have to update though so next time I post will be of the little angel! I have a few new things I've acquired for infant sessions so I'm excited on many levels to take her pictures and show you!!! :) Til then...wish me luck!!!

A fellow Navy wife and friend came to me awhile ago and asked me to take some pictures for her to use for advertising for her Fitness Boot Camp and Personal Training. I was excited to do this for her and try something new! It was a fun session and she was super excited about them so win/win for us both! 

In my church children are baptized at age 8 so I have noticed with photographers in areas where there are a lot of LDS members there has been a growth in "Baptism/8 year old" sessions. I love seeing these sessions and having such a special age captured! My good friend's daughter recently turned 8 so I was excited to do this type of session for her! I love how beautiful and pure and wonderful they turned out with Brinlie in her special white dress and the beach back ground...simple perfect! 

 

I was really, really hoping to get someone to do a session in the lovely cotton fields that are all over here but decided a little too late and nothing worked out with the families I was trying to set up. So I resorted to using my beautiful children! :) If all else fails right? :) We had gotten our family pictures done not too long before, which turned out awesome and I LOVE, but unfortunately they weren't cooperating enough to get a picture of the two of them so that was my goal setting out on this "just for fun" session. They still weren't super cooperative...my boy was too busy playing in the dirt and watching planes go over head but luckily I got one good pic and that's all that matters! I was able to get some super cute ones of my adorable little girl who is growing up so fast! I absolutely love how they turned out though and am excited for next fall which I can hopefully get someone to do a session in the cotton fields! It really is a gorgeous spot!

Here is another beautiful family who came back this year for family pictures! I really enjoy the challenge of having a repeat client and it was a good challenge with this family too because they have some preteens and I haven't done a lot of family sessions with older kids! They were really great though and I love how this session turned out! Such a beautiful spot, beautiful lighting, and a beautiful family!

 

Family sessions are probably the most frequent type of sessions I do and I really LOVE when a family returns to have me do their family photos! This beautiful family used to be my neighbor but moved not long before these were taken which was sad! They were great neighbors! Luckily they are still in the area and asked me to do their family pics again! I happily accepted and love how they turned out! Their little boy Wyatt is SUCH A CUTIE and was SO perfect taking pictures! Like seriously perfect little guy...so happy and cooperative! And I love how they wore camo...can you tell they are definitely an outdoor/hunting type of family? :) Love it! I was also super excited about this session because they were announcing baby #2! Hopefully I'll get to do an infant session when she arrives! ;) 

 

Next session to update...Tim and Maurissa's Wedding! Which is definitely the biggest, most nerve-wracking, most time consuming, but very rewarding things I've done with my photography so far! I have never really felt like I wanted to do any weddings but Tim and Maurissa came to me after having their original photographer fall through on them so after a lot of debating I decided to do it! And I'm so glad I did! I'm still not ready to jump in and do weddings on a regular basis but I felt like this wedding would be good experience for me and a great learning opportunity. They were so fun with their engagement pictures and their wedding day was awesome too. They were such a laid back couple and their families were super awesome and helpful and cooperative. It all made for a great first wedding to photograph and I really had a lot of fun. I was also lucky to have a friend from church who is a fellow photographer that was willing to shoot second for me and I was super grateful for that back up and support! So here's a few collages I put together to show off some of my favorites! Sorry for the B&W overload...I just love the look of it! And a few single photos to show off some color :)

Today I'm trying to catch up on some past posts to help pass the time while I wait for my baby girl to arrive! 39 weeks now so any day now! I'm super behind on my blogging though so it's a perfect time to update. 

These two little boys came to visit me last October....crazy long time ago I know! They were super adorable then and are even cuter now! You should see them...seriously, seriously CUTE! Anyway...these pics were taken when they were 3 1/2 weeks old since they were born a little early and came home later than most babies. I've been wanting more experience with newborns and still want more because they really, truly are a hard, time consuming session! But I LOVE doing them and love new little babies so it's worth it! I was excited to do a twin session for the very first time and expected it to be more of a challenge and it definitely was! I was able to get some really good shots of each boy individually but it was really challenging to get good pictures together! They kept trading off on wanting to eat and having dirty diapers so it was hard to get them calm/together and then positioning them together was challenging too. I'm happy with what we accomplished though and at the very least we got great shots of each of them even if it was by themselves! 

 

And the last session (yay I'm FINALLY caught up on my blog!) was of my dear friend Morgan! She was actually married in July but brought her dress back so I could play around and do a bridal session! I've been wanting to do one for a long time but just haven't had the opportunity so it was fun to do it for fun for a friend. Our other friend Beverly came with to help and just really have a little "girl" outing so it was super fun. Perfect session to do for a trial/first time one...casual, fun, no pressure so I was able to be more relaxed/not so nervous as I still sometimes get with sessions :) Anywho! Here's the gorgeous Morgan!

And now for the latest sessions I've done! This past weekend I was able to take this sweet family's pictures again, which it's always so wonderful to have a repeat family, especially one that I've become friends with! The daddy of the fam was home for R&R again so time for family photos! :) This time we did the beach at sunrise which was SO pretty! I haven't done too many sessions at all at sunrise but I might have to talk more people into it. :)

My first family session of the fall! (well technically not fall but ya know ;) I guess more like the "family session" season :) We had some delays but in the end it worked out the day we did it...and it was super gorgeous and beautiful out so even better! I love the sunsets here by the water, so pretty and great for pictures! This cute little family was so fun...toddlers definitely make for an interesting session, trying to keep up with them and trying to keep them still for at least ONE picture where they're looking, but a lot of the time I love the more "candid"/following them around/letting them be themselves. Love little kids!

After doing Max's Cake Smash I was super excited to do my own little guys! I had to wait a bit to get to do it cuz they're two months apart but it was worth it! So far the kids have all been somewhat hesitant to get into the cake but not my boy! I took some pics of him by himself at first but he was cranky so I pulled out the cake, put him down, and hurried back to my spot with my camera with barely enough time to get his first touch of the cake! He just WENT for it! And he totally didn't want to stop...he just kept going and totally enjoyed it :) Love this kid!!!! :)

This little cutie is a friend of the White Family, whom I took family pics of last year. I love getting referrals! Makes me happy :) Anywho....little Evelyn turned two so her Momma wanted pictures! She was definitely an active little two year old and it took a lot of work to get her to look and smile but we got her Daddy to do some animal noises which proved to be the right trick...sometimes you just gotta try and try til you get the right trick! :) If all else fails, pull out some cake ;)

Max is my little Andrew's best friend so when he turned One I was super excited to do a cake smash with him! Cake smash's are SO fun and I love doing them! Max was a little timid/unsure that he could really have the cake all to himself so he took a bit to get into it but was so cute! And then we finished up with a little bubble bath to clean up :)

I met this couple at church. They actually got married last year, although at his hometown, but had to wait until this summer to be sealed in the Temple. (Click here  and here to find out more of LDS Temples) So when she asked me I was a bit nervous to do it but also excited so I said yes and am glad I did! I'm a bit nervous to do weddings but since LDS Weddings/Sealings are done inside the Temple where you're not allowed to take pictures of the ceremony, I felt a little bit less nervous. Taking pictures at LDS Weddings mostly consists of the couple coming out of the Temple, group pictures, pictures of the couple, and the reception so a bit less pressure with not having to take pics of the ceremony :) Which that's the most nerve-wracking part for me. Anywho... :) I drove up to Raleigh to the Temple and took their pics and had a lot of fun! It was neat to do something different and broaden my photography genres. :) So here's some pics from that day!

This sweet little girl is the first daughter of a friend of mine from church...she has two older brothers so Momma was happy to get a little girl! I got her in here a little later that I would have liked but we still got some cute pics of the wee girl! She's SO CUTE!

This is yet another amazing couple we've met through the military! Up until two weeks ago (sorry for slacking off on posting...again! :) Tim worked across the hall from my husband so we've seen quite a bit of him and have been around since the beginning of Tim and Maurissa's relationship...so when they asked me to take engagement pictures for them I was super excited! I love doing family and baby sessions but I haven't gotten to do many engagements so I was excited to do some more! And I absolutely LOVE how they turned out! They were such a fun/easy couple to photograph and we got so many great shots! Here are some of my favs!

One of my sweet neighbors had a cute little girl last month and I got to take some pictures of her! I was super excited cuz I've been wanting to do a newborn for SO long! Little Madison is so cute and I had a lot of fun taking her pictures and LOVE how they turned out! Here's some pics of the sweet little girl!

This session was with a friend of mine from elementary/high school who was expecting her 2nd baby! I was Super excited to do a maternity session, I've only done the mini one for my sister, and really love how these turned out! She had her little boy a week ago and now has a sweet little boy named Dale! Congrats again! Wish I was there to take pics of the cute little guy!

Another session I did in Missouri was with the Anderson family, another repeat family! I love having customers ask me to do their pictures again....makes me feel great because they like what I've done and it challenges me to do something different! These guys were absolute troopers though...it was one of my last couple nights in Missouri and the weather was getting crummy and was gonna snow the day after, and did snow, but we braved some slightly wet, cold weather and got an awesome session out of it! I really love the coloring in these pictures and love pretty much how everything turned out! Thanks again Anderson family for being such a great family to photograph!

Love this adoring look she's giving him! :)

These kids were so great and patient!

Gorgeous family!

Such a cutie!

and a lovely young lady!

and of course the littlest are always adorable!

little stud too! :)

trying to get some fun ones in :)

This is one of my favorite sibling shots!

The girls!

And the boys! and then it died :) But yeah for it working enough!

Thanks again Mills Family! And thank you again for being so patient with me :)

These two little girls are so adorable!

Love the look on her face!

They were definitely energetic as well but she really could turn on a smile!

a little bit of "following the kid" shot :) love the light here through her hair

can't forget the wee one!

I'm a big fan of profile/side/more serious shots, as my daughter is notorious for only giving me good ones like that, but I love how they turn out!

sweet sisters!

and the happy parents!

such a beautiful family!

I love their little personalities shining through here ;)

loved the lighting! and such a happy face!

These ones are my absolute favorites!

love her hair here :)

And there's the Jones family! SO pleased with how these turned out :)

Cute family!

little stud, he was so cute!

She was a toughy to get to look at the camera but I caught her! :)

She was too but still cute!

I got a lot of her "playing"

Her as well...she loved to run!

can't forget the boy!

Absolutely love this one!

She's so adorable!

I met this cutie 3 years ago and he is growing up to be such a handsome, sweet little guy!

This little gal and my little gal are besties and are so cute together!

This little guy is such a doll but also a little stinker! He was pretty hard to get to pay attention during the session...we had to bribe him with fruit snacks in between shots :) Worked though!

Love this adorable shot of her looking up at her Momma!

Such a beautiful family!

I really love this location and love the sunsets here!  Love this shot especially.

And there is the Korpi family! Love you guys!!!

He was a hard one to catch/keep attention, especially with all these ducks in the pond! Total distraction for a toddler...

I absolutely love these ones with the trees..the coloring is so pretty!

Finally got some of the little guy at the end, we did a lot of running around and peek a boo behind the trees :)

love this shot of mom and baby :)

and love this of dad and baby!

We didn't really have much of just baby from the session so I had him come over for a little session of his own to get a few shots. He's such a cutie!




I promise I tried different angles but angles is one of the things I need to work on with babies and this turned out to be his best one :) still cute though :)

So there is the Tijerina family! Thanks again guys, I loved taking your family photos!

Proud big sister

We love Grammy!

and my little guy!

so sweet

This one is my favorite!

Can you tell we're Bama fans? :)

I really love these with his dad

this is my all time favorite!!!

These next ones are from his 3 month mark (I didn't do anything special for 2 mths) and luckily it was close to the holidays so I could try out the lights background! I've been wanting to do this for ever and really love the look of it. I think I might try it again doing a few things different this next week but we'll see ;)

my strong boy!

and his big sister :) She didn't really want to take pictures but was a good little model for me :) (She just turned 3 two months ago and is such a big girl and a big help to me with the new guy :)

So that's what's been keeping me busy these last few months! My little guy turns 4 months next week so I think I'll try something for that. Anyway...I have 6 family sessions from the past couple months waiting in line to be posted so on to that! :)

So we soon headed out to the swings instead! Much better :)

I know these guys might look a little familiar but here are the McMains, one year later! Aubree texted me one day and asked if I could take their family pics again and luckily it was right before I went to MO for my trip so it all worked out to do them. I met them up one morning at Powell Gardens, such a pretty place!, and we took some pictures! We pretty much followed the kids around the paths, stopped wherever there was a pretty spot they liked and just enjoyed the nice, hot, Missouri morning! :) I was a little nervous, doing my first repeat customer and all but also felt so happy that they came back to me! Always a nice boost to your uneasy/not so confident self to have someone ask you to take their pictures again. :) So thank you so much McMains family! I really enjoyed taking your family pictures and hope you're as happy as you were the first time, if not more! :)

I was nervous too though about making sure to make it different, which sometimes it is, but it was a much different location and they went more casual dress so I think I did pretty good on changing things up a little. Still need to work on that though and in directing people but I'm slowly getting better! It was a bit difficult to get a good group one because the kids were all focused in different directions but luckily we got some right in the beginning that turned out great, didn't even have to swap heads to get one where everyone was looking! :) Anywho...enough of my babbling, here's the pictures!

My sister Emily called me up one day and asked if I wanted to take family pictures for her friend Hillary while I was home, and duh, I said yes. :) Emily and Hillary are both foster parents and Hillary currently has an almost one year old boy that they're hoping to adopt and wanted family pics with the little tyke! I, unfortunately, can't post any pics with him in it yet but here's some pics of the rest of the family! Hillary and her husband have an adorable little boy named Cohen and here's their family pics!

This is one of my favorite pictures of all I've done so far! He's such a little stud :)

We tried to get some pics with the horses but they kept coming up close to me or moving away so we didn't get too many

such a pretty horse though!

Thanks again Hillary for asking me to take your family pics! Hopefully I can put up more soon with your cute, chubby little boy!

A month ago I was able to take a trip home to Missouri to visit my family and while I was there my good, good friend from high school asked me to take some engagement pictures for her! I of course was excited to do so, not just because she was a good friend but because, as you can see from my last post date, I haven't had much going on in my "photography" life lately! I moved in March to NC and know very few people and am now 33 weeks pregnant so things have been slow....but I was able to do a few sessions in MO with Jeanie and Kurt's being the first so here it is! I was a little nervous since it had been so long but I'm happy with how they turned out! Luckily Jeanie is pretty easy going and Kurt just went with it, even though he wasn't too thrilled to be there, but it went good for my first time out in awhile! Helped get me back in the groove :)



















And there you have it! Thanks again Jeanie for asking me to take your pics! Congrats again and sorry I can't be there :(

On Valentine's day my good friend Nicole's little girl turned 1! So of course I wanted to try out another cake smash, plus Kaitlyn is my buddy and she is SO adorable! I'm going to be so sad when she moves next week and then we move after, they are going to Korea so I won't see them for a LONG TIME! :) So I was happy to do this for Nicole before they left :)

The Birthday Girl!

Some girly pics...with a silly face :)

see? adorrable! :)

I love this one!

Time for cake! She sat there like this and yelled at it for a bit before she ate it...so silly!

and then went all delicate..one finger at a time...testing it out ya know? :)

Then she decided it tasted good and went for it!

didn't even care when the tulle got caught

absolutely loooove this one!

and done!

I really love doing these cake smash shoots and hope I can do more in the future! They're so fun!

I know it's been a looooooooooooong time since I've posted here but things have been suuuuuuper slow since I moved back to Mississippi and will continue to be slow especially since I'm moving again in March! :) I did do a 1st birthday cake smash session for my good friend's little boy but am having an editing slump with it...I was expecting a nice sunny day outside and so I set it all up in a nice spot in my house to get the sunlight but it was cloudy and gloomy and I wasn't prepared with anything else but my regular lights. So I've had to mess with it a lot more to make it the way I wanted and it's taking a long while. :/ Eek.

But anyway.....this past week I had the opportunity to take pics for my good friend Chelsea and Jaime who both had their husbands come back from their deployment this week! I was so super excited for them and so excited to take pics. It's such an exciting day anyway but BOTH of these women had babies while their husbands were deployed so that made it just even more exciting/special/amazing. I still tear up just thinking about it! It was just so sweet and wonderful to capture those moments of the daddies meeting their babies for the first time and it just melts my heart! I loved being a part of it! So here's my friend Chelsea first. Her hubby came off first :)

waiting for the buses to arrive!

Love this cutey! She's so pudgy baby cute! :)

And the buses are here!

Yay! almost time!

Daddy is found!

So happy!

Meeting his little girl!

I ADORE this shot!

Trying to hold Avery but it didn't work out so well :)

The happy happy family! Yay!

And here is the Connor Family! I was worried I was gonna miss them, she had asked me two days before to take pics for her because she had heard I was taking some for Chelsea so I was definitely ok with that as long as they didn't come off the bus at the same time. Luckily, for me anyway, they had a hard time finding him and by the time I was done taking Chelsea's pics, I went over to them and followed til they found him. One of the little boys took off and we tried to get him back but he actually found his dad! So cute!

Looking for daddy!

Found!

Mom made it over... he was waay done the line.

Meeting the new baby!!! SO sweet!

And the other kids finally made it over! SO happy!

Spending a few more seconds with the new baby, see? isn't that one of the most touching things ever?

heart melting right here! Love it so much

And the family is complete! Congrats again you guys!

And last...the Anderson Family!!!

And here are the Filetti Family pics! :)

I am DONE with all three of the sessions I had to finish- edited, up on facebook, put on CD, and all sent out! Yay me! :) Anywho...so now on to posting here! :) Here is some more pics from their session!

This session was actually done before the last two sneak peeks but I was trying to get them done before I left but didn't...oh well. Can't do it all! So I've gotten quite a few done and thought I'd put them up here before I left. After this post I'm packing up the computer so I'll besides checking stuff on my iphone, I'll be pretty much off the posting for awhile...

So this family I've known for a LONG time! The momma was my high school English teacher, and has always been a fav of mine ;), and I actually babysat for the two little ones when Matti was a wee lil' baby! So I was really excited to do this session and LOVED how it turned out! Gorgeous family, gorgeous location, gorgeous day! :)

This is the last family session I did in Missouri. My sister Emily is a foster parent and one of her fellow foster parent friends asked me to do their family pics before I left! So we headed up to this beautiful fall spot and took some pics! Here's a couple sneak peeks! More pics from this session, the previous session, and the one before that will be up in the next couple weeks. Gotta settle into my new house first!

This is another friend of mine from church. She asked me months ago to do their family pics but wanted the "fall" look more so we did it last week. Unfortunately since I'm moving on Friday (eekkkk!!!) I'm not going to be able to finish editing the entire session before I go so I did a couple sneaks! The mom is majorly into horses, they have like 15 she said! So she wanted to do some with the horses so I was totally up for that! I love being able to take pics at family farms/with things they love/an activity they love, makes it more "them" and shows their personality as a family I think.  Anyway, here's the sneaks! They have a teenage boy and 2 year old twin girls, who are adorable!

Before I took the Welpman Family pics, Addie (the baby's mom :) asked me to take some of the baby by himself, which I was so excited to do because I really want more experience with infants/babies and I have some fun, cute props for it too! Unfortunately this didn't go as well as I had hoped, partly because he was a month old (not the prime time to take infant pictures :( ) , he was WIDE awake and just had woken from a nap when I got there, and then the rest of the fam was getting ready for the family pics so it was a little busy. So he wasn't too happy with me and didn't want to relax and did NOT want to wear any of the cute hats I have! I did get him in one before he got mad but I was kinda sad. :( I did get a few but hopefully in the near future I'll find someone else to try out more infant shots! :)

{I figured it out! So here's one of the posts I've been trying to post but couldn't...although the images are turning out a little blurry, not sure why, they aren't like that on my computer so...oh well, super sorry about that!...at least they loaded! And they are a bit out of order too, but that's no biggie :) }

This past Saturday I did two family sessions, and once again they were siblings of my best friend Sarah! Thanks for having so many siblings Sarah! :) Anywho...this is her sister Tacy's family (their farm is the one I've been using to take pics at, thanks again Tacy! You're so great!). I've been learning some new things that I put to use this session and I'm pretty happy with the results! I did have a couple eek moments while I was going through them but LUCKILY I was also shooting JPEG+RAW and was able to fix the RAW version with no problems! Thank goodness for that!!!! I was also really happy that I've continued to change things up even though I'm at the location. I did, of course, use some of the same spots but luckily since they live there, we were able to do some different things. :) So here we go!





















And here's two of my fav "before and after" that I did, yay RAW image editing! :)

{Yay! Blogger decided to work for me tonight! I do have two posts in queue but the pics won't load but this one will so...yeah...guess you'll have to wait for those!)

This is the second family I did a couple Saturday's ago, yet another one of Sarah's siblings, but this time she did family pics with her hubby and kids and his family. They were such a fun group, had lots of ideas and a GORGEOUS area to take it in! They live just down the road from the farm I've been taking pics at and love, but they own a hatchery (I think? I'm totally blanking right now...) but anyway, I know they have a lot of land and there are a LOT of ponds on it and lots of wooded areas and countryness and yeah... :) Love it!

This is the biggest group I've had so it was definitely a learning experience and a bit hard for me! There's just so much you have to think of at the same time and with not having things automatic yet it was a good experience :) The thing I had the most trouble with was dealing with the lighting....which first off it was early afternoon so the sun is a smidge more difficult to deal with and then half the time we were in treed areas so with the light coming in through the branches/leaves/etc. I didn't always catch when one person had a bright or shaded spot when everyone else didn't...shoulda been easy to catch right, but I was also focused on getting the right settings/posing/getting everyone to look/smile/keep their eyes open/etc. that I kinda got distracted sometimes, still learning and slowly getting better! :) But I still loved this session and had lots of fun. Thanks again for letting me take your family pics! Anywho! Here are the pics! {These are backwards, just fyi, I always forget blogger uploads them backwards from what you put them in...weird...)

So I know I've been promising to post new pics this week and I promise I've been TRYING too but blogger just won't let me upload them! I don't know what the deal is but it's driving me crazy! I have two posts ready to go...just no pics! And there's no point of posting on a photography blog with no pics so I'm just not posting :( For anyone that can, I did post the two sessions I'm trying to post here on Facebook. One is little Maci's One year old pics, here, and one is the Corpening Family Pics, here.

Hopefully I get it worked out soon because I am editing another family session from last weekend and am shooting one more this Saturday and then ANOTHER next week! Yay! So I'll be super busy with all that, thank goodness! My weeks have been dragging lately :) Anyway, have a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

I took these pics of sweet little Maci a couple weeks and finally have them done (well I had them done awhile ago but am FINALLY loading them to the blog :)! Her birthday isn't til November but since I'm leaving next week (eek! coming up sooo quick!) her Momma and I decided just to go ahead and do it now :) Unfortunately it was kind of an icky day out so I had to throw up a make-shift little spot in my little place instead, so the lighting kinda sucked and I had to make do with trying to fix it in Photoshop, which took my awhile til I was happy with some of them but I think they turned out pretty cute! I can't wait to get back to my own place and set up an actual little spot with a backdrop, etc! All in good time though I guess! :) So anyway...here's some of my favs! She's so cute and adorable and I'm so sad to leave her and her Momma!

MomMe Design has posted week 2 of their giveaway so check it out here! There's some more great prizes/vendors for photographers on top of the ones she had last week! Amazing! :)

P.S.- I've got a few sessions I'm working on so sorry for the lull but there's some great ones coming! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Here's another amazing giveaway you all should check out! Jewelry and Baby Bling by Dara is having a 10,000 fan giveaway which includes 102 vendors and 51 winners, with two prizes each! So cool! So check it out here and check out her facebook page here!

For all any photographers out there, you need to check out this great giveaway from MomMe Designs here! They've got some great prizes-super amazing props, templates, etc! The vendors are great too, so if you don't win it's a great list of vendors to check out! :)

I wasn't going to do Evelyn's pictures til next week (which I'm still gonna do a couple because I made a birthday/picture dress to do her pics in but still need to fix the straps and I got some pumpkins for her birthday party and had to use them in the shoot, hence taking pics before the party! :) I had fun with this although she was a bit hard to keep focused...I've never had much luck getting her to pose/look at the camera/etc for an actual shoot, which is fine, I've gotten some great shots despite that, but I guess that's the rambunctious toddler coming out! :) I got some good front shots this time and some great ones that show her personality so I'm super happy with them!

One of my favorite photographers I've found through facebook is Crave Photography! She's an amazing photographer, offers mentoring sessions to anyone around the world (I'd SO love to be mentored by her!) and now has opened a new line of templates called "Crave My Design". She just opened her new blog today so she doesn't have all of her templates/etc. up but the holiday templates/cards she has up are AMAZING! Gorgeous work. So in celebration of her opening she is doing a giveaway for ONE of EVERYTHING in her shop to one lucky winner! So go check it out/enter the giveaway/get inspired for Christmas! :) cravemydesign.com

This past week I was able to take pictures of my sister and her beautiful family! I was very excited to do it and it went pretty good! I love the pictures and love the setting (we went back to my friends family farm), although I was a little worried about going to the same place and trying not to do the same stuff I did before but I think we did pretty good in that regard! Plus more people changes up what you do for poses anyway.

I will say here that I'm sorry for the slight inconsistency of my watermark/logo throughout the pics...I've been reading up a lot on watermarks/publishing pics online and the reality of people stealing your images and using them for themselves/copying/cropping/editing/etc....there's so much stuff out there on all this! It's crazy and overwhelming and scary sometimes ;) So while I was editing/watermarking this session I kinda did a couple different things to try out and see how I liked it (more so for the pics I posted on facebook than here) and I'm still deciding exactly how I want to do things...I just want to be able to protect my photos and not have to worry about anything else! I love photography and taking the pics and even love editing, I just don't look forward to learning/having to deal with all the business stuff attached...ugh...not my forte! But I'm slowly learning what I need to do and know that it will be a long process to learn everything I need to be successful so patience is what I need! :)

So yeah...here's some of my favs from the session...more are posted on facebook on my new ForEvers After Photography page! I got tired of putting everything up on my personal page so I made this one so please stop on by and "like" me! :)

Oh, and here's a couple of fyi's before I start...these are backwards...blogger does that when you upload but whatev! :) Next..don't you just LOVE the colorings of most of these? I, of course, did a lot of different edits, but the ones shown mostly here are a particular one that I LOVE...it's called brown haze and it's from the Pure Haze Collection from Pure Photoshop Actions. Absolute LOOVE it, especially outside and with the barn wood here! It's GORGEOUS! I'll have to do a before and after and post it later so you can see the magicalness of it... it's just so rich and warm and yummy! ;) If any of you use photoshop and want some awesome actions I HIGHLY recommend these awesome ladies! Ok..now for real, the pics!

For any of you photographers out there you need to check out this AMAZING giveaway!!! Finished Vision Photography is putting on this great giveaway with 52 AMAZING vendors so even if you don't win it's a wonderful list of great props/photographers/etc! Check it out here! Finished Vision Photography. It's definitely worth the time!

I recently took a little vaca to visit family and friends down south and while I was in Mississippi I was able to take a few pics for my good friend Chelsea, who just had an ADORABLE little girl!!! I was super excited to do them for her but wish I had more of my props/etc. with me to do cuter things! I wasn't really prepared but got some cute shots still! I'm still super new with working with newborns so I've gotta work on my skills/techniques for that and be more confident about doing things. I've also got to learn more about lighting/flash/etc for inside. I've kinda been focusing on other things lately because I've been doing so much outdoor work so I haven't put much time in learning more about indoor so that's definitely on my list to do! So here's some of my favs from Avery's session!

This week I do another sibling of the McMains Family...this time my best friend Sarah's brother Aaron and his wife Robin, who I happen to have known since second grade so this was fun shoot! Aaron was home on leave from his deployment for two weeks so Robin asked me to take some family pictures for her, so of course I did! Helping out a friend and fellow military wife is something I'm super happy to do! :) Anyway, we went out to the family farm the other morning and took some AMAZING pictures, if I do say so myself :) This is probably my favorite shoot up to date. The lighting was gorgeous, the setting was awesome, and it was just perfect! I've been learning more about my camera and different settings so my pictures are starting to turn out better and I didn't have to "fix" edit as much this time so I'm pretty happy with myself for that! So here's the pics!

I've always loved this stretch of road before you get to the farm! I was so excited to take pics on it finally! And we got it at the perfect time, the sunlight streaming through the trees was just AMAZING!






















These are my second FAVS, after the gorgeous tree lighting :) I love the whole scene with the trees and barn and the gate...so picturesque!



















Thanks again for letting me take your pics Robin! I absolutely love them and almost wish they were mine :) SO don't be surprise if I have these hanging in my house someday! :) haha...

My good friend Sarah recommended me to her brother and his family so this is what I did this weekend! It was a pretty quick session, but with four little kids you kinda have to go quick...get what you want while they are happy before a major meltdown happens. :) They were all pretty good, just a little relucatant to smile sometimes but that's ok! When some stranger is sticking a camera in your face for nearly an hour and mom make you clean up and dress nice, there's bound to be a little resistance ;) So here's some pics of the beautiful fam!