I can’t believe it, but I have a 7 year old! It just doesn’t seem right… 7 years ago from yesterday, Kevin and I were bringing our first baby into our lives. Almost a 12 hour labor, oxygen for heartrate dips, having my bed turned almost upside down for my own dips, vaccuum to get her out, resusitation-sp?, etc. Quite a ride… But she was perfect… All 6 lbs. 2 oz. and 18 inches of her! And then less than 24 hours later she was being whisked away to the NICU for extremely elevated bilirubin levels (for an infant of her age). In the NICU it was discovered that she had an enlarged liver, enlarged kidney, 2 holes in her heart, a PDA, and a blood disorder that no one could figure out. Those were probably the longest 9 days of my life while we lived in the nearest hotel to the hospital. It took 11 months to diagnose her blood disorder, but once we found the right doctor, he knew within the first couple of visits with us (after testing).

Fast forward 7 years and you’d never know what she had been through… She’s happy, healthy and spunky! 7 going on 17!

We had just a little get together last night at our humble abode with family. Here’s just a little bit of our fun! And yes, these pictures were taken in straight auto… Pinlights and all–maybe even a red eye or two, sometimes you’ve just got to take the day off from full manual!

Birthday girl blowing out her candles.

Little man relaxing!

Little Man and Daddy playing.

Mommy and the birthday girl with little sissy… And you can see Little man off in the corner peeking to get in the pic too!

My mom, dad, brother & his wife & their son and my sister chowing.

Cousin B… You’ve seen him several times before. He was being shy at first!

Cousin T eating with Aunt K- and unknown name baby C.

Birthday girl, little sissy and daddy being silly.

Little man stealing the show with his ham it up smile!

Cousin H and Cousin W eating.

We had a great time and I wanted to thank everyone for being a part…

Miss E was ever so sweet! I brought along my helper for this shoot and Miss E instantly had a new friend. It was so cute. She was a little ball of energy… I’ve got several series of shots that would make great collages to document this little era of hers…

For now, I have a few for the sneak peek!

This is how we got our shoot started out… So fun!

We played on the stairs too!

Some daddy and Miss E time.

Mommy and Miss E time!

Then sweet girl right before we ended our time together!

It was great meeting you ‘K’ Family. Miss E is precious! And once again, I apologize for my miscommunication!

Cuz Christmas will be here before we know it! And if you’re like me, you haven’t even started shopping yet! LOL!

Just having a little fun. Hope everyone is having a great Christmas season!

Oh my goodness… Just seeing these pictures makes me have the tiniest itch… Good thing my 15 mos. old is using my drawers to my night stand as steps to climb on my bed at this very moment! Keeps that itch to a very tiny one!

Meet Mr. C!

He was by far the easiest newborn I have done… So easy going and let us doing whatever we wanted! Let’s just say that 6 days old is the new ‘requirement’ for newborns. LOL!

Okay, I had to add one more… B&W since I didn’t do any B&W edits earlier…

Get ready… This is going to be a mega-photo post! I had so many great shots from the ‘big family’ I shared just one of the other night, so I thought I’d share way more than I usually do! Believe it or not, there are plenty more than I could have shared, but then I’d be posting their entire proofing gallery on my blog…

So here we go…

Thanks guys! I had a blast… Until next time!

Normally I wouldn’t share a SOOC (straight out of camera) shot like this that was such a disaster, but I thought I’d see if I could salvage it… Let me just say that I LOVE shooting in RAW, otherwise this wouldn’t have been as possible. We had been taking pictures outside in my garage and then decided to come inside and I forgot to check my settings before starting to shoot.

Cover your eyes—this first one is scary!

SOOC-JPEG

After Editing RAW file…

I have to say that it is so neat to be able to salvage a picture like this… Not that I want to sit and have to salvage all my screw-ups, but I can when I need to!

Gosh, a whole week and no blog posts! What in the world have I been doing? Actually, working my tail off!

I’ve had a few sessions since then, but I’ve been working on everyone’s Christmas cards, so I just have one edited so far. I’ll try to be back with more from each of the sessions, but no guarantee.

This was another big family…

We’ve got mom and boyfriend on left, son and family in middle, and daughter and hubby on right!

Until next time!

Do you ever have an idea that you want to do and then it all falls apart? Yep… Me too! I’ve had this plan to update our family pics with this certain setting, certain outfits and certain poses. Well, add in hour and a half drive, 15 mos. old that won’t stop and chilly, windy weather and you should know to not expect too much. At least I should know that, but nope, I still think it’s possible. Oh and I thought too that I could do this with just us and my camera on a tripod with the timer. Even funnier!

I won’t even bother to share the family pic… We’ll be attempting that again (with help!). And I’ll spare you all the out of focus, back of head pics, I did get too! Here are a few shots that I can actually share…

Note to self… Hire professional next time. And don’t wait until November 30th to take pictures!

Do you ever have an idea that you want to do and then it all falls apart? Yep… Me too! I’ve had this plan to update our family pics with this certain setting, certain outfits and certain poses. Well, add in hour and a half drive, 15 mos. old that won’t stop and chilly, windy weather and you should know to not expect too much. At least I should know that, but nope, I still think it’s possible. Oh and I thought too that I could do this with just us and my camera on a tripod with the timer. Even funnier!

I won’t even bother to share the family pic… We’ll be attempting that again (with help!). And I’ll spare you all the out of focus, back of head pics, I did get too! Here are a few shots that I can actually share…

Note to self… Hire professional next time. And don’t wait until November 30th to take pictures!

So I know they’re on pins and needles waiting for me to post a bigger sneak peek… SO here goes! There’s a lot, but for a big family, it’s kind of expected.

Whew! That was a lot, huh? Well, if you think that’s a lot, just wait until I get your proofs ready… I don’t know how I will ever narrow them down!

I’ll be in touch when I do have them ready though!