I met up with Lucas and his family for his newborn session back in March. He was two and a half weeks old at the time, so we got a lot of awake shots. He has such beautiful eyes, and it looked like he was just taking everything in. Big sister Gracie had fun playing with the train set while Lucas was getting his photos taken, but she popped in for a few pictures, too. I absolutely LOVE the first set below – she looks like such a proud big sister. The last one in the set totally cracks me up – he’s obviously telling her something HILARIOUS! And you can tell from the big yawn at the end that he did finally zonk out. Even smiled in his sleep – such a content little guy. I can’t wait to see what he’s up to at his next session!

I’ve been friends with Natalie’s awesome mom for a long time, and have been taking Nat’s pictures since she was just a newbie. Now here she is, 2 years old already and full of energy. She wasn’t too interested in having her photos taken (what two year old is?), so we had to improvise some.

Life Songs
“Heart of Gold”
by Neil Young.

Welcome to a little blog post series that we like to call Life Songs. I am thrilled to be a part of this life stories project with eleven other talented photographers! In this series, we will be documenting our lives with a different theme song each month. The images in the posts will be taken from a less traditional approach, showcasing “real life” in our own ways. This month’s inspiration is ” Heart of Gold” by Neil Young. It might be worth finding it and having a listen as you browse our blog circle. See the link to the next photographer in the circle at the end of this post.

I had to pull this song up on you-tube, and I immediately recognized it and realized what a great song it is (even though my husband was cracking up at me rocking out to Neil Young on my iPad when he got home – not quite what he was expecting to see). My photos this month were actually taken a few months back. I tried to get out with my kids and shoot something inspiring, but it was hard to get a shot off with a three year old that wouldn’t let go of my hand on our 1.5 hour hike. We did, however, have a fantastic time looking for giraffes that she swore we would find if we just kept going a little bit further. We never found any giraffes – go figure! We did see a bunch of squirrels, three different types of woodpeckers, a nuthatch, and a couple of dogs. The golden retriever was the highlight of her outing, and she insisted his name was Shadow, and that we should follow it on the trail. I didn’t want to look like a creepy stalker, so needless to say we didn’t follow the dog or it’s owner for too long.

So, I was thinking about what to incorporate for the song this month. After some thought I decided that this song was talking about my heart of gold. Seriously, I think anyone who has kids must have a heart of gold. For all the times I hear the fighting over toys, the “you’re not my best friend” because of something I didn’t let someone have or do, all the times I hear “no!”, the times they stomp to their room and slam the door, they still make my heart swell every time I think of them. For every crappy parenting moment, there are at least 2 great ones where I’m hearing “you’re my best friend, mom”, “I love you, mom”, “hold my hand, mom”, “I just want to snuggle with you because I love you so much, mom”, and other gooshy things kids say that completely melt your heart and make you forget all the not-so-fun stuff. Even though they don’t always like what I have to say (and vice-versa), they are my world. Parenting is tough, and I seriously DO think it takes a heart of gold to raise kids. No one ever said it was going to be this hard. Heck, before I had one kid I thought I wanted at least four. The second one has just about done me in.

I don’t post many photos of my kids on here, but these ones fit our lifestyle theme. They are from our vacation to Door County, WI this September. Most of the time when I’m out with my kids I just have my iPhone to take photos, but this time I made a point to bring my work camera out and try to get some photos of them just being themselves, having fun, and not paying attention at all to me or my camera for the most part. These are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

Please be sure to check out Photos by E J Russell – Beth’s take on this months theme can be seen here. Each photographer from our group will be linking to the next photographer’s take on it – lots of great posts you won’t want to miss!

Life Songs
“If you want to sing out, sing out”
by Cat Stevens.

Welcome to a little blog post series that I (er..we) like to call Life Songs. I am thrilled to be a part of this life stories project with eleven other talented photographers! In this series, we will be documenting our lives with a different theme song each month. The images in the posts will be taken from a less traditional approach, showcasing “real life” in our own ways. This month’s inspiration is ” If you want to sing out, sing out” by Cat Stevens. It might be worth finding it and having a listen as you browse our blog circle. See the link to the next photographer in the circle at the end of this post.

I’ll have to admit, I’ve never heard of this song. I still haven’t listened to it. But, I like the title, and with daily life in our house, I knew I’d find something to photograph that would fit. Most mornings, when the kids don’t have preschool, we just goof around and play. We have a late breakfast (my kids love frozen waffles. Not toasted. Just straight up frozen. I figure it probably won’t kill them), and eventually change out of our jammies (see below – my youngest usually just changes into a different pair of jammies, while my oldest loves to dress himself in too-short sweat pants. I keep taking them out of his dresser, but somehow they keep showing up in there). I figure as long as we’re not going out in public, I’ll totally let them dress themselves. And this time of year they need to wear a jacket out anyways, so even less reason to fight their *awesome* clothing choices.

After giving all the plastic animals a bath in the kitchen sink (and making a huge mess), running through their pillow obstacle course, and playing “camping” (which consists of sitting on the counter eating sunflower seeds. Where they got this idea, I don’t know), we inevitably end up having some sort of dance party. What can I say – there’s not a ton to do in MN during the winter with two small kids who hate the cold. Usually we’ll bust out the radio, and if I have my CD’s, they’ll pick some random disc and we’ll all jump around. I sing while they just laugh at me because – well, they don’t know the words and I love to sing at the top of my lungs if no one can hear me. These are my favorite mornings – when we get to listen to MY music. Most of the time, however, we end up listening to some kids CD with nursery rhymes or kid songs (they call it “the orange CD”). They like the animal noises and babies laughing – apparently it’s pretty hysterical if you’re a toddler. This particular morning I decided to bring my camera out to try to get some photos for this series. We started out reading some books that morning, and eventually came across a Cars book. My kids LOVE the Disney Cars movie, and they REALLY love to jump up and down (their version of dancing) to the music in the beginning of the movie. So, reading the book lead to giggles and them trying to remember the words to the song. I put the dvd in and cranked it up and this is what ensued. Pure toddler craziness. They do this every time they hear that song in the beginning of the Cars movie (and also the Mighty Machines theme song – that’s another huge hit in our house). I’m not a rock-star lifestyle photographer by any means, but I had fun with this! I don’t often take photos of my own kids with anything other than my camera phone, so it was nice to actually download some photos and do something with them. I’m really looking forward to the rest of year with this project. Be sure to check back on the 21st of each month for our (the other photographers participating and myself) Life Songs posts!

Here’s how it all started this particular morning…

Which eventually lead to this:

Notice the awesome combo of Thomas the train jammies and horsie bottoms. My kid is SO stylin’!

And when we were all done…SPENT!

This was definitely a challenge, in that I had to crank up my ISO because our house doesn’t get a lot of natural light, and the yellow walls in my boy’s room give off all sorts of color casts. But, I had a lot of fun with it. Might find a different spot to shoot next months session.

Thanks for looking! Please be sure to check out Alexis Shell Photography – Alexis’ take on this months theme can be seen here. Each photographer from our group will be linking to the next photographer’s take on it – lots of great posts you won’t want to miss!

Early in December I had the chance to meet up with Ellie and her family again. Last time I saw her was a little over a year ago. Her 1 year photos can be seen here – I still have that photo as a canvas hanging in the studio. She’s got a little more hair this time, and is cute as ever! I just LOVE her big smile, and had to post one to share here with everyone. Enjoy!

So, I stayed up late two nights in a row working on what was going to be the most awesome Christmas card in the history of Christmas cards. Beautiful, ornate, 5×10 with a pearl finish. Yep, it was going to be gorgeous. Then I realized that Christmas is only a week away, and these things don’t even come with envelopes. By the time I actually got them out Christmas would be long over and my clients would all think I’m crazy. *sigh* I think next year I’ll start working on these in, say, August? I’m horrible with getting out Christmas cards on time (but I am going to do my Christmas shopping today!). Rather than let this awesome card go to waste, I thought I’d at least post it here for you guys to see. Merry Christmas, everyone, and have a great 2012!

Ashlin was my last full outdoor session of the year. Kind of sad to see the end of shooting outside for the year (except for those few who don’t mind braving the cold Minnesota temps), but I couldn’t have ended it with a better session. Ashlin was just shy of her 1 year birthday when we met up, and she has got to be one of the cutest little girls I’ve ever seen! I just loved her outfits, and check out those blue eyes! I’m just finishing up with the editing from this session, but wanted to post a couple of my favorites so far. Enjoy!

I’ve been friends with Brekkin’s mom since college, and was so excited when she asked me to take his 1 year photos because I hadn’t seen him since he was a newborn in the hospital. Man, how things change! He was crawling all over the place, checking out the leaves (and the acorns, which were apparently delicious), and exploring all the fun stuff you find when you’re outside – so fun to watch! And how could you look at this face and not smile – isn’t he cute!?!

Another session from our 85 degree October weekend, and another family that totally rocked it despite the crazy warm “fall” weather. I don’t think Weston was too keen on having his pictures taken at first, but he eventually warmed up and we had a lot of fun! Just a couple of quick photos for now – more to come.

I could have hung with these guys all day – such a fun family, and after we were done, I swear it felt like we’d known each other longer than just that hour (OK – I know, super corny, but it’s true. Sometimes you just click with people). We met up a few weeks ago for some family photos in what was supposed to be a nice, cool, crisp October fall day. In reality, I’m pretty sure it was close to 85 degrees out – LOL! They handled it so well – I was a hot mess by the end, but they all looked fabulous! Ella and I had fun playing in the fields, and Lane has the best hair! Seriously, check it out!