RYAN & JAMIE || PARTY OF NINE

Many of you know that my sister-in-law Jennifer passed away in May of 2017. As you can imagine, being a single dad to 4 little kids has been REALLY, REALLY hard for my brother Ryan. In July of 2017, he met an amazing woman, Jamie, and they started dating. In October, I went home for Skylar's homecoming, and they were just starting to talk about getting married, but hadn't picked a date and Jamie hadn't even met our family yet. We invited her to spend the weekend with our wild crazy family, we figured she would either survive being with ALL of us for a few days, or it might scare her away from our crazy crew!! {we are a lot when we are all together!}

I guess she decided she could handle us, because I had only been home to Chicago for a week or two when Ryan called and asked me if I would be willing to come back and take their engagement photos. {uhm, sure, why didn't we just do it while I was there? Kidding, Sort of!!} We made arrangements for me to come the first weekend of December, and I was only going to be in Utah for a little over 24 hours. I PRAYED for good weather and a good day to take photos. I also prayed that I could keep control of 7 children under 11, that none of them would end of in the stream, {in hindsight, that might not have been our brightest idea}, and that we would get ONE good photo for the announcement!!

When we pulled up to the park, there were protesters EVERYWHERE, apparently we had just missed a rally at the capital building and we were stuck in the middle of everyone leaving. Luckily we found some parking and went to some stairs far away from the water and the protesters...and because prayers are answered the weather was beautiful and somehow we managed to get ONE almost perfect shot!! Oh man, they are CUTE together!!

Personally I think this one is my very favorite, maybe my favorite from all of last year. This is real life, especially with 7 kids!!

And because somehow everyone was cooperating {mostly} for a couple seconds, I was able to grab some individual shots of each of them. While I was trying to get a few shots of Ryan and Jamie {and while trying to make sure the kids weren't in the water} we had a few little helpers who wanted to be a part of the action, I'm pretty sure this is going to be their new normal. {They better plan lots of getaways because there isn't going to be any relaxing at home!} But man, these two have some CUTE kids!!!

Happy engagement, I know it's totally anti-climatic now that you're already married, but hey, I didn't pick my busiest time for you to get engaged and married!! :) I love you both and can't wait to watch you raise these little munchkins!! 

THE FRANKS KIDS || ALL GROWN UP

I've known Alexa since she was just a baby. I started watching her at my house when she was about 8 or 9 months old and she was a part of our life for many years. She came everywhere with us and did everything with us, it was kinda just like having another one of my own. I stopped watching her when Tyler was born, so it's been a long time since I've seen her - except on social media, which I LOVE!

I was so excited when Danyelle contacted me and asked me to take their pictures. I wasn't able to blog this before now because it was a gift for Christmas - and one of my FAVORITE gifts to hear you're giving to your loved ones!!

We had to re-schedule these 3 or 4 times because of bad weather. But we were patient, and we waited until we had a GREAT day. The sun was shining, the lighting was GORGEOUS and they were such great sports about taking pictures together. {you might not be able to say that about all siblings!} When I started editing them, I was in LOVE with them all!! I had a hard time narrowing it down, because there were SO many great ones - and I don't remember ever looking this gorgeous back in high school!! 

Thanks Lex and Tyler for such a great photo session, I can't believe how much you've both grown and I hope for ALL the best things for both of you and your futures!!

THE LASKY FAMILY || FAMILY SESSION

I love working with families and I love watching kids grow up and have kids of their own. This is the daughter of a family we have known since we first moved to Illinois almost 17 years ago. {WOW, that's a long time!} I've known her for many years and I got to take their family pictures last year in the FREEZING cold. This year it was much warmer, but not without it's challenges.

They had been working all day on a house project and were running late, one of the kids couldn't get their clothes out of the room they were in, dad wasn't able to get there at the beginning, sisters arms were too cold, so mom gave her jacket to her.....and YOU GUESSED IT, they turned out great. I try really hard to keep my cool during pictures and help work out all of the challenges that I know come with pictures. I know how stressful it is when you have something planned and your day doesn't go as you would have liked. I know it's A LOT of work to get family pictures taken! I just want you to know that I'm on your side, that I get it and that I will do everything I can to help ease the stress of family pictures!!

These kids were SO fun to work with, dad wasn't there yet, so I said, no worries, let's start taking some pictures of each of the kids.....oh man, some of them are funnier than others. This "dabbing" picture happened before I even knew what was going on....he's a sneaky one!!

Then we got the kids all together just as the sun was setting and got some adorable ones with just them.

Dad got there just in time to grab one of the whole family. It might not have been the ideal year for pictures, but it's always fun to look back and say, "remember that year that (blank) happened?" I love how photos help us remember those important family memories, both the good and the bad.

Thank you for trusting me to capture your family again this year. Thank you for making it work. I promise that these memories are worth the investment!!

THE SOLIS FAMILY || OUR ADOPTED FAMILY

Since moving to Illinois almost 17 years ago, we have rarely been able to travel home for the holidays. It's too expensive and too much hassle to take everything home with us. One of the first years we lived here we became friends with the Solis family and have been included in their family events for many, many years. It's just normal now that we are part of the holiday planning and it's weird when it doesn't work out for us to be with them - like the year my mom died and we were in Utah for the funeral.

These pictures were taken in an open field right next to her sisters house on Thanksgiving day. We planned to just snap a couple pictures to get one for a good print and a Christmas card. I LOVE how the colors all go together. I love the golden sunlight and the beautiful field. It was a great day for late November and I'm so glad we were able to capture these beautiful photos for her family.  I even sort-of got natural pictures of the kids.

Thanks Solis family for adopting us and making us feel just like family!!! <3

CHRISTMAS MINIS || THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!!

I love shooting photos outdoor, in the natural light. I love the soft beautiful glow of the sun. I love the beautiful open fields and natural settings.......but honestly October and November were the worst weather months we've had in a long time. I think I had to re-schedule 75% of my sessions. It rained and was yucky and gross almost EVERY weekend. I was getting so tired of not having sunny, pretty weekends. SO, I decided to try some indoor mini Christmas sessions. I got some studio lights and dug out my Christmas trees and made a cute little studio in my living room - good thing I wasn't having Thanksgiving at my house, because it looked like a photo studio!

I LOVE how these turned out, the Christmas lights, the cute little kids in their jammies, the dressed up fancy pictures, I loved everything about them!! They turned out better than I could even imagine. I'm so grateful to my sweet clients who trusted me to capture their adorable kids.

My friends Rachel and Natalie brought their kids over for me to use as models to be able to make an advertisement. Their kids were naturals and we had a great time trying out all different outfits and props!

I had three more sessions of Christmas Mini's and this might be my FAVORITE picture of this year.....the jammies, the baby, the light, I LOVE all of it!! The rest of them are pretty awesome as well. Next year, I'll have to start them earlier so I have time to do more, it was such a fun way to capture these adorable Christmas memories!!