Luca's Newborn Session

Last week, on the day Luca was exactly two weeks old, we did a photo shoot with my friend Richelle Bozung.  She was so patient and worked for hours to take the best photos possible.  These are my favorites from her edited images, and I love how they turned out.  Thanks Richelle!

Maternity Shoot

Rewind back to October again, when I was about 6 months pregnant (now I'm nearly full term and feel like a house).  My friend Lissette had loaned me some maternity clothes and when I tried on one of the dresses I just felt like it was such a Greek Goddess dress that it needed to be featured in some photos.  So with the help of my friend Hayley who does hair and makeup, and with local photographer Sarah Gilreath, we tried to capture the vision I had seen in my mind's eye.  

The morning of the scheduled photo shoot I almost called Sarah to cancel, because skimming through maternity photography on the internet for ideas had reminded me how absolutely horrifying and ridiculous maternity photography can be...  but this is my last baby (or at least my last time being pregnant) and so we plugged on.  All in all, I'm really glad that I pursued this vision.  Pregnancy can be really uncomfortable and especially as late in the term as I am now, so miserable at moments, but it is definitely participation in a miracle and one of the times I feel most beautiful in all of this abundant womanhood.  

Special Delivery - Clara Olsen

A few weeks ago, on the morning of her birthday, my good and very pregnant friend Jen went into labor and in the evening texted me asking if I would be interested in coming to the hospital to take photos of her newborn.  The plan was for me to arrive shortly after the baby's birth since Jen was close to pushing and I would be coming on short notice.  But when I arrived, we had a gift: her little girl hadn't arrived yet, and because Jen had an epidural, we had nearly an hour to talk and enjoy the final peaceful moments before Jen and Jordan became parents to three children instead of two.  

Her team of midwife and nurse were amazing!  And Jen was amazing too!  When it came time to push, Jen pushed once with a contraction, turned to be sick into her bucket, and little Clara came out into the world!  That cramping of stomach muscles was highly effective.  Clara was healthy and so very beautiful.  Here are just a few of my favorite images from that night.

I was available to serve as a doula if need be, but Jen was pro and so I stationed myself behind my camera.  This is the 5th birth I've been present for, besides my own children, and it is always such a holy, sacred space.  Congratulations Jen and Jordan!  Clara could not have asked for a more wonderful family to be born into.  Such a lucky girl.

Carolina BalloonFest 2014

A few years ago I decided that I love hot air balloons, and last year we decided to check out the Carolina BalloonFest in Statesville, North Carolina.  It is about two hours from our home, so it was a bit of a drive, but the idea of hot air balloons launching in those long hours before sunset had such ripe potential to be magical.  And it was.  It was an incredible evening last year, and this year we decided to do it again.

Hot air balloons are at the whim of the wind, so weather conditions need to be favorable before pilots will risk a flight.  When we arrived the wind was too strong, and the launch was delayed long enough that part of me started to feel discouraged.  Luckily, a loud horn sounded, which was the go ahead, and immediately balloons started to take shape, and mounded forms stretched and rose from the ground.  When the first hot air balloon took flight, there was hollering and applause - we were all relieved that the launch had taken!

Our dear friends (and nearly family), the Hills.  They are our partners for so many of our adventures in this state as we are growing up our kids together.  Traditions are always happy with these guys around!

Isn't this incredible?  It's like a valley of sleeping giants, all waking up together.  Below is one of my favorite photos of the day.  Orion was only 11 months last year when we came last year, so this experience was like seeing it all for the first time.  He kept running off towards the balloons, absolutely fascinated by the flames, the colors, the giantness of it all...

A few more favorite photos.  A sweet one of Marcos with the kiddos, and Orion and I with that look on our faces.  (What were we even looking at?)

One thing particularly special about this year was the bubble man.  A vendor selling light up sticks and bubble machines walked around with a demo bubble machine, whirling hundreds and hundreds of bubbles into the air at one time, and it was so much fun for the kids.  Between the balloon launch, fair foods and funnel cake, free bounce houses for the kids, the bubble man and Albannach - my favorite Scottish band who plays a concert every night during the balloon festival - it was the perfect fall celebration.    

Flying Children

Marcos made a group of really wonderful friends as a student at UNC, and we've been having regular, if infrequent, potluck meals with them over the past year or so.  We had his friends over this past week for dinner and in the warm summer evening we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood.  Keith is a budding photographer and took some great photos of Marcos and the kids silhouetted against the darkening sky.

And then Shane got ahold of a few of the photos and decided to use his photoshop skills to make some tweaks.

But this one is by far the best.  Thanks for a laugh, Shane!

4th of July Photo Shoot

For months I've been wanting to bring out the camera and try to do a little photo session of the kids, and finally yesterday it happened.  It was an all-hands-on-deck ordeal with me mainly behind the camera and Marcos mainly doling out smile-bribes and acting a goof to get the kid's attention.  And out of the 300+ photos we came home with, I think that a few are real keepers.  My main goal was not to stress out if things weren't going like I wanted them to, and considering that I was working with Mister Wiggle the 20-month old monkey, that was not an easy feat.

Gigi has always had for the camera what I call the "creepy smile" (head lolling to the side, teeth bared, eyes rolled sideways), but we were pleasantly surprised to find that once we had gotten through some cheesy grins, she was cooperative, relaxed and even ready to initiate some of her own poses.  Here is one of those early cheesy grins.  She was getting it out of her system.

Oh, Orion.  What a grumpy age of life.  But on the other hand, Gigi!  Bless you for being such a sport!  This photo below is so cute to me.  It just makes me wish I were more talented with editing, and photography, and could perfect the coloring and lighting.  Ah well.

I think this one above is my favorite of Orion.  Always on the go.

Before we left this morning I did a cram session read-up on how to make photo sessions with kids successful, and letting kids be kids and play and be natural made it to nearly all of the articles.  Some of my funner photos, like the above, were Gigi's brain children.  The photo below is rather unspectacular, except that it shows how completely edible our son is.  I want to capture the reason why I give him four thousand kisses a day.

In this photo Gigi is saying, "Mom, I'm DOOOONE!"  So we called it a wrap!