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August Fresh Favorites | St. Louis Photographers

Posted on September 1, 2010

Oh, August, where did you go?  So quickly by that we almost forgot about our monthly favorites contest!

Happy September!  We are going to make this a fast and great!  One of our new offerings coming up is a calendar in our popular accordion books featuring your images!  So new, that we don’t even have a product image of it yet!  We love it so much, we are going to give away a set of 3 to the August Fresh Favorites winner!

You know the drill, vote by commenting on THIS post.  Tell all your friends, family, neighbors, mailman, who ever you can to come vote!  The deadline is TOMMORROW (September 2nd) at NOON!  So get the word out!  QUICK!!

#1 – Karsynn

#2 – Jackson

#3 -  The Woodards

#4 – Colin

#5 – Alivia

#6 – Paxton & Bauer

#7 – Audrey

#8 – Billy, Leah, & Ashton

slideshow | St. Louis Baby Photographers

Posted on September 1, 2010

Just finished up Jackson’s slideshow and couldn’t NOT share!

funny photo of the day | St. Louis Children’s Photographers

Posted on August 31, 2010

Editing with the stomach flu today and came across this hysterical photo! Just thought I’d share!

Anyone else had this stomach bug that seems to be ripping through St. Louis right now? Ugh!

my middle name is “she has seven kids” | St. Louis Photographers

Posted on August 27, 2010

So it’s no huge secret that I have a lot of kids. Jodie likes to introduce me as, “This is Kimshehassevenkids” Kid you not. And I guess it is a great ice breaker, and I know you just don’t meet someone with seven kids every day. But really, I don’t feel so out of the ordinary!  And I definitely don’t feel worthy of any sort of pedestal some may want to put me on.

Our life may be a little more loud and hectic, but life with any amount of kids is loud and hectic! I constantly wish there were more hours in the day, but I bet most moms feel the same way.  So I don’t feel like I’m doing some amazing job that no one else is doing, it’s just I have a few more than most! And in some ways, that makes it easier! No, I haven’t completely lost my mind… well, maybe I have, but that was long before now!

How is it easier? My kids always have built in playmates for one! If someone wants to play basketball, they can always find someone to play along and not have to go hunt for a neighbor. If they want to play a board game or air hockey, someone is always up for joining them! And because they are also so close in age, they often play on the same teams, have the same friends, and best of all, have insight on homework and school projects to help each other!  And not to mention the benefits of the older ones being a little more independent and able to babysit!

No, it isn’t all rainbows and sunshine.  Far from it!  The sheer amount of laundry is enough to make me want to jump off a cliff most days.  If I don’t do 2 loads a day, we are buried in it!  You don’t EVEN want to know my weekly grocery bill (or rather, when I actually MAKE it to the grocery store) and trying to create menus that everyone is happy with is near impossible (and thus I hit take out and drive-thrus way too often).  Most days I feel like a huge failure because I simply cannot give each child my 100% undivided attention, but I guess we all experience mommy guilt, right?  And while things have gotten a little easier with them getting older, the days when I had 3 in diapers (I had three of them 2 and under at one point plus a 5 year old) are such a blur.  We were just making it through each hour and each day.   But in the long run, I do think my kids are becoming really neat little persons because of (and maybe a little in spite of) living in a large family.  And how else could you shop for Homecoming dresses and diapers all in one day?

And since posts are just not quite as fun without photos, here is a recent and very rare photo of myself & the man that shares this crazy life with me.  The man I’ve been married to for 21 years.  The man who is honestly my best friend.  The man who still says I’m beautiful with no makeup and total beach hair.  The man who would love to have many more children, but knows I might make true on that jump off a cliff thing.

And the motley crew on the first day of school.  Yes, total snap shot.  Yes, they totally look uncomfortable as they humor me each year as we are rushing to get to the first day on time.

Abby is our oldest and will be 16 next month.  Unbelievable to me, and we couldn’t be prouder of the young woman she is becoming.
Billy is next in line at age 12.  He loves playing just about any sport and is pretty good at them through my mom goggles.
Jonathan is our third born and is 11, 13 months younger than Billy.  He has a *wicked* sense of humor and keeps us all laughing.
Samuel follows right after at age 10, 13 months younger than Jonathan (notice a trend here… to the day 13 months).  Sam is our most responsible and compliant child, very quiet, but once he gets going with can chat your ear off.  Most likely on some random sports facts because he is a huge sports fan…. which we apologize all the time because you couldn’t get parents any further from sports fans as Bill & I.
Grace is our second girl at age 8.  She is our social butterfly.  Small and mighty, and a little on the bossy side.
Next up is Thomas at age 5, our new kindergartner.  He is such a sweet and gentle little guy, who on the third day of school one of his teachers let me know he’s already told her he loves her.  That’s just so Thomas.
And rounding out the clan is Sophie at age 3.  Sophie is sort of our bonus baby as I felt I was “done” after we had Thomas… but she definitely rounds out our family perfectly.

That’s “us”… we are not perfect.  I don’t have it all together.  My kids aren’t all geniuses or sports prodigies.  We are just a typical family with just a few more kids than most.

karsynn | St. Louis Newborn Photographers

Posted on August 25, 2010

August has been a baby boom for Fresh Art! And it seems they were all born within days of each other! We had a session yesterday and three more in the next week! And we couldn’t be happier!

Yesterday we met up with Gena and her newest daughter, Karsynn. A sweet two week old who has two older sisters ages one and three…and Gena? She’s doing great! At least she looks amazing! I was a wreck when I had three so little! But Karsynn definitely stole the show!

Not sure if you noticed Jessica Rose’s new overlays but I used a few of these images to play and am in LOVE!

To buy these overlays go HERE!

Thanks for your patience Gena! We hope you love your sneak peek!

the baby goes to preschool | St. Louis Photographers

Posted on August 23, 2010

As Jodie mentioned, I am sending our baby to preschool this year.  And while that seems HUGE, I think the thing that has affected me most is the fact that my baby is finally potty trained.  Preschool, schmee-school, we are not buying diapers for the first time is almost 16 years!

Sophie and I had her open house last week, which was nice on Thursday because I think she’s getting bored with all this Mommy & Me time with the kids in school and would rather be hanging out with other little people.  We got to go in and see her classroom and drop off our supplies.  Sophie has her own crazy sense of style, and I used to do posts all the time featuring her fashion statements.  This is how she decided she wanted to go meet her teacher:

I did talk her out of the snow boots before we walked in, but be warned, Mrs. Berner, they may make a reappearance before the snow starts falling!

She (and *I*) really loved the neat light up table with shapes:

But then she found the babies!

and herself!  oh, how she loves herself!

and did I mention she loves babies?  Because she does!

So I’m confident she’s going to have a great time tomorrow, but it’s still very strange to think that ALL of our kids will be at school.  All those years when I had so many little ones at home to care for, when this time seemed so very far away, now it just seems like a blink ago.  And like the little old ladies that would smile at me as I was frazzled with a slew of little ones that I had to take to the grocery store alone because my husband was traveling would say, “enjoy this time, it goes so fast, and they are the best years,” now I’m the one saying those same things!

My current theme song (that totally makes me cry each time I hear it… yeah, I’m a total cry baby, but it’s so powerful!) is Blink by Revive:

Alivia | St. Louis Newborn Photographers

Posted on August 23, 2010

Happy Monday! Kim is home today hanging with Sophie, her three year old, on her last day before her FIRST day of preschool! Do you know what that means? Two days a week Kim is WITHOUT children, all SEVEN children, for at least 6 hours! YAHOO! I’m so excited for Kim to have those days off. Of course for the next two weeks we are shooting newborns on those days but maybe at some point she’ll get an entire day off for herself! She deserves it! Today I’m headed to Union, MO to do a photo shoot I was hired for from Washington D.C… kind of random and totally awesome!

But before I hit the road dropping kids off and heading for Union I just HAD to share the awesomeness that was Alivia!

And aside from how totally adorable she is, the back story, to me, is the coolest part of her session!

Her mom, Kari, wasn’t happy with the photographers she was suggested to look at by friends and so hit the good ole trusty Google.

Which is how she found us. Love Google.

And then once she was poking around our blog she found my personal blog.

And that’s when her husband realized he was in the same college fraternity that Chris was in!

Tyson instantly reconnected with Chris and it’s been awesome! C is actually playing on a Beta softball team tonight actually!

We rarely photograph babies awake but Alivia had other plans that day! She was awake most of the time! She was so calm though we were able to still get some great shots!

This shot was TOTALLY for Tyson! He really wanted her on this football and Kari added the bow… she likes all things fancy!

See? Fancy! Most of the props we used in this session Kari brought! It made our job super simple!

We loved getting to hang out with this family but I think C got the best part! Softball! HA!

Thanks Tyson and Kari for a great session! Alivia was amazing and so so beautiful!

Have a great Monday everyone!

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