keep your camera close | and your kids closer

Posted on July 28, 2011

The last year or so I’ve been struggling with BEING in the moment with my kids and CAPTURING the moments with them. When I’m IN the moment and not worrying about lighting and ISO and aperture I’m able to enjoy it more fully. However, with my lack of sleep and busy rush of life I’m starting to realize that if I don’t capture it I won’t remember much of it! I think both things are good and I’m trying to remember that sometimes I can even do both. And OTHER times I can even pass off the camera (setting set of course) to someone else so that they can capture ME in the moment with my kids! That happens so rarely but is OH SO important!

Anyway.

As we are working endless hours right now to make our house ready for move in day (SATURDAY!!!) I’ve been taking my camera everywhere with me. It started so that I could document all the changes taking place at our house but slowly, in the course of the last month, I’ve started being more in the mood to document the kids too. Isn’t it funny that just starting to document one part of life makes you want to start documenting others? It was such a natural progression I didn’t even realize it was happening. Like one day I went from always having my camera in my bag to having it next to me again, which is how I was when the kids were really little… it lived on our counter in the kitchen so it was always near by!

SO although I still do go on adventures and laugh at everyday antics that don’t get captured to be fully in the moment, I am SO glad that I’m getting back in the habit of taking photos of my own kids doing the mundane things that make up this awesome life! Will I be editing our family photos until the day I die and never really catching up? Probably, because the downside of this job is that client photos come before your own. But at least I have the photos now! Too many months went by without many taken at all.

My favorite series of our everyday currently is from a few days ago when I FORCED Grayson to get dressed by himself. This summer has seen a lot of change in our family and so much of it has been watching our baby-days disappear. There are brief instances where that makes me want to go get pregnant again because I do miss so much of the baby stage desperately, but 99% of the time it’s freaking awesome! One of our last steps was for Gray to dress himself and I knew he could… I just had to convince him!

He got this far and stopped. Just sat there. It was making me laugh so hard I grabbed the camera and THANK GOODNESS I did because these images totally crack me up!

It was not the best light but there was a window in front of him so I just cranked up my ISO and snapped away! Just proves it doesn’t matter if the lighting stinks! Snap anyway!

He was being such a stinker!

Then he gave up to play.

So mean Mommy came out and I tanked it over his head ordering him to put his arm in. I’m so mean.

It was a short sleeved shirt and he totally knew where his hand needed to go but MAN did it take a while for the stubbornness to give way!

“I tant’t DO it!”

He gave up to play again! See his fingers actually sticking out of the shirt? HA!

He knew he was being a stinker!

Terri (my mother-in-law) calls Bill a mule-head because he’s so stubborn and Chris definitely can take after his dad… I guess we have third generation mule-head now!

He thought he was SO funny!

Second arm going in and….

VICTORY!

These photos are priceless. I am SO glad I thought to reach over and grab the camera! Someday his wife will crack up at these and that makes me so happy.

What are your struggles with capturing your kids while also enjoying them? Is this hard for anyone else?

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Emails may take me a few days to answer right now because I just shipped my kids up to Wisconsin to hang with Aunt Abbie and Uncle Chris until Monday so I have four full days to paint, pack and move in before they come home! Once we are settled emails will be easier to get to! Thanks for your patience and I will post some befores/afters of our house once we’re in there for you guys to see!

A fun senior session coming up tomorrow!

Happy Thursday!

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Gia turns one | St. Louis Family Photography

Posted on July 25, 2011

Oh man.

I don’t even know where to begin to tell you about how awesome our session was Saturday night!

Except maybe I’ll start with the very end of the session when on our way back to St. Louis from Hermann, MO we stopped at a gas station so I could go change clothes and get a soda. While standing at the soda fountain a MOUSE ran over my foot (in flip flops)! I’ve never screamed so loud in my entire life! Of course Kim was in the car waiting for me as I was jumping around trying to dodge it because I scared it half to death and it wasn’t sure which way to run! I caught her eye after I knew I wasn’t actually going to have a heart attack and mouthed, “a MOUSE on my FOOT!!!” and her eyes about popped out of her head! HA! The worst part? The girl didn’t offer me a free soda and I thought FOR SURE after a RODENT touched me in her store I would get a free soda out of the ordeal but no, she just casually said, “yeah, Hardees (which was connected) has been having mouse troubles so I guess they’ve made their way over here too.” Yeah. I guess they have! Ugh! It was awful!

So that’s how our awesome session ended, but it began a whole heck of a lot better! The Cullum family has a GORGEOUS home way up high on a cliff in Hermann, MO where they all gather on the weekends to spend time together. Seriously, beautiful doesn’t do this home justice. It’s at the top of a hill surrounded by forest overlooking amazing farm land and wineries. I could stay there forever! We started our session there and then headed down to their neighbors hay field as the sun was setting. All to celebrate little Gia’s first birthday!

Now the part I haven’t mentioned is that it was almost 100 degrees that night and we literally have never sweat so much. You could have filled a baby pool if we had all wrung out our clothes (hence the change at the gas station!)! It was SO disgusting and we felt so badly for everyone because they had to look un-miserable while we could just be dripping and no one but them would ever know! Gia never complained once, even over an hour past her bedtime, and we didn’t hear one person complain once or want to quit early! Such a warm, fun-loving family! We just can’t say enough about how great it was to work with them! BUT, you will get an idea of how much we loved them by this HUGE blog post! Most of the family isn’t on FB so I’m going to go ahead and put all the images here too (normally I add more to the FB gallery than the blog)!

Get ready for oodles of sweet family photographs!

Alicia and Corey were so sweet with Gia! And she was seriously the easiest baby we’ve ever photographed as a one year old!

Gia and her Great Grandparents!

Gia and her Grandparents!

So fun to have so many generations!

This is Brandon, Corey’s brother, and his beautiful girl friend, Slav. Isn’t she gorgeous?

I wish I could describe to you how HOT it was!

Thanks Cullum family for inviting us into your home and allowing us to capture your little Gia for her first birthday! We seriously LOVED this session!

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A quick note of thanks.

Posted on July 24, 2011

I think I’ve mentioned it here before, but in case I haven’t, we bought a house this summer. And since then (about a month ago) we’ve been spending every waking hour over there painting and building and working to make it ours. Our poor kids have been spending most of this month with their grandparents or friends as we’ve had to farm them out to get it all done. Not that they’re suffering! They’re having a great summer, we’re just missing most of it.

Kim had surgery the day after we closed on the house so luckily the month of July hasn’t been too busy for Fresh Art. Of course working is good when your new house is sucking away all your cash but the time for painting has been so so helpful!

Anyway.

The point of this blog post is to tell you guys one simple thing.

Today I worked at the house for 13 hours. I got home at 10pm and the entire way home I was thinking about how excited I am to start editing the images from last nights session. It’s after 11pm now, I’m showered and finally sitting down in front of the computer when really I should be in bed sound asleep because I am beyond exhausted. But here’s the thing.

I love my job.

I love meeting new clients, planning the sessions, choosing the locations, shooting, editing, blogging, etc. I love all parts of this crazy job! After working 13 hours at the house all I want to do is blog and edit! I am just so blessed that no matter what my day looks like I can always have at least a little time doing something I’m passionate about. Yesterday it was driving to Hermann, MO for an incredible family session and tonight it’s getting to edit a few of my favorite shots for the blog. Tomorrow it’s FINALLY answering the 45 emails I have in my inbox (I swear that if you’re waiting on an email from me it’s coming tomorrow!!!) And the BEST part of working at Fresh Art? Kim does the one part of the job I hate! HA! Love you Kim!

Anyway. The last month has been so hard for me. Working non-stop at the new house, trying to be there a little bit for the kids, working when I can at Fresh Art, etc. To say I’m burning the candle at both ends feels like an understatement. I haven’t been this exhausted since my kids were three under three. So thanks to all of you that still pop in to look at our blog. Thanks to our amazing clients for showing me grace during this intense time in my personal life. Thanks to Kim for keeping me sane and keeping me grounded and keeping me laughing.

Maybe I’m high on paint fumes (this is totally a possibility!) or the huge amount of caffeine I’ve had today, but I’m sitting here feeling so happy. So blessed. Like life is really coming together for my little family. We have the house we’ve been saving and praying for, we have three healthy kids, I have an awesome husband who’s been showing me sides of him I’ve never seen before, we have incredible support+help from family and friends and we both work at jobs that we are passionate about. I’m just not sure there’s more I could ever need!

Thanks again to everyone who has shown me such patience this month. I promise that August will be my month to officially catch up!

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Baby D | St. Louis Newborn Photographers

Posted on July 19, 2011

I got a text tonight from Katie that we get to show you his face! I guess the social worker on their case saw some of the images we’d sent Katie and Russ privately and she said it was ok to share them! YAHOO! Because you guys, you are going to die! This is seriously one of the cutest little 8 week olds we’ve ever laid eyes on! And at 8 weeks he’s not even 9lbs yet! A tiny little peanut! Ok, enough chatter! Enjoy meeting, face to face, little Baby D (or Big D as they’re calling him!)!

I mean seriously. I could stop now and there would already be cuteness overload. BUT. Since Katie is graciously letting US blog his face FIRST just so she can see some new images I figure I should post some more! HA! Enjoy the sneak peek Mohrs!

Do you see that belly button? HA! I love a good outie!

HA! He gave Kim this look that just had me rolling!

Again, we couldn’t be happier for the Mohr family! And we can’t wait to get our hands (and cameras) on our favorite family again! Now that we know we can blog him we’re going to be knocking down their door!

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Mohr Kids | St. Louis Newborn Photography

Posted on July 17, 2011

If you’ve followed their story at all you are going to JUMP UP AND DOWN when you see this:

And if you remember THIS or THIS it will make you cry instantly like it did me the entire time we got to shoot this little cutie the other day!

We can’t share his face until later in the fall but we had to share these with you anyway because people, we need some prayer warriors! We need to all gather together and pray that their hiccups are over and the road is smooth. Because let’s face it, life with a newborn and a five year old is bumpy enough!

A little fist pump! HA! I can’t wait to show you photos of this little guy because he’s one of the cutest babies we’ve ever seen!

SO! Let’s load up the comments with HUGE congratulations and prayers for the Mohr family on their newest TINY addition! Katie and Russ, you know we couldn’t be happier!!! Well, I’d be happier if we could blog a face or two! HA! Kidding. We adore him and can’t wait to get more time with him! ANYTIME you need a sitter let us know!

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Hadley | St. Louis Newborn Photography

Posted on July 16, 2011

We had the sweetest little girl come to the studio the other day! Hadley was a dream! Even though she was almost three weeks old she slept and rocked out her newborn session! We had a ton of hats we needed to get shot for some ETSY sellers and since she was so sleepy we were able to get almost everything done! Seriously, a dream! Kim and I kept laughing because we would have expected a much harder session but she was just a breeze! Can you tell we adored this little girl?

Bloomers from HERE.

Hat from Naptime Knittery.

Jessi couldn’t remember which ETSY shop she bought the scarf from but this looks very similar HERE. Headband from Gremadcha.

Headband from HERE.

Headband from Holly McCaig.

Headband from Petunia.

Crown and headband from HERE.

Whew! It takes FOREVER to link up to all the awesome shops we get the privilege of working with! But they all have such amazing products!

Ok, working on the next blog post as well which if you are a regular blog reader you will be VERY excited about! How’s that for a teaser? HA! Hope you had a great Saturday!

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Caroline | Webster Groves High School Senior Photography

Posted on July 14, 2011

We met up with Caroline and her dad a few days ago on a pretty rainy evening! In fact, we dodged rain drops for a lot of the session but it let up just enough for us to fit the whole session in without having to reschedule! What was perfect though was the light… the clouds filtered it beautifully and then they opened up at the end for some gorgeous sunset light! Seriously, aside from damp cameras it was an absolutely perfect session! AND Caroline was awesome! No direction needed, she just ROCKED it!

At the end we told Caroline to run over to where her dad was waiting and give him a big hug! SO cute!