Along came baby...

A few months ago I shared this picture of my dear friend Beth....

Last week I had the privilege of watching this sweet girl come into this world. Her mama labored hard and well and then...

Lyla Grace was born.

I have now had the honor of being present for the birth of both of Beth's daughters. There are few things more special than being part of a person's most painful and beautiful moments.

Miss Lyla so kindly allowed me to spend several hours with her the other day for a fun photo shoot, so more pictures to come soon.

A Wedding...

These 2 terrific people got married this weekend. 

So excited for them and so thankful to have been able to celebrate with them.

A big red picture frame...

What could be better than a big red picture frame and an adorable little girl? 

A couple months ago we spend an enjoyable afternoon with this big picture frame and some cute little kids. The result was some pretty awesome pictures. There are the only ones that I have to share currently, but eventually I will get more of them up here. 

I'm so thankful to know this sweet little girl and her awesome parents!

Engagement Shoot

So, like I said in my previous post, there were too many great pictures from this photo shoot to pick a favorite... so here are some more pictures of this lovely couple.

I finally finished editing the pictures I had of Karis! Obviously, one shouldn't take 300 pictures of the world's cutest baby and expect to be able to sift some out of the editing pile. No, I should have known that I would feel the need to edit every single one of them. So, once again, here's another batch of my sweet Ugandan born baby...

There, of course, will be more coming later. And some cute one's of the rest of her family.

But now, I need to go take a nap because my work just called and needs me to come in on call. Yay for working 5 nights in a row.

i Heart faces: Sun Flare

I adore this picture. Actually, I adore the entire photoshoot that went along with this picture. I got to snap some pictures of a friend from work's kiddos. We found this wonderful farm to explore and happened to be there in time for a beautiful sunset.
This is what I've learned... kids are beautiful. No matter how hard you try to stuff them into some posed frame you're envisioning and no matter what cute headbands and skirts and props you've given them, they are most beautiful when you allow them to just be themselves.

Go check out the other entries...

Beauty and a best friend

Pioneer Woman Photography's challenge this week is "beauty." I thought this was fitting.

This is my best friend Elise with her now husband while we were working on their 'save the dates.'

I've known Elise since I was in 6th grade. We met at orientation for middle school. I was the new kid, having just moved to the town and she was my first friend. Her mom started talking to my mom and the next thing I knew we were signing up to be locker buddies. Initially I wasn't particularly thrilled seeing as this was a fresh start and I had high hopes of at least being slightly cool, though I'm sure the kitten t-shirts and braids prevented that more than Elise did (though she was as dorky as me). And the fact that I was covered in freckles, extremely tiny, and had only just discovered that jeans were the proper pants to wear at school didn't help. And the fact that I'd moved from the country and my afternoon activities had consisted of running barefoot through the woods and climbing trees.

Anyway, as we stood in line to sign up for our lockers I had no idea I had met my best friend who would be in my life for the rest of it. We went to middle school and high school together. Ate lunch together every single day. I once yelled at some girls for making fun of Elise on her birthday (though thinking back that was maybe not a good idea). We went to church together. We sat together at every single event.

In middle school we once verbally (and possibly physically) abused a girl who would not get off the monkey bars where we were playing a game. Elise got detention. I didn't. She still holds it against me.

We played our violins in orchestra together. We performed together, she in her white turtle neck and me in my velvet black skirt. We cut down Christmas trees and paid for pie with the change in the seats of the car. We used to run up and down the street past the speed measurer (I don't know what they're called) to see how fast we could run. I think we hit 12 mph once. We worked at camp together. We were baptized together.
We grew up together. We went from kids to young woman to adults together.

I stood up with her in her wedding and she will do the same for me.
We've gone off our separate ways, living half way across the country from each other. But I will always consider her my amazing and beautiful best friend.

The wallpaper I don't have...

I always wish I had amazing wallpaper to use as backgrounds for photoshoots. Unfortunately, I do not (especially when photographing kiddos in Africa). I recently learned this technique for photoshop. There's a great tutorial here if you want to learn.

Sweet Kisses

Meet the big sister and brother. They love their little sister.

I think one of my favorite parts of being part of Karis' birth was getting to see her big brother and sister with her. They adore her... especially G. E is perhaps a little jealous of how much of mommy's time the new baby takes. He's no longer the baby after all, and that's a hard adjustment. This was evident by the sweet kiss that was followed by a bop on the head.

P.S. This family has a fantastic story, but we'll save that for another day (and another picture).

2 little girls and a big brick wall...

Here are a few more shots of sweet B and E from our fun photoshoot we did the other day. I have had so much fun working on these photos!

Before and After

At last weeks photo shoot I got some wonderful shots of B and E in the sunset on this fence only the parking lot off to the side looked terrible. So, a little photoshop fun and....

Before:

Voila! Fixed.

After:

Blue eyes and big cheeks

Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon with these 2 sweet girls and their mama. We had a fun time wandering around what we thought to be an old farm. It wasn't quite what we'd planned, but we still found all sorts of fun, unexpected places to explore.

Photo Shoot

Here are a few more photos from the shoot I did a couple weeks ago. Perhaps a few more to come in the near future as well.

A Walk in the Park...

This week I officially began my picture taking again and did a photo session with this cute girl and her big brother. More pictures to come soon....