Connor Turns Two

The third and final session…for today.  Of course we went out with a bang.  I purposely scheduled Jessie last because quite frankly…I knew she'd come with a wagon full of tricks.  Turns out…I was right.  Literally they showed up with a wagon full of props, costumes, toys and snacks.  All her effort paid off though Mr. Connor totally performed for his two year pictures.  And Bonus, we threw his adorable little sister in for a few Halloween pictures too!  I can't lie, last year Connor's pictures were simple.  Jessie would pretend to fall down, he would smile, I would snap a picture…bam done.  This year he has a little bit more of a "say" in things.  Meaning he just says "No" to our coo-coo ideas.  He has NO IDEA how persistent his Mom is though and we totally waited him out.  Hell, I even took a small goldfish break with him at one point because he instructed me to do so.  I have no idea where he gets his bossiness from (wink, wink).  I'll tell you what though, I'll do whatever this kid tells me if in return I get smiles like these all the time.  In a word…precious.

Here is that little sister I was referring to.  So cute.  She was not left out of the fun, she even had two different hairpieces for her costume!  Jessie couldn't decide which one to use, so we used both.  So here we have a little game of "which look is best?". 

 

The Magician

Oh Jack, Jack, Jack…what can I say?  I love me some Jack.  This kid has so much personality in his little body I don't know how he keeps it in, oh wait…he doesn't!  When Jack does something he does it all out, and that brings us to these pictures.  Jack's Mom mentioned to me one day that Jack was into magic tricks.  So for his birthday I found a kids magic set, top hat and wand for the budding magician.  Well turns out Jack really liked it…or at least the hat!  So the day of his pictures he told his Mom he was going to wear the hat and the awesome part…she let him.  I'm a big fan of letting kids wear/bring/use things they are into at the time in their pictures.  It will help us remember those quirky little things when they are big.  And to be honest when he was wearing the hat he was genuinely happy and hence took adorable pictures.  Win/Win for everyone!

Payton Turns One

A few weeks ago I did a rapid fire photo session for three special people about to have some pretty important birthdays.  Today I'm going to share the photos from one of the sessions.  On this particular day it ended up being FREEZING outside.  They day before, warm and sunny.  This morning…freezing.  Did I mention freezing?  Well poor Payton here didn't exactly have a winter parka picked out for her shoot.  So we kept her all wrapped up until the very last second and then threw her on the the blanket and crossed our fingers.  She was a super good sport but had her limits!

She humored us through the first outfit, and when we tried to put warmer clothing on her for the second half she let us know she was done!  While we didn't get a ton of pictures on this particular morning, I think the ones we did get are precious and this little lady will be celebrating her first birthday in style!

Turns out she is much happier in her Mama's arms...

Did that just happen?

Those are the words I was saying as I walked back to our car on this particular night…"Did that just happen?"  Turns out, yes yes it did.  I'll set the scene for you.  We had decided that on the last night of vacation we were going to attempt a few family pictures on the beach.  Everyone assured me they did not want anything crazy, just one picture of their family looking decent on the beach.  No biggy I thought, it's a beautiful beach with decent looking subjects how could I go wrong?  I'll tell you how.  We decided we would go to an early dinner and then go straight to the beach for pictures, we even scoped out what we thought would be the perfect location with easy access to the beach.  Wrong.  We got to the restaurant and figured out we were way out of our league.  We're talking white table cloths and elevator music when we needed Happy Meals and a live band.  So we decided to ditch that restaurant and move to another location.  The problem is there are not many options (or close options anyway) for eating on the island.  Before we left a few of us decided to snap a few pictures outside of the nice restaurant just for good measure.  As we were standing there it started pouring down rain!  That's right, not one drop of rain all week long but on picture night…pouring.  I swear I'm cursed.  Here are a few pictures we got in before the downpour…

So we found a more family friendly restaurant and all settled in for a delicious meal.  As we ate the rain started to lift and before I knew it, blue skies as far as the eye can see.  My first thought, oh crap this is really going to happen.  My second thought, we have to leave NOW.  We gathered the troops and headed towards the public access to the beach.  The gate was closed (you didn't think it would be that easy did you?).  So we continued back towards our house, parked the cars on the side of the road and made a run for it (literally we were running).  By the time we got to the beach I swear we couldn't have had more than 15 minutes of "decent" light.  So what you see below is the results of a rapid fire photoshoot of 5 families.  On my list of stressful photoshoots this probably ranks…number one.  Good thing it only lasted a few minutes!  I guess this just means we'll have to plan another vacation so we can redo our family picture night.  Yes?

  

Bye Bye Beach

We got to enjoy one more day at the beach.  One more day of sun, one more day of sand, one more day of squeals and one more day with friends.  This day like each day before was bordering on the line of perfection.

This is the day we attempted the true group picture.  And while each child is physically present in the picture, I can't say it's the best picture I've ever taken.  I can say however that this picture is a true depiction of our vacation.  A gaggle of kids enjoying some fun in the sun while the adults (that you can't see in this particular picture) try vigorously to keep them happy!  I can say with complete conviction…Mission Accomplished! Happy Kids = Successful Vacation in my book!

A few more attempts at getting Bennett in the water...

While this next picture is simply a picture of Bennett and Violet playing on the ipad it's actually one of my favorite pictures from vacation.  These two are trouble, but the best kind of trouble!

Bye Bye Beach…we can't wait to come back!

On this particular evening we also attempted family pictures.  I haven't even started to look through those quite yet so I'll hold you in a little bit of suspense for the time being.  Can you even stand it?  Nope, didn't think so!