Over the past few years I have had the joy of photographing 2 of the 3 families in this extended family session and I was thrilled when they asked me to photograph them all together! This is such a fun bunch I laughed the whole time <3 

Gahhhh see these sweet faces? I mean all the heart eyes right? I was lucky enough to get to do a 6 month in home lifestyle session with these two sweet boys a few weeks ago. They were soooo good and made it incredibly hard for their mommy and daddy to choose what pictures they wanted! But before I show you some of the bajillion they picked (just kidding it wasn't that many lol) I want to step back and show you when I first met these two this past summer. 

**sigh** gorgeous right??

​Ok now to the squishy cheeks and dimpled arm cuteness!! 

How freaking adorable is this little guy??? I am honored to say I have known him his whole life :) Corbin was my first (and probably only) birth story and it was an AMAZING experience. I really wish my life was set up to be able to take on birth stories full time, but it's not :(  Anyway! Corbin and his family came to visit me to document this milestone in the first year and he was as cute as ever! There is no lack of love in this family and I enjoy watching them grow and hope to continue for years to come!

This is my brother Zach and his beautiful family. If you know my brother at all you will see the proof in these pictures that there is no denying my niece :) I love her ornery little butt! ♥ Thank you guys for being patient and allowing me to push you to the bottom of my editing pile ♥♥♥

I know I have talked about it before, but one of my favorite parts of this job is getting to watch families change and grow. I have been photographing this family for few years and I am so excited to get to meet the newest member in the next few weeks!! ♥♥♥

Such a sweet family with awesome kids! I met Julie when she signed me up as a vendor at an event she was helping with for the newspaper. I was thrilled when she was one of the people to call me to set up an appointment! This family was a breeze to photograph and good looking too! 

The McDonald's are one of my favorite families to photograph, and I love seeing the kids grow year after year! It was cloudy for our fall minis but the sun popped out for their session and I love all the colors it pulled out of the field around us! 

I love Fall!!! Here's another fall mini with a beautiful family! This is the sweet Burger family ♥ I met Jamie this past year and fell in love with her styling! She is truly talented, and I was so beyond happy when she agreed to team up with me to create an epic Senior Model Shoot! [missed that shoot? see it here...ahem...after you see Jamie's adorable family of course!!]

This family was so fun to work with. Kinley was so sweet and patient and Knox was ridiculously ornery...and even though I know personally how it feels as a parent to have a child with an ornery spirit during a session... as the photographer, I wouldn't have it any other way ♥ 

Hey! This is my wonderful friend Stephanie and her sweet family ♥ I met Stephanie last year about this time at a field trip for my son's preschool. I'm slightly awkward and find it hard to make new friends (well I do when I don't have a camera in front of my face, it's my security blanket...weird I know...we can dissect my issues later lol) But Stephanie and I just clicked and we volunteered for lunch duty together on a weekly basis so we had lots of time to get to know each other and it is soooo refreshing to find another adult that "gets me" ♥ ♥ ♥ Plus our kids love each other so that makes play dates a MUST! Phelps fam thank you for trusting me with your family images I think you guys look great!

 

These are my friends Deena and Hailey. I meet Deena when we worked together a bajillion years ago at Kennedy Graphics and we just clicked. I have taken pictures of these two since Deena was pregnant with Hailey (gosh I feel old). Deena has been one of my main cheerleaders from the beginning, encouraging me as I grow in my photography skills. Thank you Deena for being a great friend and someone that believes in me ♥

These kids...♥ This little guy is 17 months old and was the best!  Right out of the gate he was looking at the camera, smiling, and being sooo well behaved! It also helps that he has such an awesome big sister! She is so caring for him and lets him climb all over her. I adored this family session!

Eric, Abby, and Ashtyn came to visit me for a family/e-session combo! We decided on the Ottawa Metro Park for our location. They have a neat pine tree area and lots of tall flowy grass (my favorite!) When we arrived at our location Miss Ashtyn was taking a nap in the car...I get it girl, I love car naps!! We decided to let sleeping beauty get a few more zzzz's in the car with Grandma & Grandpa while Mommy & Daddy started their part of the session. Ashtyn joined us after about 15 minutes and she is cute as a button! However....this cutie pie wanted nothing to do with the crazy lady behind the camera. That little stinker would wave at anybody that walked by, but wouldn't even glance my way!! She was killing me lol. Regardless, I had fun trying to convince her I wasn't that bad, and we got several beautiful shots! Eric & Abby thank you for sharing your sweet family with me and I hope your destination wedding is as beautiful as you ♥ 

I ♥ these guys! This group of good looking folks are our friends :) My husband and Rich have been best friends since preschool and now our daughters are carrying on the tradition. They were born only 2 months apart and have been friends since they could run over each other in walkers...no literally... the husbands were watching the littles and found Aubreigh under Adelyn in her walker!  These are some of our favorite people to spend time with and I am so glad they are in our life ♥  

Any Ohioan knows that weather is pretty unpredictable here, but I swear October is the worst! It was beautiful all week, then the day of our session came around and it was 64 degrees and cloudy, with 17 mph winds! I met Shauna and Tyler at their family farm, Hilltop Farm, outside Wapakoneta. What a beautiful location! Little Elliett was all red nosed and bundled up in a blanket as we hopped into their beautiful and powerful UTV to start exploring the land ('m such a townie, forgive me if that is the wrong abbreviation lol) I have lived in town for about 85% of my life so I ♥ sessions like this where I get to explore with my clients!  Elliett is 5 months old cute as a button and such a peanut ♥ Her outfit was absolutely adorable, topped off with the cutest boots that she expertly kicked off every 2 minutes. I swear she would NOT look at my camera! I did get a few but the wind blowing in the trees was way more interesting than little old me. Thank you Tyler and Shauna for allowing me to capture your adorable family and taking me on a little adventure, which was normal for you I'm sure, but a little adventure for this town girl :) 

I am SO excited to share this ADORABLE family with you! Avery is such a doll baby! I wanted to take her home so bad but her mommy and daddy wouldn't let me :) Avery is turning one and she is in the EVERYTHING-goes-in-my-mouth stage. She definitely kept us on our toes with all the rocks, grass and flowers she kept taste testing. 

What a beautiful family! These kids had me cracking up :) This year's rainy season made us reschedule their session 4 or 5 times...but it was worth it! Thanks for hanging in there with me I know rescheduling stinks! The weather was wonderful and not humid, which was an awesome change from the month prior. I started to wonder if we would ever see the sunshine and no puddles. I loved how Genevieve and Malachi interacted with each other. Malachi seems like a wonderful big brother. I ♥ the kiss picture!!!!  I'm sure they have their moments (I'm a mom I know it happens lol)  but I definitely saw the love they have for each other. Thanks guys for choosing me to be your photographer I had a great time! 

Look at that sweet face!! Scarlett is turning 2 and to celebrate she had a little tea party in the park with her teddy ♥ I had the honor of photographing Scarlett last year for her first birthday so I was excited when her mommy called me to do another shoot. Lindsay is so creative and always has great ideas for the theme. I love how these turned out! Scarlett was such a doll playing with her tea set, giving her teddy hugs and kisses, gathering as many strawberries as her little arms could hold and pretending to eat watermelon. But a girl with 3 older brothers can only handle that for so long till she needs to use her tea cup as a shovel in the pea gravel lol. I so wish I would have captured that on camera! Scarlett you are a sweet girl with the prettiest eyes! Thank you for letting me crash your tea party. I hope to capture many birthdays to come! 

This family was the last family session of my very busy fall season. Fall is a beautiful time to shoot, but....it is usually cold! Miss Brooklyn was all about the blanket I brought. Halfway through the session I could tell she was cold and wasn't feeling the whole picture thing anymore. I bribed one more picture out of her before wrapping her up. Welp,  you can pretty much see that blanket in the rest of the pictures. Sorry Alyse I hope you liked that blanket lol. The boys were....well, boys :) And Logan a stereotypical middle child!! He reminded me so much of my middle child...ornery with a capital O. He is a bunny ear and silly face fan :) I think I had to give him my "I don't think so" mom face  a couple of times. But he is game to do anything you ask. Noah, the oldest, was quiet, patient and helpful. I love seeing how each family interacts and the love they have for each other. Thanks Alyse & Matt for choosing me to capture your family! 

I've known this family for awhile.  Scott has been friends with my brother for many years. I even had the privilege of shooting their wedding. I was excited when they contacted me to take their family photos. We had a beautiful day and the leaves were at the peak of fall beauty. Their son Ryan is ornery with a capital "O" :) At first I could only get him to look at me if we were playing tag.  After that we had to trade sticks for smiles, and for one of the family pictures on the bridge he had his own idea of what the pose should be. I had placed a crate on it's side so that it was high and I wanted him to sit on it. I walk away to get into position, turn around and he was standing on it lol. Normally I will shoot any pose I can get a little one to do,  but this A) made me nervous and B) looked really silly. Since he didn't want to sit I turned the crate to a more stable position so he could stand. By that time he was over it, we tried everything to convince him to be in the picture, and as you can see we could have paid him with a million hours of "piepad"  time  and he was not having it. For those of you not fluent in toddler "piepad" is an ipad. I love his face in that picture...he's like, "Nope...I'm out." :)   He is all boy and I had a fun time trying to capture him. Toward the end it was difficult to get pictures of just Mom and Dad because he wanted to climb all over them. I hope you enjoy the "after" picture of Ryan standing on their backs as much as I did. I literately LOL-ed. Maybe it's because I'm a parent of children about the same age and can totally relate!    **No children were hurt in the creation of this family session ;)

This sweet family lives 2 HOURS away from me!! We decided to meet half way since that is A) quite the distance to travel for pictures and B) a super long time for the kiddos to be in the car. I am SO flattered that they were willing to go the distance to allow me to capture their moments. We decided on a town that I have only driven through a handful of times. I started my research and was lucky enough to be able to take a virtual tour of downtown on Google Maps! I wish I could do that for everywhere, I'd never have to leave my house to scout another place again :) Our first date was rained out and when we arrived a week later we found that it was high school homecoming. Pretty much everyone that lived there was in the park I had planned on going to. Fortunately my bad habit of scouting while driving (probably not the safest thing) allowed me to spot a nature reserve on my way into town.  We started our session downtown and Emlyn and Ruth jumped right into being great subjects and even practiced posing while I was trying to chase down their little sister Charlotte...have I mentioned how much I love all their names :) Charlotte wasn't my biggest fan and was attached to mom. She did eventually warm up to me enough to look at me without hiding behind someone. When we got to the nature preserve I pulled out the trump card for all little kids...my mini rocker. They CANNOT resist it, it speaks to them, "Please sit in me I am just your size!" As the session progressed it was nap time for baby Henry and little Charlotte was approaching hers as well and was not feeling the whole picture thing. We were still able to slip in some shots of Mom & Dad together as I could see Mom was dwindling on the ability to will that "No, there's not a crying toddler behind the photographer right now" smile. Family sessions are rarely perfect but that's what I love about them..each one is different in it's own way. Thank you Marcia & Mike for choosing me and making the trip, it means so much to me that you like my work enough to make those sacrifices :) 

P.S. I might over share on this session, they have too many great images to choose just a few!

I had the joy of photographing little Miss Scarlett earlier this summer for her 1 year old pictures. She is such a sweetheart and I was thrilled that her mommy wanted me to photograph the rest of the family this fall. We got to try out a new location which was absolutely stunning with the changing fall leaves. The boys had a lot of fun exploring the hills and river bed and keeping me on my toes!  I won't pretend that the session was unicorns and butterflies the whole time :) with young children you never know what you are going to get and I JUST HAD to edit the last image of this blog. I don't even know why Scarlett was so upset but the picture is comical to me as a mom and a photographer because if you have done family pictures with young children you can relate 100%! The boys are over it, Dad is rocking the set in stone smile, and Mom....well you can see it on her face. Even though it's not "perfect", it is perfect to me. I feel this photo represents me as a photographer. I like to give my clients the posed images with a mix of "real" moments, that they can cherish and possibly laugh at for years to come. Thank you Lindsay for sharing your family with me! 

This family was a breeze! They did everything I asked and were amazing in group shots! I don't think I had to swap one head which is amazing for a family of 7! (Swapping heads, for those who don't know, is a trick done in editing. You take multiple shots of an image, then pick the best heads and put them all into one) I love the black and white images of the sisters in a group, I really enjoy catching "real" moments.  I think the images turned out beautifully, you guys have a good looking family!

Young Samuel decided to take a nap on his way to the shoot...every person who is a parent is thinking "uh oh". Add in the brisk fall breeze and let's just say, Samuel wasn't my biggest fan at first. He eventually came out of the sleepy time funk and became a unstoppable ball of energy. He definitely kept me on my toes...but that age normally does :) Even though most of his shots were on the move...I think we got some cute ones!

Meet the George family! Jennifer contacted me to help them deliver some exciting news! I was honored to be selected for the task. This family was as darling as ever and those boys are going to be the best big brothers EVER! Little Hayden wanted to do everything his big brother did. He did an amazing job even though sometimes he “just couldn’t” smile for me lol. Sometimes that is big request for 3 year olds… I know I currently have one.  They were super patient with me and even braved the tall grass and bugs (Hunter was NOT a fan). After we got all the boring pictures out of the way we set them loose with the superhero capes I brought along. Those boys were cracking me up. There is a picture below that is definitely soft but I HAD to use it because little Hayden is doing his karate chops in the background. I can still hear his little karate “cha cha” sounds. I had so much fun at this session. Thanks guys for choosing me and good luck with the rest of your pregnancy! 

This sweet family braved the early hours of the morning to get the light of the sunrise in their images. Julie chose a location that was near and dear to her heart for this session. We headed out to the country to her great-grandmother’s old house. Julie thought it would be neat since she has so many great memories from childhood there and her daughter is named after her great-grandmother. Precious Opal is turning one. Opal had me on pins and needles as she precariously looked over the edge of the chair. She provided us with tons of smiles and a few early morning screams, lol, not mad screams, just screams to scream. Adults don’t you wish we could do that anytime we wanted to? Caleb was a great big brother and was amazingly patient. What a cute little guy!!