Joy and Sweet Blues

Oh Miss Rachel, how I adore thee. Of course I did sort of take a shine to you when you were like 2 seconds old, so it's been a rather long love affair. I had to beat off the little old ladies who wanted to tuck you in their pocket and take your little joyous self home with them. You were styling today in the blues and greens, gorgeous and fun as always.

Here are a few of my favorites from this great session to kick off my 2010 photography season. Rachel's momma and I are two very busy ladies, so we decided to take a laid back approach to this session and have a little pizza playdate at my house. Rachel arrived with a bag full of adorable outfits to change in and out of, and well, we dressed her up in all of them.



And yes, she is nearly sitting on her own, and loves to stand up! It is hard to believe 6 months have lapsed since the bleary-eyed morning when she finally came out to meet all of us.



And of course we couldn't resist one of her and her two best buddies, big sister Alison and big brother Charlie. You can see the full session here for the next month.

Fall on the "Farm"

A crazy, fun, and full session at a local park with this gorgeous family of 5. Charlie loves tractors, so we busted out his John Deere gear for some play shots at the end. Followers will recognize this family, Alison from her little sis's maternity and newborn sessions as well as her own 4th birthday pics this summer, Charlie was in some of the group newborn pics too. And of course, we all know baby Rachel, she of infamous 21 hour labor photo shoot fame! She is getting so big and adorable, can't wait to see her again for a solo shoot just for her 6 month birthday! I think Mom and Dad look pretty fabulous for 3 kids under the age of 4! You'll see some of these photos featured in the holiday card gallery on christmas day.

At long last

After over 40 weeks of pregnancy, a long labor, and 6 weeks of anticipation, I present little Miss Rachel. She and I spent several hours on a double guest bed right next to a window trying to get comfy and asleep. Rachel had better ideas, like breastfeeding, and pooping. I think we still got some gorgeous ones though. See you in a few weeks for your 3 month little one.

In the Mail

In a message with a friend I remembered, I total forgot to get my two latest announcement creations up here for all of you to see. Identifying information has been altered, but you get the idea. I saved putting them up on the blog so that they could be a surprise for the families receiving them. Now that they are in the mail I can share them with everyone! The fianl product is a double-sided 5x7 postcard, they are gorgeous!



Mister Man Evan
(the letters that spell out his name on the front are a picture of the letters hanging on the wall of his nursery)




Little Sister Rachel
(mom wanted the announcements to double as thank-you notes or just have a spot to write a message, that's the little area with the monogram. Can't you just see it with a hand-written, "thanks for the casserole!" ?)

Rachel

Rachel took her time joining us, now you can watch the less than 9 minutes version of the full 20+ hours, not to mention the nine months that got her here. You may remember Rachel's momma from her maternity session here.

The movie password is : Merriam

Melissa has been kind enough to share this birth experience with all of you who are fans of my work or are considering booking your own arrival shoot, for the sake of her family's privacy I ask that you not embed or share this video without our permission.

You can view the video full screen, it isn't as crisp as the HD video of Evan's I loaded below, at nearly 9 minutes this video was 1.5 MB over the upload limit of 1 GB, doh! The family will receive a copy of both files on disc, as would any other client who contacts me for a Custom Movie project. I will do my best to upload it at HD for you to share with your family and friends, but I won't hack the story just to preserve pixels!