I adore babies at this age.  Their curiosity about the world has taken off and it is so fun to watch them discover and learn.  Also, they can sit up, laugh, giggles, smile and roll around a bit.  They seem like they have left that super fragile infant age and are starting to really let you see their individual personalities.

This little guy was SO good for me! It seems that he will have a pretty easy going and social personality.  He had just flown in from the east coast and was a little sleep deprived/off schedule, but still had lots of love and smiles for me at 8am!  His mama planned this session for him with his Grandma, and I was so touched by the love in their little family…it was oozing from every pore.  What a special gift not only for these beautiful ladies, but for this little boy to treasure one day.

This reminded me of something my sis-in-law recently spoke to me about.  Her family had to prepare for evacution because of some forest fires that were burning close to their home.  She had the very difficult job of deciding what they would pack into their car “to save”.  Afterwards, she was reflecting on how the most important things in her life were not things at all…they were the people and the memories.

Her car was full of photos.

Her young children, on the other hand, were saving stuffed animals, clothes and toys.  Photos were probably the *last* things that they would think of as important, but she knew that someday those *things* would be worthless to them and they would have been so grateful to their parents for saving their memories.

The lesson?

Take snapshots.  Have portraits done.  Treat them as family heirlooms.  Cherish them.

We had a week with 12 people in our house and then 1.5 days off and more friends arrive this past week.  On my day off, I squeezed in this newborn session.  I have to say that I thought it was going to stress me out to be booked back to back like that (I had a session the next day as well), but instead, being there with this teeny tiny brand new person and hearing the parents stories of delivery and the first weeks of their life as a family of three was very calming.  Life slows WAY down when you are caring for a newborn.  You have to move slow and be calm, because they sense your stress and anxiety.  It was a good way to recharge for another week of tour guiding, cooking, laughing and loving with my good friend and her two beautiful children.

At eight years old, you are a dreamer—a lover of nature, books, animals and people.  You always have time to investigate a bug, interesting flower or chat with a friend, no matter how big of a hurry the rest of us are in.  “Breckin, please hurry up.  We’re late!” has absolutely no effect on your speed, and as much as it frustrates me, I adore you for it.  You also spend lots of time lost in your own imagination.  I’d give anything to peek into that creative mind of yours to see what you see!

You are such fun to talk to, because you have so many interesting facts to share with anyone who will take the time to listen.  You are always enlightening us about the habits of rare animals, a favorite part of the latest book your reading or what actor is playing a part in the latest kid movie.  Last summer, we went to Costa Rica and you became quite an amazing bird watcher.  It was so fun to see you passionate about learning since in school you seem generally unenthusiastic and unmotivated.  It is quite common for us to see you fall apart on the floor about having to do a book report or a particularly uninteresting section of your homework packet, but when learning is engages you, its truly remarkable how incredibly intelligent you are. When motivated, you can comprehend and regurgitate such large amounts of complicated information verbatim!

Seriously, I don’t know how you read as much as you do!  Last week, you read over 30 books and not just little books, 30 age-appropriate, chapter books!  You have already read the entire Harry Potter series except for the last half of the 7^th book.  You said that it was starting to get to be a little too scary and that you, “needed to take a little break” from it.  I think it was starting to get a little too grown up for you to enjoy as well, but you would never admit that!  You are still my kid that thinks she is already grown up and able to take care of herself.  It is SO SO hard for you to follow directions, esp. if you don’t really believe in them.  We try hard to make sure that you were/are a part of creating most of our family rules.  It is truly our only hope of cooperation.

I adore how much you love people.  You seem especially good at accepting others for all of their differences and quirks.  This is truly one of your special gifts…to see beauty in everyone.  Lately you have really grown in your ability to empathize with others, to put their needs before yours and to even give up something you love to make someone else happy.  Seeing it in action brings such happiness to my heart and tears to my eyes.  I am overwhelmed by how truly inspiring you are at such a young age.

All of the sudden you started to need some space.  I swear it was the very week your turned 8 that you decided that you were too old to play with Peep and needed to sleep separate from her.  We went and bought a bed for you to put in a separate room and we worked to give you space from your little sister (as much as she hated it).  The funny thing is that once we allowed you to have your space, you came right back to the family and started needing us all again.  Lucky us!

Every day you bring us all so much joy.  I am proud to be your mama and always will be.

Happy Birthday Little Lady!!!

There.  I said it.  Amazing how hard a simple statement like that can be for some of us women, huh?  I’ve struggled with having a good body image for so long.  If I was feeling even braver, I might go into some of those details, but not today.  Suffice to say that when I look into a mirror, I don’t focus on the positive.  I see EVERY flaw.  The flaws are not so little either.  In my mind, the flaws are all that anyone can see.  They become huge glaring deformities that strangers gawk at.  Laughing?  I’m not.  I *know* it sounds a little ridiculous, but there was a point in time that this problem affected my life in a big way, but I’ve come a long way from that low place.

I remember that during an active part of my healing process I read an article in some magazine that talked about women and how we judge ourselves too superficially.  I’ve looked for this article and can’t find it anywhere so you are going to just have to take my interpretation of the “walk away message” or WAM as my high school English teacher would say.  The article talked about how typically men tend to judge their bodies on a fairly utilitarian scale.  They want to know what their body can DO for them…how fast or far can they run or how much weight can they lift.  They see their bodies in a positive light largely because of what it can accomplish.  Women, on the other hand, judge themselves based on how their butt looks in jeans.

When I read this article, I was also running quite regularly and had completed several races.  I remember thinking how good I felt about myself when I exercised, and I incorporated this way of thinking into my life as much as possible.  Several years and two kids later, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon.  I can tell you that there is no way in hell that I looked down at my legs that had just carried me 26.2 miles and thought, “if only they weren’t so chunky I would look good.”  Are you kidding me?  At that moment I was the sexiest woman alive.  No doubt about it.

Why don’t we women look at what our bodies do for us?  Why don’t we see pregnancy scars as beautiful and be happy that we can play tag with our children, walk the breast cancer 2-day or go for a nice bike ride along the beach?  We need to strive to accomplish healthy goals in order to improve our body image instead of trying crash diets that will only put us into another emotional roller coaster.  We have amazing bodies!  We need pay attention to what we can achieve with them and stop twisting uncomfortably in front of the mirror, struggling to see our backsides.

In an effort to embrace my body for all that it is, I recently worked with my good friend Shanelle to take some photos as a gift for Chad for our anniversary.  This was really hard for me.  Really hard.  Letting someone see me for all that I am and not hide behind my camouflaging clothing was another huge step forward for me.  It was good to see that even though my thighs are bigger than some women’s, my belly button is scarred from being pregnant three times and my stomach will never be perfectly flat again, I AM STILL BEAUTIFUL.  To make my point even more clearly, I decided not to alter my body when editing the photos.  Some of you probably know that I do have the ability to give myself the breasts I’ve always dreamed of or to slim down those chunky thighs, but what kind of a gift is THAT?

“Here Chad.  I took these photos of myself and changed my body to make it look the way I think you want it to look.”

Um, THAT’S not sexy!

Sexy is just having confidence and saying, “I took these photos for you of me.  Just the way that I am.  Just the way that you see me and love me.”

So anyway, I have a feeling that I might send a shock wave through my neighborhood.  I can hear the rumors of Shawn posting sexy photos on the Internet already and my poor girls trying to defend me.  And, what will my mom say?  You know what, I don’t care.  I honestly hope that one day my girls DO read this.  With all of the other body image crap out there, our young girls could stand to see a whole bunch more *real* women raw and unedited on the internet.  I think that many of us have forgotten what women are even supposed to look like.  As for my mom, I think she will be happy to see how far I’ve come and maybe even proud of me.  :)

In all seriousness, things *were* a bit wild.  This sweet dad-to-be almost stepped on a snake during our session, but not just a gopher snake—a rattlesnake!  I have re-played the conversation we had a few times over in my head, because our calm, quiet and almost slow motion reaction surprises me.

Him:  ”There’s a rattle snake right here.”

Me:  ”Really?  How come you are not moving away?”

Him:  ”Well, I don’t know.  It isn’t moving.  I’m not even sure it is even alive.  Oh, it’s alive.  I can see its tongue.

Me:  ”Are you serious?”

Him:  ”Yes.”

Me:  ”A rattle snake?”

Him:  ”Ya, I can see it’s rattle.”

Me:  ”Seriously, you should probably move away.  I don’t hear a rattle.  Is it straight or coiled?

Him: “Pretty straight.  Do you want to see it?”

Me:  Well, I don’t know.  Maybe.”

Then, I slowly walk over and look at it.  Confirm that indeed there is a rattle snake about 6 inches from his leg and then wonder just how many more are out there.  We were in the middle of the field at the time of this discovery.

It only took us about 2 minutes to walk in, but about 15 minutes to walk out!

This first family image melts me.  It’s definately been added to my list of favorite family images.  Enjoy your sneak peek K family!

1. I love you because you have so many unexpected skills, like playing the didgeridoo, juggling and walking on your hands.
2. I love you because you can always make me laugh.
3. I love that you support me in the things that make me happy even if you don’t want to be or can’t be a part of it.
4. I love that you facilitate us going on running, hiking and biking adventures.
5. I love that you are such a caring and involved father.
6. I love that you are so incredibly smart.
7. I love that you look at me like I am the sexiest woman alive even after 9 years of friendship/dating and 11 years of marriage.
8. I love that we have so much honesty and trust in our relationship.  We can talk about anything without fear of judgment.
9. I love that you respond to my dramatic and passionate moods with calmness, reason and love.
10. I love that you make me a better person.
11. I love you for your piercing blue eyes and muscular body.

Take a moment to meet sweet Baby C.  She is so mild mannered and sweet.  She didn’t even want to dirty my blankets and withheld all of her “accidents” for later in the day when we took photos with her lovely mama (who of course took it with the more grace and beauty than one could imagine).  Seriously, this little girl ate a meal when I arrived and then slept the ENTIRE session!  It was a dream day as a photographer especially since I truly enjoyed my time with this mama.  I could have stayed all day

This became oh so apparent at my last newborn session.  I adore this new little family.  I had a ton of fun playing during their maternity session with balloons and an umbrella, and I had big plans for thier newborn session, too.  I dreamed of a sleepy baby that only woke up briefly enough to give me a big smile and a cute stretch only to quickly fall back asleep.  HA!

Baby J has too much spunk for that.  No matter how full he was on milk, how warm and cozy the blankets were or how much we stroked his nose or played white noise, he was NOT interested in a photo shoot!   I’m going to be completely honest here and admit that I was pretty nervous for a while.  I was stressed that things were not going as I had planned.  Stressed that I didn’t get the shots that I thought I was going to get.  So much so that I let it erode my self confidence as an artist.  When things don’t go as expected, self doubt can sneak in and sabotage you.  It has the potential to ruin the rest of the session as it cripples you, hindering your creativity and your ability to think on your feet.

Luckily, patience and flexibility prevailed.  I had to abandon my plans and just shoot in the only way that Baby J would allow it….being rocked by his mama, wrapped up in a blanket or snuggled tightly in his parent’s arms.  He didn’t want me to mess with him AT ALL.  He would remind me not to touch him, not to move his hands, mess with his feet or fix the blanket.

Guess what?  I LOVE their newborn images so much that I will definitely be adding a couple to my portfolio (with their permission, of course).  Baby J having his own agenda turned out to be a blessing that allowed me to break out of my routine to capture something truly unique for S and J.  We were able to capture what was real and honest and pure.  And their joy makes my heart sing!