I love storyboards.  I always have.  I think my love of storyboards goes back to my love of collages.  Back in junior high and high school, I created lots of collages using magazine words and pictures.  While I no longer tear up magazines, that desire to create is definitely still there.  I spent some time yesterday putting together a few storyboard examples.  They are such a great way to showcase pictures.  I think they would look awesome on a gallery wrapped canvas, too!

My friend Ashley called me last night to see if we could squeeze in a last minute photo shoot before her parents and grandparents left town.  Luckily, I had no plans last night so we met up at a local park for a quick little photo session.

This little guy is one sweetly spoiled, lucky little boy.  He’s the only grandchild and great-grandchild in the family.  He was so cute and soaked up all the love and attention thrown his way.

I’m glad it worked out to take these pictures!  I always think it’s fun to see several generations of family spending time together.

I don’t know that I really have a favorite age.  So far, I have truly enjoyed every age of child from newborn to post high school, although some are definitely more challenging than others (like my own 7 and 5 year old sons!)  That being said, I think that five year old girls were made to be in front of the camera.  I had a photo shoot this morning with this sweet little girl who I’ve watched grow from a baby into this beautiful, spunky, fun little lady.

She was such a fun little friend to hang with for a bit this morning.  We talked and talked and talked about school, reading, movies, her brother and sister, gymnastics and so on and so on.  Miss A definitely is not shy, which I already knew since her mom is a good friend of mine.  But I don’t know that I’ve ever spent much one on one time with A, and she is a delight!

She stuck with me as we traipsed all over one of my favorite locations and didn’t even freak out when we saw not one but two of the most enormous spiders I have ever laid eyes on!  I was ready to run for the hills, but she wanted to keep looking at them.  I’m not even exaggerating when I say the body was the size of a half dollar and the leg span was at least as big as my palm!

But it didn’t really phase A.  She just kept on being her beautiful self.

It was a great morning, even a little bit cooler than it has been!   Thanks, Leslie, for trusting me to take her pictures!

While I was in the Metroplex last weekend, I finally got the chance to take pictures of some of my favorite people.  Shauna and I go way back.  We met at church camp when we were about 13, and we’ve been friends ever since.  We even spent a fabulous year as college roommates, and to this day I probably call her “roomate” more than I call her Shauna.  She is one of my best friends, and I love that even if we haven’t talked for awhile, we always pick up right where we left off.  Friends like that are such a blessing.

We’ve been trying to coordinate schedules all summer long, and I was so excited that it finally worked out.  Shauna seriously has the most beautiful children, a fabulous husband, and I just plain love these guys!

I love this next family one.  Chase is such a little ham, and I love how they are all looking at him and he’s cracking up.  He’s one crazy and fun kiddo!

Let me prove to you how beautiful Shauna and Kip’s kids are.

Mackenzie, the oldest of the bunch.  You wouldn’t know it, but she had been under the weather for a few days when we took pictures.  But she is such a little trooper and didn’t complain at all (well, minus when some bugs tried to crawl on her.  That’s life at the lake!)

Check out her sweet dimple!

Handsome Chase, the middle kiddo.  And he fills the role perfectly!  He is the class clown, if families have class clowns.  Which I think they do.

And Macy, the baby of the family.  She is so full of smiles and stories involving unicorns and Tinkerbell.  Check out her unique eye…part brown, part blue.  I think it is so beautiful!

One more sweet one of Macy.

Shuana, I hope this holds you over until I get the rest of your gallery finished!  I had such a great time hanging out with your family.  Love you guys!

(ps…Shauna runs a great blog/website design company.  She helped me put together my site, and she is fabulous at what she does.  If you need a blog designer, be sure and check out See My Designs!  Also, I make pretty regular trips to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, so don’t hesitate to contact me if you’re interested in scheduling a session the next time I’m in town.)

You’ve seen these beautiful kids on my blog a few times already.  Their mom, Angela, is a great friend of mine.  And I am honored each and every time she asks me to take her photos!  Angela’s mom was in town for a visit, so we got together one HOT and HUMID morning for some pictures.  They were all such troopers…I don’t know about them, but I felt like I was melting!  It was one of those instant sweat mornings, thanks to some early thunderstorms that cleared up and left 98% humidity in its wake.  Despite it all, we came away with some cute shots of Mimi and her grandkids!

I also took some of Angela and her mom.  They are both such beautiful women and I love this shot of them!

I can’t wait to show y’all the rest of your gallery.  And thanks, Angela, for always trusting me with your family photos!

I was so excited when Julie contacted me and wanted to do a session at the beach. I have been wanting to go to Galveston for awhile, but I didn’t have a good location picked out and had just been procrastinating on exploring. Luckily, Julie was very familiar with Galveston and we found the perfect beach spot! They were the perfect family for my first beach shoot. We had the best time! They showed up ready to play and have fun. That makes for the best photo shoots. I could tell right off the bat we were going to have a blast, and when I saw Steve get all the way in the water with his kids, I thought to myself, “now that is a fun dad!”  Well, I didn’t actually just think that to myself.  I’m pretty sure I said it out load, too.   And as a result, this might be one of my favorite family pictures ever!

Not only were they loads of fun, but they have two of the cutest boys ever! It took only a few minutes (and a few monster trucks) for the boys to warm up to me. I loved taking pictures of them…I think they won a special little place in my heart because they are the exact age difference of Connor and Logan and I remember so fondly when my boys were these exact ages.  Derek was just finishing up grad school and we were getting ready to make the big move from California to Texas.  But I digress…back to last night’s cuties… (okay, one more little comment…Julie is actually finishing up her grad school degree, and we had the same maiden name!  So many similarities!)

And just a few more of the whole gang.  I had a hard time narrowing down which ones to post, so I’m going to share several!

Thanks again, B family, for coming out last night!  I had so much fun with you guys and cannot wait to show you the rest of the pictures!  You have such a beautiful, loving, fun family and it was a privilege to spend my Sunday night with y’all.

Been a little m.i.a. from the blog over here! Summer is just as busy as I imagined it would be. My kids sure keep me on my toes and keep my schedule full! We’ve done a lot of fun stuff, some traveling, and made some great memories.

On of the trips I got to take this summer was to Kansas City for my beautiful sister’s wedding. She asked me to be her wedding photographer, which was a whole new experience for me! I had a lot of fun…not sure that weddings will be something I offer, but it was a really fun experience. Now that I’ve gotten most of the pictures edited, I wanted to share a few of my favorites!

(and sorry for the picture overload…how on earth do you narrow down wedding pictures?? I have over 100, and I haven’t even finished all of them yet!)

Love you guys!  And thanks again for trusting me with your big day.

I can hardly believe that in just a few short weeks, my baby girl will be 2 years old.  Actually, I can believe it.  She is showing all the telltale signs of being 2…you know, like the words “No!”  and “Mine!” constantly come out of her mouth.  But, truth be told, I really don’t mind the “terrible two’s.”  If you can look past all the sass and become a master at redirecting, it’s actually a pretty fun, spunky, wonderful age.

And besides, (almost) 2 year olds are so cute!  I caught Camryn in a super good mood recently and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a photo shoot.  These were all taken in my little natural light garage studio.

She is full of personality.  Can you tell?

Of course, I got some of these looks, too.  But I love this picture!

Oh how I love my baby girl.  I’m so glad she cooperated for this photo shoot.  She is so much fun!

These guys were such troopers during our shoot tonight.  The summer time is officially upon us here in Houston, and that means two things: heat and mosquitoes!  Luckily, I seemed to be getting the brunt of the mosquito attacks.  Unfortunately, we had to share the heat!

This is the family of one of Camryn’s sweet Mother’s Day Out teachers.  Cami sure loved Ms. Jodi!  It was so fun getting to see and meet Jodi’s family tonight.  And like I said, they were such troopers.  Jodi will be happy to know that we got lots of good smiles.  As you can probably guess, this whole photo shoot idea was hers.  I have yet to have a dad call me up and want to schedule a photo shoot!  Her guys were just along for the ride.  But they really did great, and I hope they had at least a little bit of fun along the way.  I know I did!  Hope y’all enjoy your sneak peek!

I love the little connections I see in this last one.  I love how Jodi is looking at her boys, and the easy way the boys are standing, and the sweet way Jodi and Brian are holding hands.  Families are the best.

I feel like a lot has happened since my last blog!  The biggest thing (well, to me) was the arrival of my new camera (a Nikon D300)!  I’m so excited about my upgrade, and I’ve been having tons of fun practicing and playing with my new toy.  You’ll find me out in my backyard just about every night snapping a million pictures of my kids.  And my tomatoes.  And my cat.  Nothing is safe from my picture taking!

I wanted to get out there and practice on a family asap, and luckily my friend Angela happily agreed to mini session.  She was one of my first practice clients back in December, and we did a mini session in the bluebonnets.  Luckily her kids don’t mind being in front of the camera!  She really wanted to get a good one of all 4 of them (we tried with the bluebonnet mini sessions, but it just didn’t work out.)  I think there are several good ones this time!  They are such a beautiful family, and I am lucky to call them friends.

I love how Brock and Bailey are holding hands in this next one.  So sweet!