party. of five. ♥ laVista family photographer

this beautiful family just recently grew by one.  sir henry was born just this past september and boy is he a cutie!  so much so that i just had to include him in mom’s sneak peek.  i mean would you look at that hair!!  i think his dad’s jealous 😉

and lastly, i thought i’d include one just to test mom….is mommy brain still lingering??

(don’t worry, i have the ‘real’ edit in safe keeping)

 

 

these are the days….

to remember.

there’s something special about the friends you meet growing up.  something that stays with you for the rest of your adulthood.  it was a time in your life when experiences were new and exciting.  and usually shared.  a time when laughter was frequent and smiles were innocent.  when friends were your family.  enjoy these days moment by moment.   as come the next… they’re only a memory.

hopefully i’ve captured some these girls can treasure forever.

she’s two alright. but far from terrible.

i was fortunate enought to get the opportunity to photography by bff’s daughter a couple weeks ago.  she had just turned 2 in august and given so, really made me work for some shots.  luckily my own children have prepared me for the ‘will do anything not to look at the camera phase’ and i managed to capture some beautiful shots.  see for yourself.

move over lucy, drew and cameron

we’ve got some new angels in town

 

had a fabulous senior session this afternoon.. these ladies were so fun!  AND open to my ideas.  see my husband just laughed when i told him i wanted them to do the ‘charlie’s angels’ pose.  he said they were going to look at me like i was nuts.  but they were open and into it, so i thought i’d give them a sneaky peek.

thanks ladies…you make my job easy.  now will you just talk to the wind please?

this. that. and a whole lotta her.

if you haven’t noticed lately, i’ve been MIA.  on july 27th we welomed our 3rd child, miss evangeline skye, into our world.  i had always heard that going from 1-2 was the hardest and that 2-3 was easier.  i beg to differ.  maybe it’s b/c i tend to have high maintenance babies, but three has definitely turned our world upside down.  unfortunately evie developed infant reflux along with a milk and soy protein intolerance.  ok, so what does this mean?  well, the first few weeks (6 to be exact) we had a pretty unhappy little girl.  this all started around day 5…the day of her newborn shoot.  great, huh??  yes she was a little less than cooperative, meaning she hardly slept (which is what you want!).

many thanks to my good friend and photographer jill riese, who managed to help me capture evie for the TRUE angel she is.

better late than never, here are some of  evie skye’s newborn photos

and last but not least…one with the momma

(she was not very happy in this one, so i’m trying to calm her)

ok, i lied.  THIS is the last one.  taken a few weeks later and possibly my favorite photo to date.

(she was happy in this one)

thanks for waiting patiently.

cutie of the day

miss A is my bff’s daughter and what a cutie she is.  the best part of it?  she’s not one bit camera shy!  i wasn’t sure how to react, so i just snapped away.  not that the mall had the best lighting for the situation, but hey, you take what you can get…right?

Ms Alyssa {senior} ♥ Class of 2011

i recently had the pleasure of photographing my past co-workers daughter, Alyssa, for her senior pics and boy was it fun!  i have to admit  i was a little nevous too.   not having done a ‘true’ shoot since last fall added to the fact that i’m over 7 months pregnant, had me up a few nights.  in the end, however, i couldn’t have asked for anything better.  maybe it’s because i’m surrounded by pre-schoolers all day, but it was SO nice to have someone listen to me and actually DO what i ask.  add that to her flawless skin, crystal blue eyes and bubbly personality and you’ve got yourself one fantastic shoot. thanks, alyssa, for allowing me to be a little part of an exciting year ahead.

enjoy!!!

here are just a few of my MANY faves.

oh the days

remember those glorious childhood days.  when catching fireflies was pure entertainment.  when you could play outdoors for hours, and still get mad when your mom called you in for dinner.  when picking a trinket out of the dentists/doctors chest was so exciting.  when balloons were cool and your bedroom was your ‘safe place.’  oh how i long for those days sometimes.  when your biggest disappointments were losing a tee ball game or having to go to bed earlier than everyone else.  yes, those were the days.  the days when suckers tasted this good.

before and after

i’ve really been working on my processing skills lately in hopes of having a good workflow down when the time comes (that i have ample time) to dedicate more of myself to my photography business.  hopefully that will be sooner than later.  but i have to be honest.  raising young kids, especially while in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, is pretty tough.  in fact, i was practicing some shots with a new lens the other day and just couldn’t seem to get around my belly to get ‘the shot’.  so i decided that processing would take precidence over shooting…for the time being anyway.  i found this newborn shot on a flickr group requesting editing help so i decided to give it a stab.  to be perfectly clear, i did NOT take the original photo, but did the processing to arrive at the finished product.

before:

after:

i need to do more of this.  it was pretty fun.

my bad

almost 2 months now since i’ve posted.  to this blog that is.  i’m really not trying to play favorites here, but truth be told, my family blogs have been pulling a little rank.  i think deep down i realize that i’m never going to get these special moments with my little ones back, so i must document, document, document.  not only that but after several years as a sahm, i’m just sure my memory is going to be shot.  anyway, in my few moments of free time i’ve been working on my processing alot.  there are a couple reasons for this.  one…I LOVE playing around with photoshop and learning all the different photo enhancing methods.  kinda takes me back to elementary art class of sorts.  AND two….I don’t get as frustrated as I do when I’m practicing taking photos given my kids less than cooperative nature most of the time.  i must admit,however, that my daughter is getting a little better.  maybe not always with the smiles, but at least she’ll stand still.  here’s an example.  would you say she’s gotten down that pout?

3 different styles….how’s one to decide??