I had so much fun watching this little guy grow up over the past year. Such a blessing to be able to capture these memories for this fabulous family.

Here he is at One Week:

And look at those gorgeous eyes at Four Months:

And there are those eyes again at Eight Months…talk about making my job easy:

Which brings us to his super fun One Year session! What a great session this was. He was such a little ham for me and I could have chased him around with my camera all day. I love these boys and this family so much. I can’t wait until next time

Today I’m thankful for the sunshine after a much needed dreary rainy week. We most definitely needed the rain here in Texas. It’s also unseasonably warm right now, which made me want to post some bright sunshiney summer photos of my girls. Enjoy this weather while it lasts!

I’m way behind on my blogging and hope to catch up soon!  But, for now, I just had to share this session. These are some of my favorite images of some of my favorite kiddos. Enjoy!

Here’s week three with my family. Enjoy!

Day Fifteen:  just a few quick iPhone snaps of her “washing dishes”. It’s one of her very favorite things to do.

Day Sixteen:  Snuggling with my sweet baby girl.

Day Seventeen:  My Three. I love them, love them, love them.

Day Eighteen:  Brendan and his pet mealworm, Francis

Day Nineteen:  Hugging it out after a mudfight in the backyard!

Day Twenty:  He’s not going to be able to eat solid food soon!

Day Twenty-One:  Fun on the carousel at the mall.

Here’s week two of our little family project. I’m loving January. It’s a photographer’s downtime, time to organize, time to snuggle with your kids a little extra each day, time to relax and regroup. We’ve had pretty fabulous weather lately too. I hope you enjoy these little peeks into our lives.

Day Eight:  Playing Go Fish with Maggie…good times!

Day Nine:  Coloring. Seriously. And proud of her creation

Day Ten:  Sleepy Sisters. I love them.

Day Eleven:  Math homework. Not-so-good times.

Day Tweleve:  She asked me to take her picture. I obliged.

Day Thirteen:  She loves her big sister’s dollhouse so very much.

Day Fourteen (iPhone snap):  Waiting and watching. Maggie was on her way to get them for a sleepover.

Well, I’ve decided to join a few fellow photographers for a little project called Shot of Inspiration. This project is to help us nurture our creative heart, to shoot what inspires us, to shoot what we love. We’ll be posting our images every other week and I look forward to seeing what inspires everyone! Our first assignment was inspiration itself. This is a tough one to nail down because so many things inspire me, but when it comes down to it, the thing that inspires me the most is love. And, to me, there is no greater, more magical, love than the love a mother has for her child. So, I grabbed my camera and got an arm’s length self-portrait of me snuggling with my baby (why oh why can I not have lashes like hers??). A mother and child most definitely inspires me. My babies inspire me. Love inspires me.

Now head on over to Rebecca Patterson’s blog to see what inpires her: http://rebeccapattersonphotography.wordpress.com/

Well, I’ve started a photo-a-day project for 2012. Although I never “finished” my 365 for 2011, I have so very many photos from last year and I treasure each and every one of them (favorites of 2011 post coming soon!). I decided to continue on this year simply because life was more fun when I was capturing memories. I got bogged down with work in September and used that as an excuse to “take a break” from my 365. You see, taking  pictures of my family every single day forces me to observe more, to really see the joy (or frustrations!) in the everyday. I want to see that. I don’t want to be so preoccupied with work that I don’t stop to really see my family interacting and capture their emotions. Knowing that I’ve got a photo to take each day also makes me more adventurous. I have fun exploring with my kids to find new parks, new ice cream shops, and looking for new craft projects to do on rainy days. They deserve that. If taking a picture is enough to motivate me to play with my kids more, then that is reason enough for me. So, with the New Year comes a new 366 (leap year!) project. I’m excited for it. It’s a gift to me, a gift to my family, a gift of love and memories.

Cheers!

Day One: Happy New Year!

Day Two: Breaking in the new Easy Bake Oven

Day Three: My hubs asked for a new self-portrait, so here I am.

Day Four: Letting the iPad take care of story time. Love the Dr. Seuss apps!

Day Five: Reading Too Many Toys (so appropriate right after Christmas )to his Daddy.

Day Six: Scooter ride to the park…I have so many from this that I will have to blog later, but for now here are two of my favorites

Day Seven: The weather was so warm and beautiful that we decided to go for a hike at The Heard, our local nature park. I love being able to take such beautiful photos with my iPhone.

This morning I was putting off work and going through some of my old Facebook photos when I came across this shot from my last morning of “maternity leave” with Audrey. I missed her like crazy my first day back to work; I ached for her. It was so much more difficult to leave her than the first two. Because of that feeling, I had a ridiculous amount of guilt too (mommy guilt is the worst), but I realized it wasn’t just her. Yes, I wanted to be home with her, she was my baby afterall, but I wanted to be home with all of my kids. Again, though, it wasn’t just my kids. I also had this little photography business bug buzzing in my ear, pulling at my heartstrings and leading me away. It had been buzzing quietly for a couple of years, but it wasn’t quiet anymore; it was insanely loud. That little buzz was so loud that I could hardly think about working on anything else. I knew that exploring my photography business would give me what I ultimately wanted, more time with my kids and a better family life. By my third day back, my mind was made up; I walked into my director’s office, he looked up at me before I had a chance to speak and said “you’re coming in here to tell me you want to go back home to that baby, aren’t you?” I nodded and smiled. And that was it. I walked away from my engineering job and all those years of working full-time while going to school half-time. Despite all those telling me I was crazy, It was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. I mean that. I’ve never looked back. Although it hasn’t been an easy transition, things haven’t fallen into place as quickly as I hoped and I’m still working on confidence, efficiency and discipline. Life is good. I have no regrets. I am moving in the direction I am supposed to be. I know that. I believe that. This is my year. I feel good about where I am as a mother, I feel good about where I am as a photographer (I don’t take that feeling lightly), and I feel good about where I’m headed as a business owner. I have so much to learn, so much work to do, so many decisions to make, but I feel like a fog has been lifted. This is MY year.

Let’s get back to that photo up there. For me, It’s a powerful one. I love it. It obviously speaks to me since I had not planned a blog post for today. I just saw it and it struck me. I’ve had all these words and thoughts swirling around in my head for a while now and this photo organized them and pushed them out into this post. I love that. I want all my photos to have that.

Here’s to a fabulous 2012 full of hard work, good fortune and lots of giggles with my kiddos! (and more blogging!)

Well, it’s that time again. The holiday season gobbled up my 10-on-10 for November, so I was determined to post for December. These images aren’t at all what I had planned. I had plans to wrap presents for our Angels, decorate the tree, and bake cookies for the neighbors (it was all very Christmas-y); none of which happened. That’s how it goes when trying to photograph your own kids; you pretty much have to take what you can get. I let go of my expecatations and just photographed them doing what they do. That’s what this project is all about anyway. I hope you enjoy my photos!

My goal here was just to get a couple of snaps of them eating their snack…they decided on the kiss It’s not really in focus, but I don’t care. I love it so much.

I absolutely cannot resist sleeping baby pics.

I also can’t resist her baby curls…I hope they stick around for a while.

This is how I found my sweet girl watching tv…with her best friend, Lainey :)

How does the song go? All I want for Christmas is my…

Evie was jealous, so I had to take a pic of her teeth too.

Bathtime!

They really are best friends.

love this one in b&w too…

He would be so mad at me if he knew I took this pic, but I just love that he stil sleeps with the sheep my mom got him when he was a baby.

I couldn’t not post one of Evie sleeping too, so here’s an 11th

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my photos this month. You should definitely take some time and check out the fabulous work of Dana Cubbage for her 10-on-10 this month, here’s the link to her blog post http://www.danacubbagephotography.com/blog/?p=4726