welcome to the journal

Hadley had graduated from All God’s Children preschool the night before these pictures, so this was a sweet opportunity to celebrate that milestone. Milestone sessions don’t stop just because your child turns one – there are all sorts of reasons to celebrate your child(ren) with a photo session. My own 14 year old son is getting a milestone session of his own soon (whether he likes it or not haha!), because he just finished 8th grade and will be entering high school next fall. Another client is planning a session with her daughter who is learning to play the violin.

Today marks the start of summer, and that has me thinking about all sorts of things. I caught myself lamenting about what kind of mom I am opposed to what kind of mom I thought I would be before I had kids. The difference is night and day, although I got one thing right. I was going to be a Martha Stewart/Pinterest master mom, doing all sorts of crafts with the kiddos and baking all the time, blah blah blah.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by rainbows, and now my daughter is too. I remember seeing my first double rainbows over the mountain tops in Wyoming while visiting family. I love running outside after a storm with Mackenzie searching for the rainbow. At our wedding, my dad and I danced to What a Wonderful World, by Louis Armstrong – I wonder if she’ll choose the same song to dance with her daddy someday. Rainbows symbolize peace, hope and promises made by God. Who doesn’t love a rainbow!!??

It’s that time of year when the grass is getting greener, the days are getting longer and there are signs of rebirth and new growth everywhere. Spring is by far my favorite season. Everything feels like a new beginning, like each new life is the beginning of someone’s story. My goal at every newborn session is to portraits that will shape the story of your lives and provide a legacy of family history for future generations to treasure.

Children of creatives are always in danger of being talked into doing crazy things. A couple of months ago I got this crazy idea in my head for a “retro rainbow” photo shoot. I knew immediately who my muse would be. My poor kiddos suffer from PCS, a.k.a., Photographer’s Child Syndrome, in which the child(ren) of a photographer have been photographed so many times throughout their young life, they are no longer interested in smiling at a camera, much less even look at one. The. Struggle. Is. Real.