beautiful.

There's something wonderful about being outside in a great yellow dress.  I love the look and feel of this session and especially the wonderful connection between these sweet sisters.

Thank you for your example of what I'm hoping my daughters will grow up to be to each other...

fun. LIFE.

together.

I loved getting to hang out with this sweet family.  They go RV-ing together to all kinds of places.  There home holds an artist and dancer and definitely adventure-ers and explorers.  They traveled across the country to call the Carolinas their home...that's pretty adventurous.  They have understanding and kind hearts and there's so much to love about each of them.

I'm so blessed to be invited into familes to get a glimpse of who they are and what their relationships are like.  And it's one of my favorite things to be able tp be given a tidbit of wisdom from parents who are treading where I will be blazing a trail of my own soon.  Their thoughtful parenting and awareness of their children is a gift to not only their children but those who get to see them in action.

This family is the embodiment of accepting one another and at the same time giving each other the space to spread their wings and fly. 

beautiful. LIFE.

fishing.

When I fist talked to Ethan's mom she told me that Ethan wanted pictures of only one thing...him fishing. We spend most of the session fishing, trying to catch something, putting worms on hooks, losing hooks, trying different docks...and the fish just weren't biting. nothing.  We got great pictures...just not fish.

After being very persistent (at least I thought it was persistent...how long do you have to fish in order to catch a fish?) we hung up the fishin' pole and did Ethan's second favorite thing....baseball.  Both Ethan and his brother are on the high school baseball teams.  (Ethan is in 8th grade...I'm thinkin' he must have some mad baseball skills.)

I loved meeting Ethan's sweet family and getting to photograph Ethan doing what he loves most.

lucky. LIFE.

sneak peek.

Part 2.

There's something that happens to a woman after hours and hours of labor.  When she finally gets to hold the sweet little being in her arms that she's been talking to and dreaming about for 9 months.  I've felt it.  Experienced it. Getting to see it happen first hand was a gift and completely awe inspiring.  No matter how many times a woman has given birth it changes her every time.

Feeling the soft skin of her newborn that's never been touched by human hands that is all at once familiar and scary and foreign and wonderful.  The feeling of sweet relief that you can hold in your arms this baby that seeems hardly real and the overwhelming feeling that this is going to be really hard.

The smell of her tiny baby's head, the strength of those minute fingers as they curl around her fingers sending a message; saying they're never going to let go, and all the while this mom doesn't ever want that perfect little grasp to let go but in that same moment realizing that at some point they will...

...and when they do this woman will not be the same person she is today.

She will be changed.  

Changed by this bundle laying against her skin who has, for the last 9 months, breathed her air, lived in her womb, known the beat of her heart.

This woman will see new worlds, be introduced to things she had forgotten, feel emotions she didn't know she had, become someone she wouldn't have with out this new little one.

She holds her little girl close and feels her heart beat next to her own.  Big black eyes open, look up into her mother's eyes and when they see each other they know that they belong to each other.

see part 1 here

beautiful. LOVE.

sneak peek.

part 1. 

Birth is an experience that is different from other experiences in life...

...it's not like a scrape on the knee and it's not like major surgery.  It's not a pulled muscle or cramps from swimming too soon after eating.  It's not like pulling your bottom lip over your head.  It's not like breaking your leg and it's not like having a deep tissue massage.  It's not like getting a paper cut or like burning your finger.  It's not like being at the top of the highest, steepest water slide and willing yourself to go down it.  It's not like braving a shaky rope bridge across a deep, wide chasm.  It's not like the anxiety of driving a curvy dark road in a blizzard.  It's not like going to the edge of a cliff and looking down and questioning how you could have gotten so close.  It's not like a workout that pushes you until you think your muscles will scream in protest for days afterward.  It's not like getting on an airplane for the first time.  It's not like taking your final college exams and not recognizing the material.  It's not like wondering if you made a mistake on your career choice.  It's not like intensity or pain you've already known.  It's not like hoping you know what you're doing.    

It is all of these things at once...rushing toward you and not relenting.

It is giving everything you've got to someone you've never met.  

It is knowing you'll love them so much that at some point in your life you'll say...

I didn't know what love was...before.

discovered. LOVE.