She brought a friend with her, which I think is always helpful. All we had to do was giggle at her or make faces and she broke out that great smile.

This next one is one of my favorites. We used it for the cover of her graduation invitation, which turned out very cool if I do say so myself.

She also brought in her cheerleading outfit and we had some fun with that too. Silly, energetic and FUN!

Thanks Miki for a great session...I hope you love the images!

I received a national award this year for my marketing materials, which was a big honor. Every year the PPA puts on a marketing contest called the AN-NE awards. Last year I won for best website and this year the category that I won was called Image Marketing. Image marketing basically means how you market your entire studio image so it was a bunch of items that were all entered together. I was also a finalist for Best Individual Marketing Piece.It was my cute onesies that won that so if you have one, you have an award winning shirt! :)

I also got to see Anne Geddes speak about her life and work and get a book signed by her. Her talk was hugely inspirational for me as an artist. I'm not quite sure what I expected when I saw that she was speaking but I did not expect to be so moved, awed and inspired. She was humble, soft spoken and very eloquent. It was wonderful.

We were gone for 5 days and I was sick with missing my boys. The night that I got home we went to bed early, watched a movie and slept all snuggled up the whole night. It was perfect.

Thursday I was back at work bright and early. One of my long time clients, Karen, brought in her precious newborn twin boys. I have been really looking forward to meeting them. What a great way to start! Aren't they so sweet?

And one of my favorites from the session before I left for the convention...

Hope you all are having a good week and heading into an even better weekend!

In an effort to do some blog catch up and show you all some of the smiling faces that I photographed this past fall, I am going to fill this post with a lot of images from recent sessions. My clients are awesome and here's your chance to meet a few of them!

This is Alexander. I have been photographing him since he was inside! Our first shoot was the day that he was born- I photographed their labor and delivery. His parents are great friends of ours. I met his Mom 5+ years ago when her and I both had newborns. Our oldest sons are 2 weeks apart. They have recently had their third little boy!

This is Jennifer's newest little boy. I have been photographing her family for a few years now too. I did her first maternity session back in 2006 and have been lucky enough to keep shooting for them.

This is one of my newest little babies. He is just about two weeks old in this shot. I love it when I get to do the maternity session and then a few weeks later I get to see them as newborns!

Here is another one where I got to do the maternity and then the newborn session. This is Rachelle's little boy. You first met Rachelle here when I posted shots from her maternity session. They are actually coming to the studio today to see these shots so you are getting to see them even before she does!

This is Zoe. She came in for a session right before her parents moved back to Australia. She has the best blue eyes and such a great smile!

Speaking of great smiles, meet Mary Elizabeth. I met her back in 2006 when I did pet portraits at The Dog Bowl in Houston. I have my pet portraits up on display there and we do pet portrait days once a year or so. They brought in their brand new puppy, Sultan, to one of these special portrait days. I've done their holiday card every year since then. Mary has this incredible personality! She's funny and bold and is much wiser than her years. She's the type of person people call an "old soul". Oh, and one of her favorite bands in Aerosmith and she even did a little air guitar performance for me at our session.

My new camera came yesterday (Canon EOS 5D Mark II). I have the first version of the 5D and love it and this is all the same 5D goodness plus some really cool new features too! So, my first session with the new camera was this sweet boy, Harrison. Danny and I photographed his parents wedding last year and now I get the joy of photographing him! Doesn't he look like a little man already? He was so sweet and funny and he kept us laughing the whole time.

Well, thats all for me today! I hope you enjoyed the cuteness.

Julie and I leave for Phoenix on Saturday. The Professional Photographers of America annual convention is early next week. I'll try and hop on and do some blogging from the convention. I am getting an award for the best image marketing campaign of 2008! I will also be interviewed for a live web feed so I'll try and post a link to that in case you're curious. Did I mention that it's LIVE. Let's just hope I don't say anything too embarrassing.

So, how are you all liking the new blog? I love it when you comment. It makes my day!

I have said this before but I love doing maternity portraits because I love being invited to witness two people's highest hopes and dreams. Taking to leap to get married and have children seems all about hope to me. You spend months and often years dreaming, planning, and nesting. You focus on the good things and dream of the possibilities. That is why I chose this image for today's post.

A new year...time to start dreaming of possibilities and plans. Life is moving at such a blinding speed that the new year always takes me a little by surprise. Can it already be that another year has passed so quickly? I am happy these days. I feel so grateful that it makes me scared at the same time. I hate that creeping feeling when you are focusing on the good things and then the little voice shouts out "what happens if it all goes away?!" or "Just you wait until I pull the rug out from under you!" or "this is the calm before the storm so watch out". I think we all do that to some degree. You feel happy and vulnerable and the little voice knows exactly where to get you.

I am not much of a resolution person anymore because I never keep them. This year I am going to make one but I am keeping it simple. I am not joining a gym or keeping my house clean or anything like that. I resolve to stay in my happy, grateful place and to try as hard as I can to put a muzzle on that nagging voice that keeps trying to kill the buzz and steal my joy.

Honestly, it might be easier to join a gym and keep my house clean all the time. Resolving to hold on to joy is harder. It means, for me, looking straight at the reason why I would doubt that I should be so happy and blessed. Why would the rug be pulled out from under me? It also means putting away the fear that we all have about how we would handle the bad things if they do show up.

I have my ideas about how I am going to stay centered in gratitude. I'd love to hear yours, any suggestions? Does this ring true for you?