Family - The Kellers

 We met the Keller family at our home church, Living Faith Baptist Church,  three years ago and what a blessing it is to know and be friends with this amazing family. David and Kelly have provided Christian leadership and guidance for my own family and for that I am very grateful. They are a true inspiration with their gifts and talents (David - leads our Wednesday night Bible study, Kelly - home schools all five children, is an amazing cook, and has a blog that you must follow.  It was such a pleasure to have the opportunity to photograph this family of seven! My good friend Angela and I shot them together down in the Noda area of Charlotte since that was a special place to them. The Keller family love books, so we started off the session with a family reading time from the classic "The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe".

Here we have Johnny (4th born), Ben (2nd born), Maddie (the baby), Cameron (1st born), and Andrew (3rd born)

This was a favorite of mine. I love Maddie's sweet expression.

And here you can see the BOY in these boys! Love it!

Maddie does a great job keeping up with her older four brothers.

Young Faces - Emma

One of my childhood best friends, Sarah, ask me to shoot her daughter for her one year old session. Emma was adorable and very easy to work with! She was actually 10 months old at this session. I must say I've been very jealous of the amount of hair Sarah's daughter has compared to my little Adelai, who's quite bald. We chose a spot very close to my home in Harrisburg, NC where we could get a cozy fall background for our shoot. One of our last locations was an old rundown home that quickly ended our shoot. You ask why? Just wait for the last photos and they will explain.

 I love it when kids do things like examine their clothes. It's these minor details that I love to capture.

Love this image of her getting situated for the next photo.

So while trying to capture this shot of her crawling, I lunged to head down the stairs for another view and then I fell.

                  Falling through porch                  =                     Bad bruises

Had a blast though! Thanks Sarah, Emma, and Terry for all your love and friendship through the years! Love you guys.

Engaged - Cody & Maria

This post is very special to me since it involves family. My brother-in-law Cody, proposed to Maria this fall at Carowinds during their Scarowinds event. Their story begins when Cody was training Maria to be a police officer, they fell in love and that's where they are now, engaged! I wanted to incorporate a little of the police theme into their portraits and I love how they turned out. It's been great getting to know Maria over this year and I look forward to having another sister-in-law. Congrats again to the both of you.

So I couldn't decide which I liked better, color or black and white. Which one do you like better?

Maria has stunning eyes and I feel like this image shows that feature about her.

One of my favs!

Love this one of Cody.

The Fink Life - Pumpkin Babies

First off, I want to say thanks to My sister, Holly, who gave me this idea to shoot Adelai in a pumpkin. I decided to offer this carved pumpkin portrait session to some of the other mommies and their babies. My sister-in-law, Erin, and good friend, Angela, were able to join in on the fun. I will say I was very frustrated when we started shooting. Adelai would not go in the pumpkin. She just screamed! Oliver went in just fine and then Haddon was smiling up a storm. Needless to say I was being a Debbie Downer, complaining that I had the idea for my child, but she wouldn't cooperate and everyone else's child was accepting the pumpkin costume. Well after Adelai took a good two hour nap we tried for a third time to get her in the pumpkin and she tolerated it finally! Mommy was thrilled!

If you want to see Oliver's shots I'm sure Angela will be posting those soon on her blog.

So here's what we captured. 

The next three are by my favs of Adelai. She was giving me so many expressions except for smiles.

And then here's Haddon my nephew. He was the perfect age to shoot in this pumpkin.

Mom, Erin, entertaining Haddon for the camera.

Check out Haddon's hair in this next picture. Love it!

My fav of Haddon, such a cutie!