April & Rhyan Gender Reveal

IT’S A GIRL!!!

Baby Season seems to be among us! Over the last two months I’ve gotten to do so many gender reveals & the majority of them have been pink related! (which makes me so excited because I have so many frilly pretty things in my studio!)Hopefully some of you are having little boys though!
The Mama & Papa to be have known for a long time that they were expecting but decided to keep it a secret until we could do our session, where they could do an announcement & a reveal all at the same time! However they couldn’t wait & let slip that they were expecting… I was still given the privilege to do the big reveal & have been dying to share these images for weeks!

I’ve known April for some time & I was over the moon to find out she was expecting! Especially with such a handsome youngLad! 

April & Rhyan spent so much time poking fun at one another I hardly had to direct or tell my bad jokes. They actually gave me some great material that I’ve added to my artillery!!! Rhyan was accustom to being in front of the camera & was the biggest helper during the session. He kept April laughing & playfully picking at him throughout the evening. You can always spot a happy couple simply based off their mannerisms & how they interact with one another & even though these two bickered at each throughout the session they always ended a conversation with a smile.

Rhyan & April wanted to do something a little out of the norm for their big reveal, which I’m always up for coming up with spankin new ideas, especially for such an awesome couple! We debated for the longest time on just what to do for their session over bad waffles ‘late’ one night & after throwing dozens of ideas there way & April scavenging the depths of Pinterest we finally settled on like four different ideas (because we were too indecisive to settle on just one or two)!
We ended up going with two of my ideas, which were the cooler ideas of course. Of the two smoke bombs I ordered only one worked & of the two packs of bubblegum April bought both were pink. You get the general idea though, it’s a girl!

In between lots of attempts at blowing a bubble at the same time & debates on how to properly pop a bubble it finally came down to plucking.

Despite the short amount of time spent with this couple I love their personalities & it’s made me overly excited for future sessions! Baby V has already brought her mama & papa so much closer together & I can’t wait to plan more unique sessions with this couple & to get the opportunity to watch this family grow! 

DW Materinty Session

Happy Second Birthday Baby M!

See how long it took me to get myself together? Though Baby M’s birthday was a week ago I’m happy to be able to share these photos! I always love getting to work with new clients but it’s even more special to get the opportunity to continuously work with ‘old’ clients! Not only do I get to see watch my work develop through their photos but I also get to watch the families grow!!! I’ve seen babies when they were just a couple of days old, I’ve got to capture them taking some of their first steps, & I’ve even gotten to see some as they went to their first day of school!

I first met the DW family at their wedding in 2012. If I remember correctly it was the 4th wedding I had ever done & my first out of state wedding! Despite me 'Lack of Experience’ Tricia & Keith blessed me with the privilege to capture their special day. You would never know just how cold it really was by looking at the photos!

To my surprise Tricia contacted me just seven months later to do maternity photos! This was my second maternity shoot!

A few months afterwards Baby M & his family made a trip to my home in Nashville, where I did my first ever newborn session! Baby M spoiled me, he didn’t use the potty at all throughout our whole session, which was something I wasn’t even thinking of when I set him on my fur coat!!

Now, almost three years after our first session the cycle starts once again as I work with this growing family!!! There family has grown from two, to three, & now they’re expecting their fourth, who will be here any time now!!!  I’m always amazed how far this family drives to meet with me & how well behaved Baby M ALWAYS is. As soon as the new Big Boy M was out of the car he was running away from the car & through the field, Papa K & I hot on his heels! While Mama T got ready Baby M showed me just how much of a Daddy’s boy he really was.

Trish has thing she seems to unintentionally do with her maternity sessions… at Baby M’s maternity session she wore a pink dress, despite being pregnant with a little boy, & this session she wore a blue dress even though baby RED is defiantly a girl!!!

Keith was deployed while Trish was still pregnant with Baby M so you can only imagine how excited the two were to be able to experience every step of their second child’s growth together!

I’m always appreciative of all my clients but this family I must say takes the cake. I started with them when they were first starting their lives together & now that they’ve grown & flourished it’s given me the opportunity to do the same. This family has had so many first & I’ve been so honored to share all of them with them & despite how old some of their photos might be I still love having this gorgeous growing family in my portfolio!!! Even if T wasn’t pregnant I’d still find a way to swindle them down to TN for a visit! Being able to work with them is just as good though!!!

I’ve got my phone volume constantly up & check it in the wee hours of the night waiting for this mama to let me know she’s having RED, so her face will defiantly be gracing my blog & portfolio soon!!!

Words can’t describe how much I admire & appreciate this family & once again a huge THANK YOU to the DW family for keeping me in your lives!!!

Baby A's First Birthday!

It’s with a heavy heart I must share Baby A & her families one year session! Ever sense we did her six month session I’ve waiting for this day to come & now that it has I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself! Almost right after Papa J booked Baby A’s first session Mama M & I started sharing our enthusiasm about her first birthday session! Cake Smashes have got to be my favorite thing to do. If I could only do one thing the rest of my photography career it would definitely be cake smashes!

It’s always so amazing how much babies as well as their parents grow in such a short amount of time! Jarett & Matoka seem like they’ve grown so much closer together as a couple but were still the overly affectionate parents I remember from our prior session! Baby A had a smile that could warm even the coldest heart… but something changed in six months! She’s now so menacing it’s ridiculous! 

Just kidding… she’s as sweet as ever & was amazing at keeping herself busy! J & M make such a cute couple that I couldn’t help spend a little extra time with them taking some adorable couple photos. There was so much going on around us & despite this & all the distractions Baby A was the perfect little model & pretty much let her parents do whatever they needed to do.

When it came time to do her CS we started to loose her. Baby A’s curiosity grew too strong & she was more interested in the flowers behind her! (I still can’t help but show off her adorable ensemble!) I love customizing outfits almost as much as I love making sets! I made the little Mossy Crowns months before & I’m always looking for an excuse to use them (which is how we ended up with a bit more of a rustic woodland set, sorry Matoka!)

This was my first outdoor Cake Smash so of course I was a little nervous on how it would turn out! It’s a lot easier having an indoor set simply because you only have a small amount of space to fill when you’re outdoors there are so many other factors to take into consideration! After lots of trips to Michaels & lots of burns from the hot glue gun later, I’ve got to say though this is probably my favorite cake smash to date & I’m so happy I got this experience with this wonderful little lady! I had a general idea of where I wanted to get setup after out family session & while I waited for my little brother to bring the cake from home I scouted the area. I found a beautiful tree with some low hanging vines & it looked just perfect! I was about to go back to my car & move everything a little further down (so I wouldn’t have to make ten trips) but than I saw something that instantly changed me mind. Wrapped around one of the low hanging vines was a HUGE snake that was making it’s way into an opening of the tree. The tree I was about to set a baby in front of. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Thankfully there was a beautiful location much closer to us!

Though Baby A was a little angel the majority of our shoot the last 30 minutes of Baby A was growing pretty tired of our shenanigans & was about ready for her nap. We couldn’t let this delicious cake go to waste though! Thankfully we had a mommy, daddy, & photographer with enough enthusiasm to go around!  Baby A wasn’t about to dig into her cake either, she was content with a chunk of icing on the side of the cake so we had to help her a little bit & get her hands dirty! (Photos Below) It was a great excuse for all of us hungry adults to grab a chunk of cake or glob of icing while Baby A regained her composure.

 I spend so much time directing clients & trying to get them comfortable with the whole process when we first start that my shoots normally run a couple of hours! At the point it just comes natural for Jarett & Matoka but I still can’t help spending all my morning with them! I look for any excuse to extend our time together a little more than necessary! You can ask any of my clients, most of our sessions are spent exchanging funny jokes that the little ones thankfully don’t understand or telling stories of something ridiculously stupid that happened to us ‘not to long ago’. I don’t run a lot anymore but my mouth sure does! (If only that burned calories) .

There’s never a down time, especially with this couple & I love it. I’ve absolutely loved getting to know this family over the last six months & I’m so incredibly thankful that they’ve tolerated my shenanigans throughout the time!  Hopefully there will be lots more oatmeal cream pies & root beer floats in the near future!

                                            Behind the Scenes!

People always ask me how to keep a baby happy through the session & how I get them to stay on their best behavior the whole time! I think people assume that because I always post pictures of such happy babies that I have some magical power over the little ones (which I try & convince myself that I do sometimes) & that all the happy giggling photos you see throughout our session is what it is in real life! One thing I love about working with babies is that they’re unpredictable & take no direction! Babies never do what you truly want them to so sometimes it takes lots of fart noises & lots of patience!

Thankfully I always have a mommy or daddy that’s willing to help!