We headed over to a local resort the first Sunday I was visiting in Phoenix to capture a few family images. It is a pretty place and they have a nice water feature that looks good as well as entertains the kids. My sister and I swapped the camera back and forth and the ones all three of us are in were taken by her good friend. Here are some of my personal favorites!
My sister’s son Riley with Blake. It was so fun to watch three 2 year olds {he’s 2 months younger} run around together during our visit.
The boys thought they were soooo funny.
The more young kids in an image at the same time, the less likely it is to get them all smiling. Sheesh, even two youngins at once the odds are way down. Madison was Not in the mood for a photo shoot with her in any shots. I must admit to being ‘that’ parent who got upset with her instead of just patiently waiting out/working out her mood. She managed a few moments of happiness to gift us with some great images. This one was the fortunate one image we got in this spot.
Riley and my baby sister, Tawni, in the background. He was mimicking me talking {with my hands :-} to work through some different expressions and emotions. I love capturing lots of different expressions! It’s so much more interesting then just smiles.
Too cute!
My mom just happened to park it in the perfect light!
These kinds of images are my favorite! He spends a lot of time with grandma and will definitely love to look back one day to see images like this of them having a good time together.
My kids don’t get to spend as much time with grandma, but they love every minute of it when they do! Blake is our super affectionate kid. He doesn’t cuddle very often, however, he is they kid who comes up to you every 20 minutes for a hug and kiss with an ‘I love you’ thrown in. Recently he has started to add on other people he loves too. He’ll say, “Mom, I love you. I love daddy. I love nanny. I love Madison.” He also does the same thing during prayers.
This image just melts my heart.
My other two sisters on my moms side live out of town so there are only two of us in this image with mom. Hey, take what you got when you got it! It’s so much more important to get some images of us that are always current then to skip out just because people may be missing.
This effect is called a ‘high key’ look. I love it every once in a while. Neither of us normally wear flowers in our hair or much other jewelry, but I’m diggin it. We should do it more often.
The three little blondes were having a great time running around everywhere and having fun together.
I think they could have stayed here laughing together for a while.
Blake also gave giving me a hard time a go.
Luckily, he is much easier to convince that being in front of the camera is a good thing then Madison.
And he thinks I’m funny. Wooo Hooo!
Super cutie.
I wonder if he’ll always talk as much as he does now. The kid is a chatter box.
And loves to explore, dream and think about everything.
This is my little love bug.
Riley has a cute sense of adventure and his eyes are enchanting when he smiles at you.
This serious look is one of my faves.
Love the exploring.
Tawni and her little man.
Blake got his hair and button up completely wet in the fountain trying to go inside it like Tawni and Riley did. Lucky for me he had another shirt under it so we just whipped it off and dried his hair with the back of the shirt.
Ah, my favorite image of Madison. Hoping to get a big canvas of this soon!
Caught in the act!!! This is where he gave her a little extra shove that got her dress all wet. lol
She’s looking at the offending water spout like it got her wet instead of Blake’s actions.
Me and my boy with the 30 week prego belly.
I figured out if I do a fake laugh it really gets him laughing for real. Oh, and it works for Maddie too.
As usual, many of the images someone {non professional} captures with me in them are not in focus, but I keep them anyway for the expressions and feelings they invoke! And I’m grateful for them no matter what.
I’m not sure why I had her dress like that. Maybe I thought it would make trying to edit out the water mark easier. Yeah right, I didn’t even try it. It doesn’t actually bother me. It is part of our day and our experience making memories in images together.
Not sure what happened here, but my face is sure funny.
Love it!
And this one too. I read an article this week about how 2 year olds love to laugh and as parents we should help facilitate laughter daily. We try our best around here.
Another fave! This one is on the chore chart I just designed and ordered this week on a white board. So excited for it to come in. Guy and I think it’s a good time to start with items like making their beds and picking up toys.
The kids loved getting to play in the fountain!
My girl…
Cracks me up…
She truly loves anything girly like smelling flowers.
Telling me what she’s up to…
And giggling when she gets me to laugh.
Nose picking must be captured.
And lovely smiles.
The lighting here was divine!
Love this expression on Riley.
When the light was just about gone Madison got truly happy and giggly for me.
Blake ran around telling everyone what’s up.
We got some fun giggle shots of the three of us.
And some cute moments {non technical person behind the camera so it didn’t get adjusted for the fading light and had a slooow shutter speed blurring us a bit}.
He loves to be ‘gotten’ and will play into it any chance he gets.
Another favorite!
Mom and I in front of the fountain. It’s so awesome to have one of the two of us. I don’t feel like I’ve got enough of them.
We encouraged the kids to run over to us. Mom has a bad back and a bad knee so she can’t bend down for very long.
Knocked over by the speed demon.
Riley made it over to us to join in.
Then mom got in on the action! Madison cheesed it for the camera.
Mom with the three grandkids. The next images are all of them as we made our way back to the car. Tawni took the first few of them, then I took over at the end after jogging over to her to get ahead of them.
Today I can’t find a memory card I must have lost on Monday. It contained at least 3 days of images I hadn’t uploaded to the computer yet! I’ve been doing so well at making sure to take my 365 project images every day too. I’m so hoping I’ll find it. I called the restaurant I ate at with some fellow photographers and they didn’t find it after we left. Next I need to check out the Trooper to see if it’s in there. It isn’t in the pants I wore.