You all know how I feel about blogging about sessions and showing portraits that may be chosen for Christmas cards or birth announcements…I chose not to blog about them rather than risk revealing the chosen portrait! But these two baby announcements have both gone out so the cat is out of the bag! I had to share because I just thought they were so precious! I must admit I was a bit nervous before both of these sessions because one session was for an OB in town and the other a pediatrician! I really strive to make sure all moms are 100% happy but with two moms whose profession is seeing other new moms everyday, let’s just say there was some added pressure! Luckily we got some awesome sleepy portraits! So while these babies are soon to be cooing and smiling, I wanted to give you all a peek at these sleepy little ones! Too cute!

Sleeping baby portraits are the best, aren’t they?! They look so snug and soft…you can almost smell that precious baby head smell just looking at the portraits. Getting a baby to sleep during a session is rather dependent on the baby. The more newborn portraits I have done the more I have realized how different babies soothe themselves to sleep. In turn, I have added some new tricks to my bag to get a restless baby to sleep (wish I’d known some of these when I had infants?!). The newer a baby is, the easier it is to get them to sleep (and thus why I ask new parents to bring their newborn in at five days old), however as I started looking back through my last several sessions, I noticed a strange trend: I had a LOT of sleeping baby portraits. That is understandable since I have done quite a few newborn sessions recently, but I have also done several older baby sessions as well. I actually realized that in every studio session I have done this month with a baby the baby has fallen asleep! Below are some samples…the first baby was 5 days old, so that is understandable. The next one was 3 1/2 months old…a little more challenging. The third one was 7 months old…wow, can you believe that? But the last one is the kicker…this is a little girl at her ONE year session! As I looked back through my sessions I could have pulled out several more from other sessions that were not intended to be sleeping baby sessions! I giggled at first and then I started to think, why are these little ones going to sleep with me?! Am I THAT boring? Do they just hope they will close their eyes and the lady with the camera will just disappear? Do I just wear them out until they can’t fight sleep any longer? I mean, should I have a complex that I seem to put every child to sleep when they are around me?! Or maybe I just have that calm, peaceful demeanor that just lulls them to dreamland? Okay, now I can almost HEAR you all laughing out loud at that! Whatever it is, I LOVE it… nothing like a sleeping baby! Even if it does make me realize just how dull I’ve become!

It is no secret I love newborn photography. I especially love watching first time parents interact as they figure out this new adventure called Parenthood. I am certain that Mark and I were a sight to see fumbling over McKinnon, but that didn’t stop us from totally going gaga over how wonderful she was! I recently did a newborn session with a set of new parents that reminded me so much of Mark and me after having McKinnon that I had to smile. Totally in love with their little baby Reagan, I was almost brought to tears watching them falling more and more in love with this little girl. I overheard the dad say to the mother at one point, “Look at her! Isn’t she beautiful?!” And indeed she is! I have thought on many occasions that having a child can either bring a couple together and strengthen their marriage or pull them apart over the stress. One of the things I love most about my husband is he makes me laugh. One night as we were in the throws of survival during bathtime, I looked at Mark and said, “I sure am glad I LIKE you!” He just adds some comic relief to the stress of motherhood and I love him for that. When things are flat out CRAZY, I can turn to Mark and HE understands… or at least can make a joke about it! Every couple is different but the ability to laugh at ridiculously insane situations really helps parenthood be more fun and ultimately can bring a couple closer together as they wade through the trenches of parenthood.

Let me go on record saying that I okayed the use of this portrait on my blog and as soon as I took it, I knew the title of this blog! Below are some absolutely stunning portraits of this gorgeous baby included with the side effects of how we achieved them. For this last portrait I asked the mom to snuggle up with her little one. I was impressed as the dad cuddled in behind her really savoring the intimacy with his two favorite girls. I knew the portrait was going to be great because the dad just seemed comfortable in the set-up (this is not always the case with men in photography sessions). I quietly asked the dad to place his hand around the mom, carefully positioning his ring-finger hand underneath his infant’s bottom so as to hide any baby parts we didn’t want to see. And then it happened! The unexpected occurred- his precious angel relieved herself right in the palm of his hand. Welcome to Parenthood dad! This will be the first of many, many, MANY times that your child will change the course of your day in an instant! But what I love most about this portrait is the looks on both parents’ faces…LAUGHTER! These parents have already found the key to strengthening a marriage in parenthood, and this portrait is proof. Sometimes you just have to laugh! Best of luck Leslie and Michael- enjoy the ride of Parenthood because this is just the beginning. When you want to sit down and cry, here’s a hint: just try laughing instead!

McKinnon came home from school one day and told me she had added to someone’s bucket that day. Huh? When I probed further she explained to me that at school they had read a book about how everyday everyone carries around an invisible bucket. How you treat them will either add to their bucket of happiness or take away. She had added to another child’s bucket that day by showing him kindness. How powerful and how true! Maybe I am exceptionally sensitive but I have actually had days go drastically from good to bad just by how someone treated me…in the same regard I have had my day go from blah to great when someone out of the blue was nice to me. I mean, I can go through a drive thru and if the person at the window doesn’t smile at me, my mood can go down a notch… or my mood can actually soar if they are out-of-their way kind. Amazing that such a small interaction can have such an impact on someone else’s day. Little did I know my bucket was being affected all day every day! And even more powerful is how I can add to (or take away) from someone else’s bucket!

In light of the above explanation I want to tell you about someone that has filled my bucket through the years. I’ll call him Mr. M and he is one of the kindest men I have ever met…I mean, he rivals my dad in niceness (and THAT is saying something!) I met him thanks to a row of trees. See, since being in professional photography I have become a leaf watcher…in the fall I am borderline obsessed with watching leaves change. I am always waiting for the perfect time, the perfect location, the perfect lighting to get that perfect portrait. On the way into my neighborhood there is a row of trees that I watch every year as their leaves change…truly gorgeous! To add to the scene, there is a great wooden fence that parallels those trees. One fall the trees were more than I could take and I just went up to the door of the house by the magnificent trees and knocked. A man came to the door and I politely explained that I wanted to take a portrait of my kids with his wonderful trees. He said he didn’t mind at all…and my bucket was filled that day. He was so nice…he didn’t just say yes, he went out of his way to tell me I could use his yard anytime I liked.

Fast-forward a few years…I was driving by eyeing his trees again when out of the blue I saw a wonderful, old tractor! Having two boys of my own, I immediately pictured the portrait of Graham and Elliott on that tractor! Ahhhhh! So, what did I do, you guessed it, I knocked again! And again Mr. M filled my bucket by not only saying yes, but offering to move the tractor anywhere in his yard I wanted…I just needed to name the day and time. Wow! Again, my bucket was filled.

So, wouldn’t you know that when I saw that antique TRUCK in his yard I couldn’t resist myself…I had to knock! I had a portrait scheduled with a three year old little boy, and that truck would be perfect! I named the time and location I needed his truck and Mr. M had that awesome truck ready. Once more, my bucket was filled and, now, in addition I feel certain when the mom sees these portraits her bucket will be filled today as well! What a nice man that Mr. M is!

I want to be that type of person. I doubt Mr. M realizes what an impact he has made on me through the years, but his kindness has taught me a very valuable lesson. It doesn’t take much to fill someone’s bucket…just be nice! So today I vow to remember my attitude toward others is very powerful…I want to fill other’s buckets the way Mr. M has filled mine. Thank you Mr. M! Everytime I drive by your house I am reminded how simple it is to add joy to someone else’s day!

Well, I am beside myself excited to announce a big congratulations to Baby Johnson! Every year my professional printer Miller’s Professional Imaging holds a Baby & Child Portrait Contest. This is a national printer for professional photographers so the competition is steep! This year I decided to enter a few of the portraits that I thought were especially impactful. There are very specific guidelines for the contest so many of the portraits I have taken did not qualify but one of Johnson’s did. I found out last night that Johnson’s portrait made it into the Final Round! At this point, as the photographer I have won a studio sample of the portrait that will be displayed in my studio all year. But the fun part comes in the next round. Johnson will have the opportunity to compete to win the overall competition. Prize money is given with the Grand Prize winner in each category being $5000! There are four rounds and five portraits are chosen from each round to move on to the final round…so Johnson’s portrait will compete with 19 other entries in the Color category. Making it to the final round is quite an accomplishment for a national Baby & Child contest so a huge congratulations goes out to Johnson and his family. I’ve included the portrait that was selected… I entitled it “In Awe…” Thank you Johnson for sharing your curls and blue eyes with me to capture such an endearing portrait!

I had vowed to update my post more often and then I fell off the wagon! Where did April go? And March, and February and January??? I have decided to try to post portrait sneak peeks more often and not feel so pressured to put a bunch of writing with every single post. so, here goes! These portraits are children of a dear friend of mine from college. Are they precious or what?! The main goal of the session was getting portraits of the baby but after some encouragement she agreed to bring all her children…I am so glad she did! We actually got the two portraits of the older children on my playground in the backyard…worst lighting of the day, not the ideal background, but i LOVE these portraits. Look at those eyes! And I loved this one of the youngest…does he just look kicked back, or what?! Too funny! Stayed tuned…I’ll be updating more sneak peeks in the next day or so…I really promise this time!

One of the issues I struggle with daily is wanting to really enjoy my children’s childhood… I want to LOVE every minute because I have been told that it passes by so quickly. Not too many years ago I went through a spell of, hmmm, “depression” would be too strong of a word, but it was probably a little more significant than just a ‘funk’. I had two of my children in diapers and one barely out of diapers going through the lovely horrible threes or maybe it was the challenging fours, oh who knows which phase it was! It was nearing Christmas time and I had the sole responsibility of making sure Christmas was magical for everyone in the family. Now let me pause here to explain that I am not one of those people that needs gifts… that just isn’t my love language. Valentines Day? No flowers please! Anniversary? A dinner out is fine. Christmas? Really don’t go to any trouble. Or so I thought. Until one year indeed my husband didn’t go to any trouble. I’ll never forget Christmas 2006… it was a sad day and the peak of my funk. I woke up that morning to see my children excited about what Santa brought them, my husband surprised by some thoughtful (if I do say so myself) goodies in his stocking, and my parents tickled at all the portraits of their grandchildren I had worked so hard to get together. Me? Oh, all the stars aligned this year and Mark indeed took my comments seriously and got me nothing…my parents decided it was ‘about the grandchildren’ and really lavished them with gifts, and me? Well, I knew EVERYTHING that was under the Christmas tree for EVERYONE…including MYSELF because I did buy MYSELF an Ipod on Christmas eve and wrap it MYSELF and place it under the tree (that I had decorated MYSELF). After all the Christmas presents were opened and everyone settled in to really investigate what they had received, I retreated to my bedroom to fold the second load of laundry for the day and mentally get prepared to cook the Sweet Potato Casserole I was assigned to bring to Christmas dinner (and for those of you that don’t know me the one thing I loathe more than folding laundry is COOKING!) All I could think as I delicately stacked the 103 onesies is, “I have all I ever dreamed of! Why am I not loving this?! I need to be ENJOYING this…afterall they’ll grow up before I know it!” On that day however it did NOT seem like their childhood was going by quickly. I was on my 1,523 night in a row of interupted sleep, I had a laundry basket that despite my perpetual washing never reached the bottom, and my house had a lingering stinch of diaper pail in every room! It was a turning point for me because God and I had a serious talk about the fact indeed I HAD missed the point of Christmas and truly it wasn’t about me (notice the number of MYSELFs in that earlier sentence!). That epiphany however I’ll reserve for another blog. The epiphany I’ll share with you today did not come for several more years…

Enter Addison. Addison is one of my favorite little girls to photograph! She has such a sweet spirit (can’t you just see it in her eyes?!) and her mother has become a good friend of mine as I have photographed Addison since the time she was 3 months old. When her mother called me to set up her two year portrait I was just amazed that she was already TWO! Where did the time go?! How did she go from the cradle to toddling around to capable of Smarties bribery is the blink of an eye! The answer I received two weekends ago when I visited a friend from highschool. As we watched all six of our children play in the yard and actually allow us have an enjoyable conversation, I realized that we had arrived…well, arrived at least at a turning point. All of our children were out of diapers, all of our children sleep in regular beds, all of our children could play without our assistance. Wow, how did that happen?! It was only yesterday I was folding that heap of clothes feeling sorry for my self on Christmas afternoon! When I went inside to prepare a glass of aged red wine to go with the Papa John’s Pizza, I noticed a quote on my friend’s windowsill. It said,

“In the life of a mother, the days are long but the years are short.”

Oh my gracious, that is SO TRUE! And that is SO Okay!!! I don’t have to LOVE folding the endless laundry, I don’t have to relish the sleepless nights, I don’t have to savor the stinch of old milk found in the sippy cups that rolled under the seat of the minivan- those are NOT the fun parts of motherhood. What I DO have to do is remember to LOVE the anticipation on my seven year old’s face as she rounds the corner on Christmas morning, to RELISH the chubby little dimples on my toddler’s hand as he delicately places them on my face accompanied by his sleepy smile, to SAVOR the smell of my newborn’s head as I rock him to sleep in the middle of the night! It is okay to not love it all…it’s okay to feel like I am going to lose it at times, it is NOT okay to miss the GOOD parts because I am feeling sorry for myself! Motherhood is a job…a responsibility…a gift! And while today the day is LONG, I can already see how short the years are! Now I have to run…I have laundry to do and a chubby cheek to kiss!

Up until a couple of years ago my children had never seen a commercial. See, they only watched DVD’s or TiVo’ed programs… we’d skip through any non-essential part of the programming and everyone was happy. One Saturday morning not too long ago my little girl started yelling uncontrollably from the other room. I dropped everything because she obviously was in serious turmoil. As soon as I arrived she passionately made her case why she NEEDED that limited edition Wizards of Waverly Place Alex doll with magic changing dress! What? THAT is what you were screaming about?! I realized at that point that she was watching LIVE TV and that when she pressed the fast forward button at the commercial, it didn’t do anything. She was forced to watch the commercials for the first time. And let me tell you, she was an advertiser’s dream! Everything they showed her she wanted, no she NEEDED! I finally told her I would assume she wanted everything and she could just point out the things she DIDN’T want. One day after a particularly stressful month, I had a break out that looked like a pre-teen’s face! I was complaining to myself about it when McKinnon overheard and said, “Oh, I know what you need. There is this stuff that you put on your face and it just makes all the bumps go away. It’s called…ummm…ummm..ProActive!” Thank you Jessica Simpson, my five year old is now recommending acne medication for her mother! Advertisement works! But I couldn’t blame her, I was once an advertiser’s dream as well. One of the majory shocks of motherhood for me was the sleep pattern of the newborn. I mean, the books said newborns slept something like 20 hours a day. I could handle that! I could spare four hours per 24 to snuggle with my little one, practicing the baby massage I read about listening to the baby classical music CD I had bought rubbing in the Johnson’s Lavendar Baby Oil…it has a calming effect, you know. Ha! No one told me the four hours would come primarily between 2 and 6 a.m. and really they were only in 30 minute intervals! Just enough time for me to slumber off, she’d wake up screaming again. One night as I nursed my newborn clinching the sides of the glider because of the pain, total exhausted and a chest the size of Pamela Anderson’s, I thought to myself, “This is NOT what the Johnson & Johnson commercial shows!” I’d fallen hook, line and sinker into what they wanted me to think motherhood was going to be like! So, this blog comes with a very important disclaimer! “Babies in Blog Sleep Less Soundly than they appear!” Real life begs the question, “Where did the phrase ‘Sleeping Like a Baby’ come from?!” Hear ye, hear ye, I am here to tell you it is a LIE! Babies do NOT sleep like this… this was all done with smoke & mirrors! Okay, so that is not true, but I do want to go on record that none of these sessions lasted less than two hours. Newborn sessions are the longest, newborn sessions are the hardest, newborn sessions are my favorite!!! Are these not the most precious little angels you’ve ever seen?! Indeed, I would like to propose a change to the phrase, from here on out, the phrase should be “sleeping like a PORTRAIT of a baby!” Now that is the type of slumber I long for!

As I was looking through my sessions that I have taken since my last real post in November, I saw a theme running through some of the portraits that are my favorite. The theme I saw was that many of them had portraits of a little girl and her father. It reminded me of a book that I gave my husband Mark one time called She Calls Me Daddy by Bert Wolgemuth. Just recently he commented about a lesson that he learned from that book: When it comes to being a father to your daughter, the key is not quality time (as the world wants to convince us of) but instead QUANTITY time. Hmmm, when I probed Mark a little more about it he further explained that it wasn’t about the Daddy-Daughter datenights or the trips to Disney World or whatever big occasion you had plugged in your Blackberry calendar, but instead about the day-to-day interactions you had with your daughter…he said it was important to take your daughter on errands with you to watch how you interacted with people during a normal day…she would remember the tone of voice you talked to her mother in and expect the same of her future husband… it was the affection you displayed toward her when you came in from a long day at work, every month, every week, every day. The quality time is great too, but it really boils down to quantity time when forming any sort of a relationship, especially a father-daughter relationship. It made me think back to my own childhood and my own father. While I do not have a very vivid memory of much of my childhood, I do remember Saturday mornings. Every Saturday morning when I was a little girl my dad would take me to Hardees to have a biscuit together. Just us. We went to Disney World quite a few times as a child, but despite my best efforts I can’t remember anything significant from those trips, but I DO remember the $.99 biscuit with butter and grape jelly my daddy got me. I was fortunate to have the best father in the world, and now I am so thankful that MY daughter has a father every bit as wonderful as my father was and is!

Below are portraits of daughters with their daddy at a variety of ages. I love the first one because of the wonder in the little girl’s eyes as she gazes up at her father. This is the beginning of the father-daughter relationship…they are just getting to know each other… right now she is looking to her daddy for physical support to keep her from falling but soon she’ll be able to walk and she’ll be looking to her father for so much more.

The second one grabbed me because of the grasp the little girl had on her daddy’s finger. Her hand is so small and so tightly gripped to her daddy’s finger…she looks to him and hangs on his every word. So precious!

But the last portrait is probably one of my favorite of all times. Let’s face it, this portrait doesn’t have any magical lighting, or any super artistic composure, but it shows emotion… unabashed, unguarded emotion. See, I remember a time in my pre-teen years that I became very self aware of who I was, and for the first time I realized that my daddy was not just my daddy, but a BOY! And all of a sudden, I felt a little less comfortable around him…as I started going through those teen years, it wasn’t as easy to be silly with him… he was of the other species! The little girl in this portrait is not at that point in her life…she is still comfortable sitting in her daddy’s lap, being silly, he is still just daddy! It is coming soon that she is going to realize that he is a boy and that is going to make him a little less approachable, at least for several years until she figures out who she is in this world. This portrait tells the story of a not-so-little girl and her daddy, being silly, being crazy, showing love. The clock is ticking but for this moment in time to THIS little girl, this man is just “Daddy.”

Well, through the rush of the Christmas season I took some time off the blogging…I am currently petitioning mother nature to add a few more hours to every day, or maybe some additional days to the week! Then January came and everything I put off in December made January crazy. At last February arrived and I was ready to get back to the normal swing of things but came across some technical issues, which brings me to this! Voila! My new blogging site! I love it because now you can subscribe (Click Subscribe) and you’ll be sent an email everytime I post a new blog…how great is that?! So now I have a request from ya’ll: What I need are comments! After each blog entry there is a place to submit a comment. The strange thing about blogging is I sort of feel like I am talking to myself…which really isn’t that odd now that I think about it! Either way, if you like a post or a portrait or just want to say hi to let me know there is someone out there, comment away! So, since I haven’t posted in a while I am going to post some of my favorites from the last couple of months for you to enjoy. So, subscribe and get ready! I am back in the blogosphere! (is that the right word? Oh, I am getting old! )