Erin, Jon & Espen

So Espen wasn't having the best morning. He woke up way too early (excited for the shoot I'm sure) and was running a bit low on energy by the time we made it to the beach. However, I still love how these turned out. I know his mom wished he was a bit more smiley, but I love portraits of little kids when they aren't smiling, but wide eyed looking at the world. We played around at the beach for a while and then headed to downtown Branford to shoot infront of a red door I'd been coveting to shoot in front of since I first started working out there. I'm such a sucker for red and loved it with everyone's blue outfits. We also found these crazy random metal bars that we used as a jungle gym since the one we thought we'd go to was all locked up. The blue sky was perfect. And how can you go wrong with red hair like Erin's? It's gorgeous. (Plus I think it's totally cool that they all have such different hair colors.)

Dan, Eva & O'Rian

It was so bright and sunny when we shot this session, but O'Rian was a good sport and kept his eyes open like a pro. (Ella hates the sun, so I was way impressed that this little man did so well). And I loved the outfit choices. I think I'm always just a sucker for red, white and blue. You just can't go wrong with that combo in any setting. While I was shooting Dan and Eva alone, Jordan had O'Rian and Ella, one on each arm. I so can't imagine that being my everyday with twins. Props to anyone who's ever had two or more at time. I'm still scared to even think about inviting number two into our family. Ella's almost walking and I really don't know how I'm going to get anything done when she's faster than me, which of course she will be.

(A funny story: Yesterday at church I was watching a little 18-month old girl try and put things into a hole in the heater vent. Her mom was pretty fast to stop her. But Elsie was persistant. She'd been eating a banana and when I looked over next her hand was inside the hole dropping whatever it was she'd been holding. Her mom was right there, but seconds too late. I thought for sure we'd be smelling rotten banana for weeks, but it turns out it was only a candy wrapper. I thought it was so funny, but really I was only laughing at myself because I KNOW Ella will do so much worse. I can hardly wait...)

I just emailed Eva to let her know that I've finally posted their pictures and I can only wonder what her little one is up to right now as well.

Fish Lake

Last night we decided to go camping with our ward despite my not having such a great day. I'm glad Jordan got me to go because it was a great distraction from work. Well, I ended up talking about photography with many anyway, but at least the main conversation offered many solutions to the days problems. So I'm hopeful. And Ella was so fun to be with. She loves to be outside. And Jordan somehow knew all the campfire songs everyone was singing, so we were set. Except for the part where Ella managed to soak through her entire outfit and all of her blankets last night. Those dang diapers. And we totally didn't bring a spare. (I know, I'm a new mother). She had only a shirt and it was freezing this morning. So I improvised with a pair of Jordan's socks to act as pants for her. But then I realized that wasn't really going to keep her warm so I broke down and asked to borrow something from another family. It fit like a charm and we ended up having a great time today as well. It being Saturday, (which I didn't realize yesterday when I promised to post new client pictures today) I decided I would post something, but not work. So here are some fun pictures from our Fish Lake camping trip we took shortly after arriving in Utah. As you'll see, Ella had a great time and managed to get all of her minerals and vitamins in along the way.

(I really didn't want to take my camera, but I'm so glad I did. I love having vacation photos, it's just that when I'm on vacation taking pictures is the last thing I want to do. If anyone has a suggestion, a fellow photographer, who knows what I mean and has found something that works for them, I'd love to hear...)

I'm back in action. For real this time...

I finally have the internet right here, in my home, at the tip of my fingertips. And I can't tell you how honestly wonderful it is. I've so hated having to make "trips" to the internet for the past couple of years just to keep up with blogging, clients, email, and anything else you need to do in this world because it's ALL online now. But, all is well. At least, my house is almost put together...

So, I'm ready to begin a new blogging journey. I don't know what I was thinking having a family blog seperate from this one. There's no way I have time to keep up two seperate ones. And I'm reworking how I think of my business. There's so much to revamp, but the base line is, family-work-life, it's all one thing to me now. That's how it is in my head, so that's how I'm going to treat it in practice. Not that I plan on being any less professional with clients, or anymore proper with Ella, but I'm not going to try and hide or work around the fact that I am a young mother married to a graduate student. My life is crazy. We still live in a ghetto (yes, Jordan's bike was stolen only a week after being here). This is me. Me writing a long post. Yes. I'm actually a writer. I'll bet many of my blog readers didn't know that. Because I always try and be like everyone else and keep it short and boring. Why? You've got me...

Well there's my daughter. Naptime has offically ended. That's life.

I plan on posting quite reguarly now. I hope you'll all join me again. (Even Kohleen admitted she quit checking my blog.) My goal tomorrow is to begin posting my final CT sessions. So check back for that. But today I leave you with the three images I'm entering in the state fair, complete with the borders they have and everything. They'll look just like this (minus the logo of course). I'll let you know how they do. I'm not expecting much, but Jordan swears it will be good advertising.

He must know right. I mean his degree is written in Latin...