AN ADORABLE LITTLE FAMILY SHOOT

I'm so proud of myself for finally starting to catch up on blogging! I've also updated the family section of my portfolio - it's nice to finally be out of the craziness of the early pregnancy energy void and wedding season - so I'm doing what I can to get all my ducks in a row before this little lady arrives in March.

I loved this family - they were so sweet and easy and fun to work with! And I love their outfits - this is a great example of what I mean when I suggest clients coordinate their clothes, without getting too matchy-matchy. You don't want to all be wearing the same thing - dressing identically is super '90s and it also makes you look like a big blob with heads and hands when you snuggle up together. Notice that none of them are wearing the same color top - that's key to not being a blob. :)

To see more of this adorable family, check out Nat's blog, Take the Cannoli.

ASHLEY + PARKER // MOMMY + ME SHOOT

I'm so excited that this shoot I did of Ashley + Parker is featured today on 100 Layer Cakelet! I love these two so much! I also love this book that Ashley sent me as a thank you gift - I'm pretty sure all of my recipes will be coming out of it from now on...

xo

AN OLDIE, BUT GOODIE...

This is a handful of shots from a favorite family shoot of mine that I did a while ago and recently stumbled upon again. Since starting a new blog and website, it had disappeared from the internet, but now it's back! I love doing family shoots like this in people's homes. More, please. :)

CHRISTMAS 2012

I hope that everyone had happy holidays!!

I wanted to share a few photos from our Christmas at my parents' house in New Jersey. When I'm home for Christmas it seems like nothing has changed at all. It still feels a little like childhood, except that now I have my wonderful husband by my side. It's warm, cozy, and full of movies, games, and hot chocolate. Basically, Christmas is my "happy place". It's what every other special day aspires to.

Now, I would never really describe my taste or style as "traditional", unless we're talking about Christmas. Christmas I don't like to mess around with or get creative. There's one way I want it to look, and that's like this. (I'm only talking about for me. You can have a pink glitter themed Christmas if you want, and I think that's fun! Go you!)... But here, every ornament has meaning and every stocking was hand-made and it's full of more traditions than I can even count. From the serious (reading from the Bible on Christmas Eve) to the silly (there's a little toy Christmas mouse that I think came in a Happy Meal that balances on top of the Santa Claus tree-topper's head - it's the last thing to go on the tree and I get to put him there because I started it 20 years ago)....

This next photo is my dad reading The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. It's another Christmas Eve tradition. The Grinch is special because we have a photo of Dad reading this book, usually in front of a fire, with my sister and I on either side, every year for the past 26 years or so... I'd like to try and put together some kind of photo album that we can keep adding to every year. It'll be so neat to see us grow over the years (except for my dad, who doesn't age) and start adding kids of our own into the mix.

This is Molly. But, my sister and I call her "Doodle".

Next year, we will start celebrating Christmas out here in California, so I was extra happy that it was a white Christmas.

I love this next photo because it's me with my 4 most favorite people in the whole world. Since this is a post about Christmas, I'm not going to worry about sounding too sentimental... I want to take a minute just to be grateful. Just to acknowledge that I know I'm very blessed. I am so thankful for my family. I love my job, and my friends, and my home, but nothing compares to how I feel about everyone in this photograph. I'm so lucky to have such fantastic parents who have taught me what a happy, healthy marriage looks like and what it feels like to love and be loved unconditionally. They're what I will aspire to be as a parent someday and I'm grateful that I have their example to follow. My sister is intelligent, beautiful, funny, and one of the best story tellers I've ever met. Everything is more fun when she's involved and making her laugh really hard is the absolute best. Rodney's the newest addition to our family, and as my mom puts it "he just fits in so perfectly". He's thoughtful and caring and one of the hardest working people I've ever met. We're best friends and really, truly, do fall more in love with each other every day. I'm such a better person for knowing him and I really don't know what I'd do without him. :)

I don't know how to end this post, sooooooo.... Merry Christmas?

xo

THE ROSE FAMILY

This is the adorable Rose family. Ashley is a friend of mine & an awesome photographer - you can check out her work HERE.

I love shoots like this. I love shooting people just being themselves in their own environment. Especially when there's a brand new baby in the mix. I get to just be a fly on the wall and sometimes really cool stuff happens, like Crew reaching out to hold baby Parker's hand for the first time.

Crew, by the way, is the little boy who made me not afraid of having a little boy someday. I used to really want girls, because that's what I grew up with, but now I think a boy would be just as awesome - especially if he was as sweet as this little guy!

Parker is precious and already has way better clothes than I do. Ashley did an INCREDIBLE job on her nursery. I only posted a couple details & I'm hoping Ashley does a full blog post soon of everything - because it's amazing.

Thanks guys for letting me document your little family!

xo