Fairy Tale

Once upon a time two people fell in love. And then they promptly called me and asked me to take engagement photos for them, to which I, in my barely budding photography days, readily agreed. I mean, who wouldn't want to take pictures of these gorgeous people?
Well, then time went on, they got married, and then one day I got another message asking me to take maternity pictures for them. SHAH!!!!!
And I don't know what happened that day, but my camera sort of levitated from my hands and started taking some of the most glorious pictures it's ever produced. Just...magically...I can't...just wow. With permission, I post some of them for your eyes to gam off of for a while.

These first few are of her horse flown here from Denmark. A very gentle creature and we almost didn't take the photos with the horse...so glad we decided to.









Every pregnant woman's envy, right here. :-) I wish I looked half this good when I was pregnant!

It's all about the pose

Hello Lovers.
I have done nothing but take pictures for the last 4 or 5 days!
It's been amazing. I have others to edit right now, but per request of a very anxious junior in high school, I decided to post a couple of these right now. And also because I just think they are grand. Seriously, this shoot made my morning! She and her wonderful, keenly eyed BFF accompanied me around down town Windsor and we had a blast! And can you believe her sense of style? Amazing. For serious.
And time for bed! Hope you all enjoyed the nice weather today (totally meant to take the kids to the park today and just didn't get to it...so sad!), it's supposed to get chilly. And possibly snowy. ICK.

Home again, home again...

We have three VERY large bags of candy waiting just outside my kitchen for our church Halloween Party Trunk or Treat tonight. It's difficult for me to just let them sit there...they look so lonely. And wrapped. Don't you think just a couple of them should be free?
...or maybe I should print out a picture of a 400 lb woman and set it nicely on top of the bag...as a warning.
We made it to Utah and back! And I have a busy couple of weekends ahead of me! Five photo shoots in two weekends...yeesh. But also yay!
Last night some of our very favorite friends met us at the park during their visit out to Colorado for a couple of weeks. Although I am happy that they have settled into their home in Missouri since their move a couple of years ago, I have to admit I feel a little jealous whenever I see them with new friends on their blog. Just a little. :-) My plan for them to be so lonely out there that they would just HAVE to move back obviously isn't working. :-) We are so happy to see them when they come through and I usually get to do some pictures for them while they are here! Super plus. They were some of my first "clients"...I mean, "friends" (sorry, I said the wrong thing last night, ha ha) who let me take pictures for them! And now Mommy is getting into photography as well and is taking our family pictures. It works out to be a nice trade! Check out some of her work HERE.
Anyway, on to some of the good stuff. They are expecting baby #2 in December and we couldn't be more excited for them!

Brighten your day with some cake, please.

One of the most wonderful things about being able to take pictures is to swap with my other creative friends. And this friend is very creative- she makes the cutest derned little cakes and cupcakes you've ever seen! Check out her blog here: Sugar Mamma Cakes. I have to admit it was rather hard to hand this beautiful little creation above to my 13 month old. But alas, bygones must be bygones, and this cake became a bygone very quickly.

"Who are you and where have you been all my life?!"

The remnants. She ate almost the entire thing. We were winding down from the shoot and most of the cake remained smashed in front of her, she didn't seen particularly interested in finishing it at first- I was trying to figure out how to get her inside without leaving my camera equipment outside or leaving my kids outside by themselves, so as I started packing up, her older siblings, who were eagerly watching in anticipation, asked politely if they could try some. Sure! Help Mommy clean some of this up. Linus walked over and picked up a small piece of it, but before he could get it to his mouth, Odell began waving her arms frantically and whining in frustration, then snatched the cake right out of his hand and ate it up. Linus started balling (my mother in law had just gotten home and was watching and giggling with me), so I calmed him down, and told him to grab another piece- only the exact same thing happened, and same when Chloe tried to get some. Before I knew it, I had to swoop in and grab a couple of pieces to give to the other two and then the rest of the cake was gone. I got a quick lick of the scrumptious cake from the frosting on my finger and Odell demolished the rest. I suddenly had horrid visions pop into my head of an 80 lb Kindergarten girl hobbling around the cafeteria at school snatching up other kids' cupcakes out of their lunches and smothering them into her mouth before they could stop her...yes, smash cake shoot will only happen once per kid, I believe...
Go order a cupcake from Emily and eat it. Right now. For the rest of us who didn't get any from my monster baby...

In your face Mud. Literally.

A week and a half ago I was invited by a fellow local photographer to help him shoot this crazy, wacky, TOTALLY WICKED race they call the Mud Brigade in Loveland.
It was awesome.
Now, I in no way consider myself an "action" photographer. I'm much better at still subjects (well, unless you count shooting kids "action photography", cause sometimes it is), however I was stationed at the finish line, right where they had a giant vat of wet mud everyone was supposed to wade through before they crossed the finish line. I hiked my shutter speed up and tried to capture all the golden flecks of mud flying in the air and all the, what my father would calle, "carnage" that ensued.
Shawn Logan, the mastermind photographer in charge of shooting the event, was out on the course. The event had a 5K run through a LOT of muddy, nasty, difficult obstacles and people dressed up in all sorts of crazy things to run the race. Shawn took most of the nitty grittie shots on the course, you can see the work he did HERE. With permission from him, I am posting a few of the shots I took, although this in no way represents the large mass of photos I incurred that day. LARGE. I'm sure I made Shawn's job going through the pictures way harder than it needed to be, but I guess too many is better than too little, right?
Anyway, I did have fun, I did burn my face so bad that I peeled brown skin off a week later, but I'm also glad that I do what I do with photography. I like smiling people in clean clothes. Most of the time.
*secretly I've always wanted to do a shoot with a bunch of kids in nice church clothes in a giant mud puddle....anyone interested in ruining their kids Sunday best??*
PS- if you are in the Northern Colorado Area, check out Shawn's work in the links above, or find him on facebook HERE. :-)

Sweetest smile on the earth {Northern Colorado Photographer}

I've been sitting on these pictures for a few days itching to post them. That last shot...just as sweet a sugar. :-)