The first time my cousin, Brett, brought Cindy to a family holiday, I think we were all pretty universally enamored with her. She fit into the family with ease and was the kind of sunshine and playfulness that clearly worked so well with Brett, who has always been fun and loving and the easiest guy to be around. They make perfect sense.

Knowing where to begin when you set out to write something like this is just impossible. So I'll start with my inspiration. My dad has a tradition of writing letters to my siblings and my mom. Not a lot of letters. But really important "I see you and appreciate you" kind of letters. I've always thought he deserved a letter like that of his own, and if I'd thought of it sooner, I would have written him one on the day he retired this past week. But I thought of it now and now is better than never, and while there is something nice about the privacy and sanctity of a letter, I'm opting for the blog this time because my dad is too humble and people should know him the way I get to.

Oh man. Hello, blog. What a love/hate relationship we have.

Everyone knows that my blogging has taken a backseat to parenting in the past couple years. This is nothing new. So over the summer when I thought “hm, do I want to blog today?” I just listened to my instincts that said no. Even when I had nothing else going on and it wasn’t a time issue. It was more of a mental energy issue.

You guys. We went an ENTIRE year without new family portraits. Can you believe it? I certainly couldn't. Also, our good friend Andrea Pesce moved so it was a little sad to think we'd have to be photographed by someone new! Haha! But luckily we remembered Stephanie, who is not only the best and had photographed Erik and I years ago... but she is my photographer twin and when I say twin, I do mean twin...

Oh, boy. Where to even begin. Willow is two. "Two, not one" as she would say. I told her she wasn't a baby anymore and since I call her "baby" so much she responded, "not Willow anymore!" Baby is just synonymous with Willow I guess. She really isn't a baby anymore though. She walks, she talks, she has her own ideas. It's a whole different world from where we were a year ago. It's tragic and beautiful and wild and fun.

I have a DOUBLE session to share today. Strangely enough, this was not my first twin senior portrait session. And also strangely, I really enjoy photographing two sessions at once. If inspiration is lacking or my client looks a little uncomfortable, I just pop over to my other subject for a while and it's all very fluid and simple. Hm, I should consider this for the future... ;)

Here we are again. Another year's gone by. It happens faster and faster now. If you really want to become hyper aware of how quickly life goes by, have a child. That'll do it.

I thought maybe, this being a photography website and all, you may enjoy pictures of some of my clients instead of my daughter. You know, just to shake things up.

We are chugging along through this dreary winter season. I always think of winter as my time to hibernate and feed my introverted soul with cozy days in, low business pressure, and maximum rest. But this winter hasn't really been like that. Sure, there's a toddler now. So yeah, nuff said. 

You know it's been a while since you've blogged when you log into Squarespace and they've rearranged everything! But I make no apologies this time. I've been living life!

It occurred to me recently that in my eagerness to share some personal blog posts that I wanted to be timely (holiday-related things, etc.) I breezed past a few of my favorite sessions from this Fall. I've been wrestling lately with whether or not I need to share as many sessions on the blog as I used to. I've never blogged absolutely everything I photograph, for various reasons... sometimes, my clients express needs to keep their images private. Sometimes I photograph special things that aren't really what I'm trying to grow in my business, so they don't get shared. And all of these are fine reasons to not share images. But. To be honest, blogging is a very time consuming process and ever since Willow's been born, my life has become an exercise in maximizing my time. So I'm always thrilled to have new clients and I want people who are booking to be able to check the blog and see recent work. But at the same time, after this many years and a portfolio as large as mine has become, I don't think it's ALWAYS necessary.

Hey! It's January 2! That means new year, new beginnings, new start, yayyyyyyy...

I'm kidding. I actually do like the idea of hitting the refresh button in January. Even just putting away my Christmas decorations, while it's sad, when I'm done I always look around and feel a relief to see some of the clutter fade away. Note to self, do more decluttering this year. I'm always happier when I do. Another note, stop accumulating clutter.

Technically, not really. She experienced the snow last year, but she was too little to enjoy it. This time around was so much more fun. Willow has become quite the little talker lately, so she actually stepped out into the snow saying "wow" "whoa" "wow." In other words, she was suitably impressed. A+ mother nature.

This year's Halloween was so much fun. I love that Willow is now at the age where she can enjoy fun activities like visiting the pumpkin patch, running through a corn maze, or trick or treating! Halloween is Erik's favorite holiday, so we get pretty into it.

I was photographing a senior session last week and my clients noticed a family nearby who were struggling through their own portrait session. They watched the kids, who were wailing and screaming, and said "oh goodness, it must take a lot of patience to photograph babies and kids!" Sometimes, yes. But in TODAY'S session, not at all! I mean, it's obvious from the pictures, but this little boy was a complete and total champ for his one year old pictures! I've seriously never worked with a sweeter little thing than him.

I've been meaning to write this post for quite a while, but it tends to get backburner-ed. For the past year or so, I've been learning a lot about Montessori and wanted to share a little bit about that and how it's affecting our daily lives.

I wanted to share this summer engagement session I photographed for my best friend, Kristen's little sister and her fiance! Gosh, I don't even know where to start on this one. My first memories of Nicole, I don't think she was even school age yet. I would arrive at her house every morning to meet her sister and walk to the bus stop together every morning. I remember Nicole bursting with energy when I entered and me being a zombie because mornings have never been my jam.

Yikes! I have a bit of a back log of photo shoots that I haven't shared in the past month. Whoops! Time flies like you would not believe when you have your first child. I remember the days when I updated my blog 3x a week. Now, I'm pretty satisfied if I get a weekly post in! And you know me, if it comes down to a portrait session or the latest happenings of Willow, I'll probably blog about Willow haha.

If you've been keeping up with our summer happenings, you know we took a trip to Myrtle Beach in July. Unfortunately, that trip was cut short when we realized that Erik's grandfather was too sick and we needed to go say goodbye to him in northern Virginia. We're thankful we made it to see him in time and everything worked out like it was supposed to, but with the grief and stress of that and all the additional travel involved in going there for visits and then to Pennsylvania for the memorial, the cut shortedness of our original beach trip... it felt like there was no rest this summer. And while it's true, with a baby you don't get a lot of rest on vacation anyway!, we wanted to do something fun.

Tagging onto my previous post where I told everyone about how I needed to limit the scope of my business now, I've recently learned that I also need to stop giving my business all my free time. Before Willow, I used to spend hours of my day when even if I wasn't taking care of obvious business needs like emails, editing, orders, etc, I was still reading things that would help my business or spending way too much time in Facebook photography groups or chatting online with fellow business owners. It was just a natural part of every day.

Well you guys... I honestly could not decide if I wanted to write this blog post or not. I have such a mixture of feelings about it, but ultimately I decided that I wanted to be clear for my prospective clients and maybe this would help.

I keep thinking and saying, where did the summer go? I know it's not over, but all the back to school messages and the cooler weather we've had recently just make me say it. July was absolutely crazy for us, and this past weekend we finally had some time to just be. It was so nice. We took Willow to the park, and to her little friend Adah's first birthday party (which she absolutely loved... little social butterfly she is). Erik and I spent some time just being together. And it was just what we needed.

Family wedding, you say? Yes, this is a FAMILY wedding. You don't see those too often and it was a beautiful thing to witness. You've seen Chris and Michelle's family portraits already, but their WEDDING was something else entirely!

It's been a tough week around here. A tough month really. You probably read in my last blog post that Erik's grandfather, who everyone calls Pap, had been sick. Unfortunately, just a few days after arriving at Myrtle Beach last week, Erik, Willow, and I learned that we needed to head back to northern Virginia to say goodbye.