Charlotte's Mom emailed me asking about newborn photos and luckily for her (not so much my other client with the broken elbow!) I had a cancellation and could squeeze them in this past Sunday. Y'all know that October and November are all photographers "busy season" and believe me they are! I was so happy I was able to meet this sweet family and capture this special time for them. They were the PERFECT family to shoot and Charlotte is so lucky to have two laid back sweet parents, you would have thought this was their third or fourth baby, they made the session a breeze. Mom and Dad met at a wedding, (how cute!), and with Dad being from Scotland they've been all over and back again! They didn't find out the sex of the baby, so the house wasn't filled with pink quite yet, Charlotte's nursery was the most adorable collection of travel and baby, I loved it!

I recently took a workshop with the awesome Colie James and she is really into slideshows. I'm not going to lie, when that week came up in class I rolled my eyes at my husband and said "I hate slideshows" (horrible photographer confession right here) but once I actually started watching other people's slideshows I really started enjoying them and the stories they tell. I thought this was the perfect session to try my first one, so let me know how you like it. I have to admit I teared up a few times while making it. There's just something about seeing the love between two new parents and their darling baby girl.

I am currently in the middle of an online workshop with the amazing Colie James all about becoming better story tellers as photographers. Which is awesome,
because really, my job, as your photographer is to tell the story of your family and and capture those special moments for your family.

This week the assignment was to capture a day in my life, which, with a 3 year old and a 1 year old is always exciting! I got way less "Mom, stop taking pictures!" that I thought I would and I really did capture a typical day for us.

Days for us start out with me being so sweetly (not really) awoken by my 3 year old, usually yelling at me to get out of bed and help him find a train. Sometimes he just yells for the trains directly, unfortunately, they do not talk back. God bless you Mamas that get up and ready before your kids do. I strive to be you! 

Baby sister wakes up much more sweetly and is full of smiles and cuddles in the morning.
Note to self: Next time when doing a Day in the Life be sure to dress baby sister in some flipping pink jammies instead of brother's hand me downs!

Then its off to school for the big mister then the grocery for me and little miss. Is it just me, or does everyone hate going to the grocery? I like to count it as my workout for the day. Seriously! Walking around the store, forgetting things on the opposite end of the store, walking back, lifting groceries in your car, carrying them inside and putting everything away (the worst!). All while wrangling a 1 year old that DOES NOT want to sit in the cart. Its exhausting!

Back home we go, for a little bit of work, she helps me keep my schedule and sometimes helps with a little editing, so you know, if anything is ever missed, I can totally blame my assistant for not being able to read, write or talk yet. Hey! Cheap help as cute as this is hard to come by. Round that out with a little theme song watching, she only watches (or should I say dances to) the theme songs to PBS shows, reading time and before we know it, its time to pick up brother from school.

While sister sleeps (sorry no sleeping pictures of her, she wakes up at the sound of just about anything!) brother gets to play with his trains without the threat of Hurricane Evie, as we like to call her, and gets some alone time with Mommy. If you've never done it, do yourself a favor and open up Photo Booth on your computer, its a ton of fun for a 3 year old. Well actually lets be honest its fun for everyone!

Once sister wakes up we head to the park. We've finally got a break from the heat and the mosquitos down here in south Texas, and when that happens you better believe we spend a majority of our time outside! 88 may not feel cool to some of you northerners but to us its heavenly :-) I love now at the park that they actually play together.  It makes me happy to think of all the years they have ahead of them of playing together. 

So, if there is one big piece of play equipment that you think you don't need but you actually do, its a bounce house! My Dad got Maddox this bounce house for his birthday and its awesome! Its easy to assemble and folds up nicely so it doesn't take up a ton of room, but its big enough when blown up that I get in and play with the kids in it. Best of all, after a full day and then bouncing in the evening, it makes bedtime earlier and easier ;-)

So I'm not going to lie, this is where I lost steam on documenting the rest of our day. Evenings are busy times at our house! Dinner, bath time and bedtime are here and over before we know it, and sometimes you just have to take your photographer hat off and switch it for your Mommy hat to power through. And who would have thought that the best bath time toy would be......ice cubes! I may (ok, I definitely did) get the bath water a little hot one night so I threw in a bunch of ice to cool it down real quick, because our faucet is broken and its a pain to turn on the cold water, blah blah! Anyway, the kids loved the ice cubes and now request them nightly. 

I hope you've enjoyed taking a look inside of our day! I think I'll try and make this a goal to do once a month to see how much our lives and routines change throughout the year. These little boogies are growing so fast sometimes its good to stop and make an effort to document all of these everyday moments.

I love doing mini sessions, they're great! I get to see so many of my favorite people all in a matter of a few hours. I get to meet new families that will hopefully become regulars and I get the opportunity to offer affordable sessions so you can have updated photos of your kids all year long, because dang! they grow up quick! 

This years spring mini sessions may just be my favorite set of minis yet! First off, I waited until last minute (like I normally do) to decide on props for the session, then while perusing Pinterest I stumbled upon this bench and I just HAD to have it! Mind you, this was the day before the shoot, but I'd found the plans for the bench so I just decided to build it. My husband thought I was nuts, my friend who went with me to Home Depot for the lumber thought I was nuts, but I did it and its flipping adorable if I may say so myself. We hit a minor snag in the loading of said bench into my car.....it didn't fit, whoops! But thanks to a handy husband and some sturdy tie downs we got it there.

One of my favorite things about my job is that I'm constantly meeting new people, but this time around I was super excited because everyone coming to the minis were past clients, so not only did I know exactly what to expect, the kids all loved me (as most kids do) obviously ;-) In fact, one of the Mom's said to me that in the car her little one said "Miss Victoria is going to tell me how beautiful I am when she sees me" and that is exactly what I told her when she got out of the car. I can't help it if my clients are just too cute!

Ok, enough of my rambling and onto the cuties. I hope you enjoy!