Cousins

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to photograph 5 children, all cousins. They are 2 sets of brothers and 1 little girl. I had thought prior to their session about all the different poses I would try to get of them, but the kids had their own mind of what they were at the park for and it wasn't sitting still and looking at me!
I love how REAL children are, if they're not happy or don't feel like doing something then they let their true emotions out. I actually find this as something admirable. One of my dear friends said to me not to long ago, "I wonder, as adults, how much we censor our true feelings and hide our true selves". It's so true, there is so much we can learn from a child!
So back to the cousins... I love how you can see their personalities in these photos and even though they weren't too excited about having their pictures taken, they were having a good time being together. Of course, brothers show their emotions a little differently than girls, so they did as boys normally do and picked on each other but it was obvious to me that these cousins weren't only extended family they were friends!

Brothers and 1 cousin...

All 3 cousins...

Brothers...

The following pictures are of each child individually.

She was wearing a very beautiful dress! White with black pok-a-dots and a lime green bow.

I just want to leave you with a nice poem I found about families, it explains well how I feel about my own family...

Our family's like a patchwork quilt,

With kindness gently sewn.

Each piece is an original,

With beauty of its own.

With threads of warmth and happiness,

It's tightly stitched together.

To last in love throughout the years,

Our family is forever.

"When life gives you..."

L-E-M-O-N-S

Then make this...

A Lemon Icee!

We were given a handful of homegrown lemons from my Mother-in-law... she has a real OLD tree that produces Large size lemons that are a little on the sweet side. Yesterday, my 5 year old son Ryley asked if I would make him "Lemon Juice" (too cute), what he meant was lemonade.

So I pulled out this...

My Vita-mix blender.

I just love this machine! We use it for making smoothies, icees, soups... and it can do much more. They are a strong, heavy duty blender that are used commercially and the same blenders that Jamba Juice uses. Of course, they come with a huge price tag but if you can get past the price or save up for one they are what I consider a must have for your kitchen!

So back to the Lemon Icees...

First thing I did was peal 2 lemons and put the whole thing in the blender and chopped it up until it was super fine and all the seeds were ground completely. (No water just the pulp and juice)

Then I added this...

Sugar!

And a lot of it... like a 1/2 cup and blended it in.

Then I added this...

Ice!

I filled the blender about 3/4 of the way full with ice and then blended away.

And within a couple of minutes we had a yummy, cold, lemon icee... a perfect treat for a hot afternoon!

So here's a couple of the in between shots...

My son Ryley... "Mommy's Helper"

He's a crazy kid... he likes to lick and sometimes eat lemons! Makes me pucker just looking at this!

We all enjoyed them! Thanks Ryley for the wonderful idea!!!

I've been wanting to do bring photography more into my daily living and so this post is the result. We had a great time making and eating these icees and now because of the pictures we'll be reminded of yesterday's fun for years to come. It's my hopes to do more of this! So... "when life gives you lemons" do what I did... make it memorable!

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour,

The bad may have a bitter taste

But sweet will be the flower. ~Cowper

{Just for Fun}

I am a member of an on-line chat board for photographers and every now and then they have fun games that I always want to participate in but just never find the time. (I'm more of a stalker then a member) Today they started up a fun game called the ABC game. So rules are that you post a picture that corresponds to the next letter in the alphabet... the last one was a beautiful picture of a sunset, that was for {E} Evening. So the next letter would be {F}.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I have a ton of pictures of Rigan that I'm working on... well... intending to work on. Anyways, there are some adorable ones of him that I took for Easter as well as just for fun ones in our front yard that I do plan on posting someday. In this post are 3 from our "front yard fun shoot". I had too many F's to choose just one so I created this collage or storyboard... it's a 5x7, think I'll get it printed and hang it somewhere in the house.

Taking just a couple of minutes on something like this gives me the sense of creating something I can be proud of and inspires me to think past the housekeeping and laundry. It helps also with my NEED to craft!

Hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it!

Senior Photos

These photos were taken a year ago... I was asked by one of my friends from MOPS to take her daughters Senior pictures. This was my first Senior session and I was honored to be given the chance to take this gorgeous girl's pictures! She was tons of fun to photograph, very easy to capture beautiful shots of, and didn't hesitate when it came to costume changes in the car! She has a very youthful spirit, at an earlier photo session with her family she was being a little sassy with her mom and stuck her tongue out; I was quick on the "trigger" and caught it with the camera.
On this day she was extremely concerned about a bad burn she had on her arm from just a couple days prior. So we had to come up with ways of disguising or hiding it without making the poses look odd or off balance.

Recently I was asked to take senior pictures for someone else and so this is the reason for "unearthing" these photos. I always enjoy looking back a previous work to critique, learn from and see how far I've "grown" at photography.
In my previous post I had mentioned some pictures I took of our little Rigan, I still plan to do that soon, so please keep checking back...
I also have tons more I took of him out in our front yard one day, they're just too cute for words so I'll have to get working on those and post them soon. With summer upon us, I'm sure I'll be real busy with the camera.