Saturday was a beautiful day for a session! The weather was just wonderful, maybe a little too breezy, but beautiful.
I traveled down south of the Twin Cities and met up with the L. family. It was so cute to see little miss N waiting for me at the door! We did a few shots around in their yard and at the park across the road then later went over to Lebanon Hills Regional Park. I love using Regional Parks for sessions because of their variety of landscape and grassy hills.
Here's a little sneak peek for the L. family, it was a pleasure to meet you and I hope you enjoy your sneak peek!

Olivia

Saturday I was so happy to see the sun shine because I had Olivia's session that afternoon and we'd already had to reschedule once due to weather. This session was to celebrate her 3rd birthday. Isn't she so adoreable?! I just love those dimples and blue eyes.
Pretty soon she is going to be a big sister and I can tell by how sweet she is with her baby doll that she is going to be great!
Hope you enjoy your sneak peek!

Amanda

I was so happy when I got an email from Amanda's mom asking me about doing her senior portraits! We scheduled them for Friday afternoon, and through a turn of events ended up shooting earlier in the day than first planned. It was a good thing too, because by the time we finished up at Minnehaha Falls the rain moved in. It was about a half hour before her session was first scheduled to begin.
I hope you like your sneak peek Amanda, and have a great senior year!

Happy Birthday!

Today I was so super lucky to get to photography JJ for his first birthday! JJ has overcome so many obstacles in his short little life and it's a miraculous thing that he was home in time to celebrate his first birthday with his family. His family and their experiences in the last two years of having two babies with HLH have touched so many lives, including mine. I'm thrilled to be showing this sneak peek! I hope you like these Laura.
Happy Birthday little guy!

Before the snow came

On Friday I had scheduled a session with my friend Amy and her family. We were getting a little nervous because of weather reports. It was cold and snow was on the way! After going back and forth on whether to go through with it or not we finally decided to try it and if it didn't work out to try it again another day. I don't think we'll have to do any retakes, I'm loving these shots and I hope you do to Amy!

Kendall turns 1!

This is Kendall, you might remember her from January's baby contest. She was the winner of that contest which gave her a free session and 10x20 storyboard.
We met up for her session at Central Park in Roseville. It was a beautiful day and Kendall was much more happy about this session than she was her last session.
I just LOVE those dimples!
Happy birthday Kendall, I hope you like your sneak peek!









Kendall's winning image:

Good News!

Rachel, I got a cute one and I didn't even have to clone around any heads! :)

Sometimes I like to play with images and try new things out on them, new looks, new texture, etc. Today I wanted to do something special with this image, but everything I tried didn't look right. Then I decided to try the Midnight Sepia action I have and there it was, what I was looking for.
I am actually excited about how it turned out.
It kind of reminds me of a mix of Greg Olson and Liz Lemmon Swindle look, only in a photograph instead.

Hill Family Reunion

Last weekend I spent some time at the Hill Family Reunion held in New Brighton Minnesota and what fun it was to meet the extended family of one of my favorite families. Thank you Erin and Matt for having me out to photograph your family!

Matt organized Erin's family to spell Hill on their back lawn, which incidentally was a hill as well!
I had to somewhat manipulate this image to fit for a 10x20 storyboard frame, and I think it kind of looks funny how the porportions ended up, but it's grown on me.



Some of Erin's neices and nephew.





Beautiful Erin and her dad... I LOVE this picture.

Introducing...

Will. Who's been long awaited for! I love it when parents want to be creative and make their sessions unique! Thanks D Family for letting me be the lucky photographer you chose for Will's first session and for wanting to play!

It's not often

That I get to do family portraits, and when I do, usually I refer them to my friends who do more family portrait photography than myself. I've mostly been doing babies and weddings. But I just couldn't pass up the chance to be this family's photographer. I was privileged to be two of these girls youth leader a few years ago and just adore their family. Their oldest daughter has graduated and is shortly going out west for college and their mom wanted family pictures done before she left.
Thanks A. for being such a trooper and walking all over the place to all the spots I asked (and Dad for carrying you!), I hope your foot heals quickly and you'll be running around soon!

When I loaded their session into my Lightroom, I couldn't wait to play with this one. I'd asked the girls to stand out in the grass and suggested they could do any number of things, play with the grass, look at the lake, talk to each other... and this is what they did.

Sisterly love... naturally.

brings a tear to my eye.

Don't Rule Out!

Don't rule out winter for a fun outdoor portrait session!
Bright winter-wear shows up beautifully with a snowy white backdrop, and so many unique ideas and poses can be done, that can't be done any other time of year!
Besides, who's seen a kid play in snow with a frown?

{ So cute! }

This is 9 day old Emma. Isn't she so cute and pink and cuddly?
It's been so long since I've had a newborn session, thanks mom and dad! Hope you like your sneak peek and congratulations on such a beautiful baby!

| Kindergarten |

Ok, I admit it.... mornings are not the best part of the day for me. And the beginning of the week is worse than the end. So when Tuesday came last week and it was my kids first day of school, my mind was still sitting back on the back burner keeping warm and toasty in sleep. I totally forgot to get out the camera for when my 1st grader went off to school, even though I excitedly sat with him at his bus stop (I did get a really great picture of him last year when he started Kindergarten).

Later in the day my brain woke up and said, "HELLO!?" And this year I got a really great picture of his sister going off to Kindergarten, of course she too is an afternoon Kindergartner. (Afternoon=awake.)


Maybe that's where our tradition lies.... really great Kindergarten pictures and that's about it, because my oldest didn't get his picture taken this year when he started the 10th grade either, but I have some really cute pictures of him at his bus stop waiting for the Kindergarten bus.


So I guess it's a new tradition. Traditions are good.

Now it was a rainy day, and normally people don't bring on out their cameras into the rain, but if you get a little tricky and hold an umbrella over yourself with your free hand, you can get some really great shots that you normally wouldn't have! Don't let the weather scare you, unless of course it's a hurricane, then yeah, I'd leave the camera at home.

Here's Jaeden's way cute pictures...