I was so excited when the *F* family contacted me to do their shoot.  I had met them at different Down Syndrome Association of the Mid-Columbia that I attend with my sister.  And they are such a fun family I knew it would be a great shoot.  We lucked out with some beautiful January weather.  Lucky me!

We started with a big group shot.

And then we capture the cousins together.

I love how sweet this family is together.

All 3 of the cousins.

Brother and sister.  There is nothing else like it.

Thank you for helping me to kick off 2012 with a great family session.  I enjoyed every minute capturing your family!

When I first started my business back in 2007 the Smith Family took a chance on me.  And after several years, and me moving all over, they are still wonderful clients.  They have blessed my life in so many ways.  I am so grateful to have them in my life.  And I am excited to share some of their images from our bitter cold December shoot.

It all started with Kristi and Steve.  These two have so much fun together.

They were blessed with many wonderful children.  As tradition has it there is always at least one missing every year.

I love this shot of Kristi with her daughters.  What a beautiful bunch of women.  I am so blessed to know each of them.  

All of the family that was there.  And I love that every year we do their pictures on their property.

Lecia and Miah

And their cute little family.

Charlotte and Matt, they were married way back in 2008

Rae, Cheri, and Banner

I had so much fun with you!  Thank you for blessing my life!

The 2011 ‘Love’ Contest is over.

Thank you to everyone who voted.  It was a good race.  I am so excited to announce the winner.

Congratulations to Charlotte and Matt!  You won in the last hour.

But Bree and Jeff were only officially two votes behind.  TWO!  That’s not very many.  It was very close.  And today I am feeling generous.  It is snowy, (I love the snow) my kids are home from school today, (that makes me super happy) and life is good.  They are also winning.  I am giving out two albums.  Super congratulations!  Seriously I love owning my own business and making my own rules.

And the winner of the free sitting fee and free 5X5 photo book is Diane Partridge!  Congratulations!!

Thank you to everyone who voted, if you are interested in booking a session you will get a free mini accordion album just by mentioning the contest until January 31, 2012.

Happy snow day!

The final shoot of 2011.  I am so excited to share this one.

It’s time for  a little stroll down memory lane.  I’ve talked about being from Pomeroy, Washington.  And when I moved there I became friends with Nick.  I have lots of fun memories from High School that include Nick and I am so excited to have the opportunity to capture his love with Megan.  I don’t think Nick could have picked a girl more perfect for him.  She is stunningly beautiful inside and out.  And I can tell that Nick is completely head over heals in love with her.  That’s the way it should be.  And Megan’s love for him just radiates from her.

Meet Nick+Megan.

We started early in the morning on New Year’s Eve.  We had beautiful light and chilly skies.  But they were troopers.

Just the perfect amount of wind came along.. check out Megan’s model hair.  She’s gorgeous.

I love moments like this.

Nick and Megan you two have the most beautiful eyes. 

Congratulations on your engagement!  I am so excited for the future you two have together.  And I cannot wait to capture your wedding in June!

I had this realization this past year.  I don’t take enough pictures of my family.  Of my kids, of our lives, of us doing.  I think….. or wait I know that so often I am capturing everyone else that sometimes I just want to live in the moment and not always see it through the lens.  I love viewing life through the lens, but sometimes I want to jump in and do more.  And I guess if you count my iPhone I have captured a lot of pictures of my family this year.  But I still didn’t do as much as I would have liked to.  And I am really trying to change that.  But also not turn every event into a photo shoot.  Because seriously, who wants to have every single cute thing or crazy thing you do become a photo shoot?  I know my kids don’t.  And neither does my hubster, Randy.

A lot of times I feel this crazy pressure if I bring a camera to snap pictures that they are supposed to be perfect.  And sometimes I have just left my camera at home so I didn’t have to feel that.  Lame huh?  I am changing this.  We went to Disney World in 2009 and I left my big camera and took my little Canon Powershot SD790IS and had tons of fun.  Today we woke up really early to go skiing.  I had this grand idea to capture my kids perfectly in the snow for canvas in my house.  But I am going to state right here, right now, I didn’t do it.  I took one of my Canon SLR’s with us to Bluewood today and I also grabbed my trust little camera.  Guess what?  I didn’t even break out the SLR.. more to come on that.

We left before it was even bright out.  But look everyone is excited.

Skiing is a new thing for our family.  Randy and I took two lessons in 2008.  And then we moved to Indianapolis.. skiing wasn’t going to happen in the land of flat.  And in 2008 I had a hard time.. and an incident that involved ski patrol…  so it’s not like I have these mad ski skills.  We all had a lesson today.  We went skiing a couple of weeks ago.. I was going to post pictures but I took one… just one.

Here’s my girl skiing down on the Platter Pull.  This is her second time skiing and this girl is fearless. She is also sporting her brand new helmet.. which today we were so blessed to have on her, after she had a yard sale down the mountain.

Randy was ready to rock and roll today.  I loved getting to spend the day with him.  We don’t get time to disconnect from everything very often, so I especially enjoyed time with him without all of the other distractions.

My girl.  I absolutely adore this girl.  We have lots of fun together.  Today I only used my little point and shoot  camera.  Don’t judge my images too closely, I wasn’t being a photographer.  I was being a Mom and remembering the fun happy days.  And today my little camera had a smudge on my lens that I noticed half way through taking pictures.  Awesome right?  But you know it’s okay.  Because having images of my family and me, that’s awesome.

We took her to the top of the mountain.  And she was so brave and skied down some serious hills.  She is going to out ski me soon.  Not that that is hard to do.

I wanted to get tons of great actions shots.  But my ski skills and my photography skills don’t mesh.  I am sure if I tried to do any serious action shots I would hit a tree and be broken.  Or even worse my camera would be broken.  And since I don’t want to sit out on any of the fun I didn’t worry about it.  I captured what I could.

We tried really hard to get a picture of the the three of us but it didn’t work.  We couldn’t get all of our heads in while riding the lift.  Oh well.  I really like what we got anyway.  It’s fun.

My boy he is learning to snowboard.  It has been a lot of work.  But this boy is dedicated.  He gets up time and time again.  I am so proud of her dedication.  I don’t have as many pictures of him.  He didn’t want any distractions, he was focused.. and Mom with a camera… big distraction.  But we had a lot of fun.  And I am so proud of his progress.  He went down all the big hills and worked so hard.

Today was one of those days I could relive over and over.  Lots of laughing, lots of smiles, a few tears, and a great day outdoors.

Lesson learned today, and the lesson to apply to the future.  Just because I am a photographer doesn’t mean that I have to turn every moment into a photo shoot.  I can just have fun with my family.  Taking my little camera and capturing life is fun and a great way to keep my memories.  I am sure if I took my SLR I would break it.. and then I would cry.  And I hate crying so that doesn’t seem like a good idea.

My challenge to you, and myself.  Capture your life.  Don’t worry about them being perfect just capture what you love and see.  The kids are only little once.  And sadly mine are growing too quickly.  A goal of mine to post monthly a fun family post.

It’s that time to review my goals for 2011 and set some new ones.

Let’s review 2011, the goals and in bold how I did.

On the business end.  I want to shoot 12 weddings this year.  I love weddings.  After shooting back to back ones this weekend this feels like a great goal for me.  It allows me to maintain the balance of Mom and photographer.  I shot 10.

I also want to improve, I am constantly striving to be a better photographer and I am anxious for WPPI in Las Vegas next month to go and learn more!  I feel like I improved, but I still want to grow more!

On the personal side.  I want to workout regularly.  I haven’t in over eleven years.  It’s time to do that.  I started this in August, and I am still going strong!!  And I lost 20lbs last year!!

I want to take time to pray and have it be more meaningful, and also to read my scriptures and have it be more meaningful.  I feel I have slacked in these areas this past year.  I am still working on this.

It’s Christmas Eve and I am finally done shopping.  I am ready to sit back and enjoy the Christmas Spirit, and enjoy some time with my little family.  But I wanted to wish all of my clients (who are now friends), my friends, and my family a very Merry Christmas.

2011 was a great success for my business.  And I wouldn’t have had the great year I did without the fabulous people I was blessed to photograph.  I am so grateful for every single one of you.  What a blessing you are to me.  I am grateful for the moments I had capturing families and watching their interactions.  I am grateful for the blessing of watching couples start their love and join in marriage.  It is such a beautiful occasion.  I am grateful for the little children I am blessed to capture who make me giggle and warm my heart.  I am grateful for the kids who make me work to get their smiles and capture who they really are.

I am so blessed to know so many wonderful people!  And I am so grateful for my husband, and two children.  They keep me grounded and are my biggest blessing.

Merry Christmas!

Tuesday was chilly.  Heck the last couple of weeks have been cold.  My morning run outside leaves me chilly most of the day.  You might find me wrapped up in a snuggie at my house if you stop by unexpectedly.  But Tuesday had a little bit of sunshine which was nice after the dismal grey sky we have been enduring for forever.  I think the sun came out just for John and Katelynn.  I was super excited to meet them and shoot their engagement session.  And in 2012 I will be shooting their wedding.  :)

Meet John and Katelynn.

I am seriously so excited to shoot their wedding.  I loved hanging out with them on Tuesday and getting to know them.  One thing about John and Katelynn that really stood out to me through out their session was how extremely kind they were to one another.  I love seeing couples who you can tell are completely in love, but are also looking to put the other one first.  That’s what marriage is all about.

To start our session we went to Bookwalter Winery.  It is a beautiful venue and they were kind enough to let us shoot around their barrel room.  I loved it!

Then we headed out to WSU Tri-Cities for some fun pictures.  They both attended WSU Pullman but since Pullman was a little far we figured the Richland campus would be great!  It sheltered us from the cold and added a fun twist.

I love shooting on the WSU campus, there are lots of great locations.

This has to be one of my favorite walking shots ever.  It was cold and John was totally keeping Katelynn warm.  It makes me happy, you can just feel the love.

Thank you for letting me capture your love.  I cannot wait to shoot your wedding this coming year!

Merry Christmas!

I love weddings.  And you know I really love them if I shoot one on my very favorite shopping day of the year.. {Black Friday}.

I was super excited to shoot Allan and Molly’s wedding.  These two have been dating for quite a while, and they are completely and totally meant for one another.  You might remember them from here.  The stars aligned and these finally tied the knot.  They were married in the LDS Columbia River Temple in Richland.  It was a chilly and windy day but they were gorgeous nonetheless.

Capturing Allan and Molly was so fun!  They were up for anything and didn’t balk at the bitter cold.

We had sun.  I haven’t seen  a lot of sun lately so seeing sun in pictures makes me happy.

Molly and Allan.  You two are stunning.

Allan has the best smirks.  

I LOVE Molly’s cowboy boots. 

I love that a new family was formed.  Lucky Allan to get two beautiful ladies in his life.

I love these shots of Katie.  She was enjoying the big day also.

Congratulations on starting your forever together.  I know you two are going to do great things!  Thank you for letting me capture your day.