IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!! And this cutie is a fellow May birthday-er...is that a word? It is now! It's my birthday and I can deem it so ;) 

I had the privilege of capturing Elliett's 1 year and cake smash pictures on her actual birthday at the beautiful SoSerene! She was all about the pebbles around her and showed us every. single. one. She was a cute ball of engery that was in constant motion with lots of smiles, precious little giggles, and the cutest little curls. Thank you Elliett for allowing me to spend your birthday with you ♥  

WOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am beyond excited about how this all came together and turned out! First, I want to give a huge shout out to our models Kirsten, Elizabeth, Autumn, Mikaela, Jade, Lydia, & Sofia ♥ They did a tremendous job. They looked so amazing and were complete rockstars during our FUN but very...verrrrry long day. There were a ton of moving parts and lots of things to get done. Some girls had to start as early as 10:30 am and finish around 7 pm...modeling ain't easy my friends ;) 

Hair started first with the talented Miss Angie Wauben of Angela's Hair Design (follow her on →  Instagram) Due to the weather delay of our shoot Angie had to take the time out on her daughter's birthday to be with us that morning!! So GIANT thank you for that sacrifice ♥ And amazing job lady XOXO

 Makeup followed shortly with the UH-MAZING Liz Flowers and Josie Hogue of 12 Month Beauty (follow her on →  Instagram) We probably picked THE busiest time of year to do this for Liz with it being prom and wedding season. She powered through doing makeup for a wedding, 3 prom girls, and one of my seniors the day before, then turned around and hosted all of us in her house the next day! She didn't stop there my friends, she even came on set with us after her job of doing the make up was done...WHAAAT??? I am so lucky to know these amazing people that work so hard for a dream ♥

Styling was next by Jamie and Jenna of Simply Torn who supplied the outfits from head to toe for all the girls (follow them on →  Instagram) These two girls are unbelievably talented when it comes to styling...like seriously, I want to be them when I grow up ♥ I know I have been mentioning this for a few blog posts now, but if you haven't already, you need to stop reading, click that link above and start following them!! DO IT NOW!! 

Weeks prior to the shoot each model came in for a personalized styling session at Simply Torn, Jamie and Jenna really took the time to meet the girls and try to fit them with an outfit that suited their personalities. Jamie and Jenna came over to "Model Headquarters"  about 2 hours before the scheduled shoot time to helped everyone get into their outfits. I was in awe and doing little school-girl giddy dances when I saw the finishing touches coming together. 

[Confession: I was nervous!] As everything started to wrap up I started to get the feeling I had in high school when I ran track and it was my turn to take the baton. This dream I had was coming to fruition before my very eyes and it was exactly, if not better, than what I had imagined. Is this real life?? What if I dropped the baton for these amazing vendors that spent all morning working on my dream? "YIKES! can I do this?" After a brief internal panic attack, I quickly snapped out of it and put my big girl panties on and stepped into my creative zone. I would like to take a moment to extend a sincere apology to my assistant photogs (Melissa & Lori AKA my mommy ♥) and anybody else that tried to talk to me that day...I stepped into my creative zone and I stepped HARD. I was very focused and I know I may have completely ignored your suggestions  [insert: didn't even hear you, but probably nodded and uttered uh-huh]. 

This shoot came together beautifully and our models did every crazy thing I asked and mastered the horribly-hard-to-pull-off "fake laugh". They were extremely patient with the process and me while I figured out posing and I could not have asked for a better group of girls to work with ♥♥♥

Each of these models have the opportunity to participate in some more shoots but they need you! If you know of anyone that is in need of senior pictures get in contact with one of our beauties. They can give you an app with exclusive coupons and you can enter their name in our booking form so they get credit towards these fun and unique shoots. 

Thank you to everyone for believing in my dream and making it come true. I am filled with joy ♥ 

First I want to say Happy Mother's Day to all you AMAZING women out there! I hope your day is filled with so much love ♥

Right now it's Friday morning and I'm writing this and scheduling it to post on Sunday. I wasn't planning on writing a Mother's Day blog post at all...heck, I rarely ever stray from client session posts, but I cried on the potty today and want to share. Yep, I said it..."potty", which is how you really know I'm a mom...I even use that term with grown adults lol.   You're probably wondering about the crying part though right? I bet your first thought might have been that it was the typical "crying out of stress, while locking yourself in the bathroom to find just a few seconds of solitude, all while little fingers cram themselves under the door" type situation (oh come on...YOU KNOW you've been there) but it wasn't.... 

My youngest is finishing preschool in a couple of weeks. He only goes 3 days a week so he is at home with me all by himself on Mondays and Fridays. I purposely did this. I am beyond blessed to be able to stay at home with my children, and even though I had the ability to send him to preschool 5 full days a week, I just wasn't ready to part with my baby a year before I had to. This morning I had shipped my daughter off on the bus, shut the front door after waving till she couldn't see me anymore, and slipped past my 4 year old downstairs to the basement bathroom to do my business in peace. About a minute in, I heard him upstairs calling out for me, "Mommy??". I knew at that moment if I chose to stay quite and let him find me he would begin to search for me with panic creeping in his voice and an ever quickening pace of footsteps till he discovered my location. I hadn't tipped him off about where or what I needed to do, so my location would probably be the last place he would search for me. We have a 2 story with a basement and that is a lot of ground for a panicked 4 year old to cover, so I called out to him...over...and over.......annnnnd over, like a game of marco polo till he found me on my throne. He walked in and without skipping a beat laid his wii remote on the back of the toilet behind me and started in on his conversation... I knew I was in for the long haul. I was pretty much done by this point but I listened to him talk, he asked me if I was pooping, he asked me about my tape measure (I've been working on my beach body people! This momma gets a much needed vaca in a few weeks ♥) he asked me how the tape measure worked as he pulled it in and out and described to me how HE thought it should work, and continued to ramble on about a few other things. I finally asked him if I could finish going potty by myself and he said "Oh ya!" (like it had just dawned on him for the first time that I'd want privacy) he skipped out the door and shut it. I called out to him "Hey do you want your wii remote??" He ran back and before reaching behind me to get the remote planted a giant kiss on my cheek with a headlock hug and told me "I love you sooo much Mommy" and then he was gone. I sat there for a few more seconds recovering from the whirlwind and I started to cry. Soon, very soon, potty time will forever be a lonely event. And even though that is something I have dreamed of for 12 1/2 years now...I can feel the time of freely given snuggles, "I love you mommy's" given every 10 minutes, reassuring "you're the best mommy in the universe" compliments, unlimited tight squeezes, and potty kisses slipping from my grasp. 

I wish I had a pause button, or a time machine so I could have the peace of mind that I could revisit these moments....but I don't. I'm going to just soak it all up while I still have it...

Whatever season you are in moms, soak it up...soak it up♥