Till he comes home to you . . .

Words can’t quite describe how I feel for this family right now. . . It was my pleasure back in 2008 to meet them both for the first time at the Manti temple to take some pictures of them on a special day when they were to be sealed together forever . . . It was a beautiful and special thing for me to be a part of their day then. The next time I saw them, Calli had the glow . . . the pregnancy glow, but still wasn’t showing :) and we took some extended family pictures.

When she called me close to her due date to tell me that she would like a newborn session with her beautiful baby girl, I was thrilled, but it was only tainted by the fact that he wouldn’t be there. He wouldn’t be there physically to witness his new baby girl’s birth, but he would be there in spirit. My heart was truly touched then.

And now my heart is touched more than ever tonight. As I remember our latest afternoon to photograph this beautiful family, finally all together for pictures. It was a fun, wonderful experience, only tainted by the fact that he was going again (now is gone) . . . to serve our country across the seas. . . for an entire year.

When I was an army wife, I lived through this exact scenario . . . realistically in my head. It was awful even there. Even imagining what it’d be like. But now as I captured this family right before his departure, I looked at Calli and realized that some how she is strong enough to go through this. She is strong enough. She may not know it or see it . . . but she is, at least I saw the strength.

I have been more than honored to have seen this beautiful family grow, and to in some way capture the story that they’ve gone through over the past couple years. Thank-you Casey for being so brave to serve our country, and thank you to all of the men (including my husband who went before I met him) and women who serve this country. And as a wife, I want to thank all of the other wives and family members who sacrifice their husbands, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, and they go through the trial of waiting through a deployment for their loved one to come back home. You are my heroes. Because I really couldn’t imagine doing that myself, and I know you are stronger because of it. God bless you.

These brought tears to my own eyes going through a few of these pictures that I will share with you. I hope you will be touched a little by them too.

You are beautiful, Calli. Please send your husband this gorgeous picture of you, so he can do lots of bragging, and remember EXACTLY how beautiful his wife, who is waiting at home for him, is.

I hope these pictures bring a smile to your face, joy in your heart, and peace to your soul. Even though the time apart will be hard, it will go by faster than you think, you’ll be back together as a family, with more happiness and love for each other than you ever expected.

Family Moment

I love this family. One of my very first clients, whom I've grown to love so much. Here's your sneak peek! I love this moment

Some of Aug-Sept Sessions - Long Post!

Yep, I have found that the past couple months, I've been very far behind! While trying to fulfill all of the "hats" that I am responsible for, I have found no room for blogging lately :(

There have been lots of fun sessions that I just couldn't not post pictures of, so we're doing a few from some of the recent family and portrait sessions.

This first baby here . . . SO CUTE!! I still have got to one of these days post her newborn pictures because those were some of my very favorites! I was so happy when her mom brought her in for her 3 month pictures as well. And what do you know?! She fell asleep! It took us a while to finally wake her up because she was just too cute and let us move her around all we wanted to. Thanks for bringing in adorable Baby Allie!

Andy! He's one of 2010's awesome seniors! I had a total blast hanging out with him, his mom, and sister for his pictures! We got some awesome ones, that I'll use for the senior gallery (whenever that gets updated . . . since it's 4 awesome sessions out of date!)

Good luck this year Andy!

Family H was so fun! They are also returning clients since Baby Zander's newborn session. Wow he's grown and is still sooo cute!

But teething during the session wasn't fun for him . . . :(

(I got a good laugh out of this pic!)

Oh! It was also some little person's 2 year old birthday during September . . .

Tim & Roxanne - such a cute fun couple!




Family H-2 such a wonderful family! Beautiful children & mom!!
Family K: my cousin and her cute family from AZ. It was fun to meet their new addition!



Seriously, one of my favorites!!! So candid


































Well I've got lots of wedding posts to do . . . lots of sneak peeks from this weekend . . . Thanks to you who've stuck around even despite my lack of blogging!

Also remember that there are still openings for the fall mini sessions!

Have a great day! :)

Curiosity

This is my cousin's newest baby who came from Arizona! She's growing up so fast! Thought I'd share one of my favs of just her from their family session. Enjoy!

One-a-day teasers

Hello everyone!! I feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth the past couple weeks! Trust me . . . I've been anxiously busy taking pictures, etc. but at the same time trying to fight a horrible eye infection, which I was sure was allergies for a good ten days --- but I was wrong and am now on the mend thankfully! Also my almost two year old had to trip over his two feet and crack his tooth really bad. We're still figuring that one out!
Any ways, so life has been very busy!! But I do have lots of fun pictures that I should have already posted, but haven't. I'm attempting to post one picture each day this week from the past sessions that I'm missed out on.

Today's picture is of a family session I did last week. I really like this artsy look for family sessions, and so I share this one!

Wow, is summer almost gone??? Go do something fun with your family and enjoy this last month of summer warmth if you can!
Till tomorrow . . .

Tickle Monster :) --- Personal

Yep, this month has been crazy busy. I didn't realize that 2 family reunions would take so much out of me, and I didn't realize that I'd have so much fun that I didn't want to come back to reality. But yes I'm back to catch up with a lot of sessions. There are 2 fun weddings to blog soon, along with a bridal session, engagement session, and any other session that I realize got slipped through the cracks. Check back later this week for lots of great stuff!

Since I am still basking in the glow of spending so much time with family lately, I wanted to share a picture that I finally got of my family that I've been imagining for over a year now. I took one similar, and I wanted one of my family sooo badly. After taking some pictures of my husband's family. I decided to hand my camera over and give it a try. Thanks Teresa, my sis-in-law, for capturing this moment!

I seriously am the ultimate Tickle Monster Mom!!! . . . . . All the time!!! :)

I seriously prefer these kinds of pictures over traditional ones any day!!! . . . . but that's just me!

This picture just really captures my family! Any spare minute I have with my baby, I am chasing him around the house, wiggling my fingers, capturing him squeeling in delight, and tickling him until he can't stand it anymore! Nothing could give me any more pleasure than hearing those giggles and seeing that ear to ear grin. I've taken mental pictures of that moment many times. Those are some of my happiest times as a mom.

Thanks for letting me share! And thanks for being patient with me as I was taking time off to create some of my own memories with my family. I hope each of you are having a memorable summer and showing lots of love to those who are special in your life.

Vinylisms - A perfect Mother's Day gift!

Last summer sometime, I did my cousin's family pictures, and I was so excited to see what she finally did with some of them! My cousin, Emily, is a super talented person at making vinylisms which are the wall quotes that you can put on your wall to decorate, or you can put them on mirrors, windows, doors, cars, etc. She has designed some way neat stuff! I finally got one of the vinylisms on my wall to go along with my pictures and I love it!
Well this picture frame she bought at Roberts (and just in case you can't tell . . . the middle part is a mirror).

I thought that this would make the PERFECT Mother's Day gift! Just thought I'd share, since that's coming around the corner here.
Great job Emily! And if you want to see more of her stuff, head on over to
vinylisms.com! (on a side note . . . this design is very new and is not yet on the website, but you can specifically request it of her and she'd be happy to make you one!)

Families and Babies

Ok, so I'm catching up here. Just posting several for each of the families I've done in the past month or so. This first family I know through their oldest daughter who I went to high school with. It's been fun to see their family grow. Also we did these pictures mainly for their dad's new campaign. He's in the State Legislature and wanted pictures of his family as well as himself at the Capitol.
Here are a few of my favs


Also we did a very mini-session for one of their daughters who is graduating from high school this year.




Ok, so this next one is of my awesome friend who I went to high school with and also was on the basketball team with! She's putting in her mission papers soon! Yeah Amber!


Just a few of the portraits of the other kids. Isn't she just gorgeous!!!








Sister Attack!

Boys vs. Girls

Another cute family and a 7 week old baby. I posted one of my very favs of Baby Brad on my sneak peeks just a couple posts ago.

Gorgeous girl!

Loved this next one:


And this is another newborn who I did a while back now (back in February I believe). Baby Maddison and her parents are just beautiful!






Hope you all enjoyed seeing a few more than just sneek peeks of what I've been working on lately. Now we just have a BUNCH of Engagements coming up!!!