Andrew & MaKenna

Meet my son Andrew and his dear friend, MaKenna.  

I had asked my friend, Amanda if I could do a session with her daughter.  

I needed to update my portfolio and MaKenna is a beautiful little girl.  She also lives in Buckner.  I'd been wanting to do a session in downtown Buckner, but no one wants to drive out to Buckner.  So doing a session with a "Bucknerite" was ideal.  She agreed.  We set the date and I was thrilled for the opportunity. 

MaKenna did a fantastic job and totally rocked the shoot!

Now, you may be wondering why I just threw my son and this girl together for a random photo shoot.  Really though, it was not random.  You see, Andrew and MaKenna met in Kindergarten and became fast friends.  Andrew would come home and talk about this girl, MaKenna.  She was cute.  He thought he might like her.  One day he brought home a paper filled with colorful hearts she had drawn for him.  It's still hanging on his bulletin board in his room.  ;)  She gave him a stuffed puppy for Valentine's Day.  Pretty soon, talk turned to, "I'm going to marry her."

Marriage?  My 6 year old was already talking about marriage?  I tried to explain that he couldn't possibly know as a 6 year old who he is going to marry.  But he remained quietly confident.  I quit talking about it and figured over time, he would get over the idea.

First grade came and they were not in the same class.  I would occasionally ask about her and he would just shrug his shoulders indifferently.  Seemed they rarely talked to each other anymore.
But then, one day, he came home highly upset.  There were, not one, but TWO other boys interested in MaKenna and Andrew could just not bear the thought of that!  Especially when one of them KISSED her on the hand! Then she chose Hayden.
Tears were almost shed.  Ok, not really, but Andrew was not about to lose the girl he loved.

He walked up to Hayden one day at school and in no uncertain terms basically said,
"Look here.  You may think you like her and that's fine.  Like her all you want.  AS A FRIEND.  I've known her longer than you have and she's mine." And off he went quite certain that that was that and MaKenna once again "belonged" to him.

On the evening I stopped by MaKenna's house to ask if I could use her for a photo shoot, they wanted to see each other.  They ran up to each other on either side of the fence and MaKenna said in this soft voice, "I miss you."  Talk about melting my heart!  

Fast forward a couple of weeks and here they were, together at last, for a photo shoot.  I initially planned to use only MaKenna but after discussing it with Amanda, we decided it would be cute to shoot a few of them together.  Well, I shot more than "a few"!  They were SO good together.  I gave them one little direction and they executed it better than a lot of engaged couples I've shot, who supposedly know what love is.  

One thing that made them so fun to shoot was simply how much fun THEY were having together.  They were giggling the whole time and just having a grand ol' time in each other's company.

At one point, I asked Andrew if he wanted to kiss her on the cheek.  He said, "No way!" lol She quickly volunteered and dove right in.  I love the innocence on their faces, in their body language.

I have no idea who Andrew will one day marry, but I do pray for her and I pray that they will stay pure for each other.

If you have read the entire blog, thank you!  I had so much fun with this session and I hope you enjoyed reading about it and viewing the images.  Please leave a comment to let me know you were here!  

Before & After

Ok, ok, I've kind of fallen off the weekly blogging train.  If you want my excuses, let me know and I'll be happy to share them with you.  Believe me!  I have them in abundance!  But for now, I'll keep the excuses to myself and will get on with the before and after of this particular post.  So many options I had when it came to this, but I had a certain before and after in mind.  Me.  If you know me, you know that I don't keep my hair the same for long.  You'd think I was a cosmetologist or at least a student of cosmetology with as often as I change my hair.  Ok, I don't change it THAT much, but I do like to change it up.  I found a picture on Pinterest and suddenly decided I wanted to cut my hair.  The hair that I had labored long and hard to grow out from a VERY short hair style.  I shed tears.  And, I admit, threw mini tantrums during those horrid growing out periods.  So why in the world would I want to cut it off again?  I. Have. No. Idea.  But, I did.  So here, without further ado, are my before and afters.

I'm still getting used to it and am not 100% sold on it yet.  What do you think?  Like it?  Love it?  Hate it?  I'd love to know!

Child Portraits

 I often use Katie as my go to model when I "practice" because she is always ready and willing.  This time, however, I wanted to use Andrew.  I rushed to get these done after I did the "Red" themed picture with Katie.  There is an old truck here in my town, just a block away from my house.  I've wanted to incorporate it into some pictures for awhile now.  I thought Andrew's outfit would go along perfectly with this truck as the backdrop.  

 On these next two, I did the traditional "classic" edit and the added an "aged" preset (seen on the left) as well.  Which one do you like the best?

I'm Seein' Red

Obviously, I've missed a few weeks in this weekly blog challenge that I was so convinced I could keep up with.  In my defense, I have a baby.  A teething baby.  That should be enough said, right?  I mean, I barely have any time to myself without him in my arms these days.  And when I do have time, blogging is the last thing on my mind.  But right now, Daniel and the kids are gone to go sledding, the baby is actually taking a nap (on his own, in his crib!) so I thought this would be the perfect time to attempt to catch up.  

This was another "is it a color or an emotion" type challenge week.  I was not angry, so I chose to photograph it as a color instead of an emotion.  I went out and bought some red spray paint to paint a little wooden chair I had sitting in my basement.  I'd been wanting to do this for 2 years now and just hadn't gotten around to doing it.  We had a warm day so I went out and got to work painting this chair. I had the perfect spot I wanted to use for this project (the photo session, not the painting the chair project) and I planned to do it at sunset using one of my kids.  Well, as you know, things don't always go as planned.  The warm day I had waited for finally arrived.  It was a Sunday.  So we went to church.  Then Daniel took a nap.  I kept waiting for him to wake up so I didn't have to drag the baby to this shoot.  But he didn't wake up (he eventually woke up, just not in time...I don't want you to think he died).  And it started cooling off drastically.  So before I lost all the light, I quickly got my little model ready, loaded the kids up in the car and took off to my spot.  The sun was sinking fast, the wind started blowing and my kids were freezing.  I snapped a few shots, but wasn't getting what I wanted.  Katie was so cold, she just couldn't hang in there with me, so I abandoned the idea.  I got home and loaded the images to my computer so I could have a look see.  I chose one that I thought I could save, and here it is.  

I love it.  And I hope you do as well. 

Project 52 - Things On Chairs

This week's them is Things On Chairs.  If you're anything like me, things get left in all sorts of places.  However, for this project, one where you are supposed to photograph the odds and ends things that have been left on chairs, I found all my chairs to be empty.  Except for my recliner which always has a heating pad and a blanket.  :)  But there was one chair that I did find something on.  My cat.  She likes to take naps in this one particular chair under our dining room table.  I had some great light coming in through the glass doors so I figured she would make a good subject for this week's theme.  

In case you don't know, her name is Baby Cat.  Cute story about her name...we found her when she was just a tiny kitten and decided to take her in.  Andrew asked me why I kept calling her kitty so I had to explain kitty is short for kitten (he was not quite 2 at the time). He then asked what a kitten was b/c clearly, this looked like a cat to him.  So then I explained a kitten is a baby cat.  Rather than call her "Kitty" like was doing, he decided to call her baby cat.  So it stuck.  Baby Cat.  

Here, she had just jumped up into the chair to take herself a little cat nap.  She seemed to be a little leery of me pointing a big ol' camera at her, unsure of whether she was about to be in trouble or not.  There are some places we don't allow her to be, our bed for instance.  But the chair was fine.  :0)

I had to get a pull back shot to show that she really was on a chair.  Kind of hard to tell in the first picture.  (P.S. I know the table and chairs are ugly, but we still have not upgraded from our early marriage hand me downs).  ;)

I walked by a little later to see she had turned around.  So I grabbed the camera and took another shot.  I love when she sleeps with one paw over her eyes.  Not the greatest angle but she was half way under the table.  

I hope you have enjoyed my weekly blog posts.  

Next week's post will be "I'm seein' red".  

Will it be a color or an emotion/angry type of red?  

Who knows!  At this point, I'm not even sure.  ;)

Project 52 - Patterns

This week's theme was a bit tough for me.  I literally thought about it all week.  Patterns.  How and what should I use for this week's theme?  I suppose, that possibly, the one who thought up the themes for this project probably intended for the patterns to be a patterned backdrop, or perhaps a subject that was wearing patterned clothing such as stripes, plaids or polka dots.  But I was feeling inspired by none of those things. AND, she did, in fact, encourage us to interpret the themes however we wanted to. So, I thought that maybe I would get a bag of pink and red starbursts (partly b/c I just wanted to eat some pink and red starbursts) and make patterns.  You know, like pink, pink, red, pink pink red and so on.  But I wasn't 100% satisfied with that concept.  And then it dawned on me.  Why not use sewing patterns?  I love vintage things and my mom has an old Singer sewing machine as well as some old patterns.  I then got excited about shooting for this week's theme, even though I am 2 days late in posting.  Better late than never though, right?  ;) 

So here is what I came up with.  

Thanks, Mom, for allowing me to use these!  

Project 52 - Blue

This week's theme is all about the color blue and how we interpret it.  Is it a color?  Is it a feeling, an emotion?  The past several years, I most likely would've interpreted it as a feeling.  I've struggled with low iron and for some reason, it loves to bottom out in the month of January.  Extreme fatigue, depression, irritability, and inability to focus are just a few of the symptoms.  Yep, that describes the feeling of blue to me.  But!  I have learned to stay on top of my iron levels now so that didn't happen this year. So for this blog post, I am interpreting blue as a color.  It could have something to do with the fact that I have a baby boy and there's been an explosion of blue in my house.  But I would be dishonest if I didn't admit that it really had to do with the fact that I LOVE coordinating outfits and I just so happened to have some coordinating outfits for 3 adorable kids that just so happen to call me mommy.  :)

Now this session was no easy task!  Taking pictures of my own 3 kids...well, lets just say I REALLY worked for every smile.  Okay, okay.  My fantastic husband helped out a lot.  Especially with baby Jack.  

Andrew, my oldest, is not a fan of cooperating for pictures.  Let's just say he's a little on the hyperactive side and he'd much rather be playing.  That's why when I nail that perfect shot with him, I feel like I've won the lottery!

Now, my Katie is a natural.  She loves being in front of the camera!  She often comes up with her own poses.  

Last, but not least, I couldn't resist posting one of these cute baby feet.  :)

So how do YOU interpret blue?  :)