I have loved watching this little lady grow.  She started off our camera relationship with a giant grin at just a few weeks old (check out the contest blog post below) and then at three months she barely wanted to give me a smirk.  Now, she is so happy & animated & I love love love the little personality she is developing.  So adorable!  We started off at Miss K’s house, where she was as comfortable as can be, and then she made an appearance in my basement studio to make sure we got a little bit of variety.  She was just perfect, all the way through. 

Aren’t her huge blue eyes gorgeous??

Here’s where she started grinning for me…

But once we got her naked, that’s when she really started to feel at home:

That grin is so cute!

I love the coke crate photo.  She could be in advertising, this one. But afterwards, I was pretty sure Miss K was through… we got photos that look like this:

…until Mom noticed a mirror in the corner of the studio, which K loved.  She cooperated for a little bit longer!

Miss K, you are so beautiful & your parents are lucky lucky people!  Thanks for playing with me! xoxo Amy

 

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!  Yes, it’s February.  Not the first week of January when I would have liked to have posted this.  However, 2011 was awesome.  And I am just now finishing recovery from it. 

To celebrate, I’ve decided on a fun photo contest for some of the awesomest families around Columbus.  I’ve picked a favorite-ish photo from twenty-ish photo sessions (I had a hard time choosing), on which you, the readers, will vote.  The winner will receive a free standard session in 2012 with a photo disc thrown in for good measure.  (If you’re starting out with a new first year package, you can alternatively choose to have two free photo discs from 2012 sessions in your first year package.)

Here are the rules.  In the next hour I will have posted a facebook album with all of the below photos.  Each “like” on the facebook photo gets one vote. [And here's my marketing ploy: you have to "like" my facebook page before you can "like" or comment on photos.]  You can use whatever means necessary to recruit your friends, family, and others to vote for your photo.  But because I don’t think life should be solely a popularity contest you will get the opportunity to earn creative points, as well.  To do this, add a creative caption to the photo you want to vote for.  The funniest or most creative caption will get 25 votes.  The second best caption will get 10 votes (and they can be on the same photo, if your creativity outweighs all the other caption writers!).  I will be deciding on this myself, but if the creativity is just overwhelming, I will come up with a panel or some such system to help make the decision.  And I’ll keep it fair, I promise.  Voting will begin as soon as these photos are posted on Facebook (today, Valentine’s Day), and will finish in 2 weeks, on February 29th, at midnight.  Okay, scratch that.  Voting will finish on February 29th at 9 pm.  I don’t want to stay up til midnight to count!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me, comment on this post, or anything else you’d like to do to reach me.  And let the voting begin!

Starting with Mr. Y, who sneaked his way into 2011 just barely:

And the handsome Mr. R, at three months:

Baby N, just a week or so old:

Gorgeous Miss M, who grins like this every second of the day:

Laughing little M, at one of the most fun sessions ever:

Perfect baby K, who gave us this smile right off the get-go during her newborn session:

And here’s Grandma & Grandpa M with their rambunctious clan of 11 (soon to be 12, I hear):

Sweetly sleeping Miss K, a precious little baby doll:

Laughing baby J with her Momma, both so full of life:

Here’s Mr. J at his first birthday session… the photo on the right might be my favorite photo ever… to infinity and beyond!!

And the traveling H fam, who drove to see me this fall from IN:

And handsome Mr. G, the fair-skinned blue eyed heart throb:

The beautiful F family, with their gotta-warm-up-to-you-and-then-we-have-a-ball triplets:

Sleeping baby Raider… another gorgeous little baby doll at three months old:

Miss E at her one year session… I can’t wait to see her again in another few weeks now that she’s TWO… can you believe how quickly they grow??

Mr. G, who was a ball at his one year old cake smash last year:

And the beautiful F family, one of the most down to earth triads I know:

And Mr. C, representing for the N family of five.  He hid from the camera when I first met him… so naturally, this grin is to die for:

The GQ B family for their holiday card photo session… I’m pretty sure they didn’t use this one, but I still love it!

Ooohh, and Miss B, who I also get to see in another month for her two year old photos.  This little lady was such a blast last year!!

Here’s Miss S, rocking the teddy bear at her one year session:

And last but not least, here’s handsome Mr. B, who I have watched grow since he was just a bump on Mom’s belly.  He is such a little man now!

Alright.  Good luck, guys, I can’t wait to see who wins! xoxoxo Amy

Our little puppy Indiana is growing up… she is spending the night at the vet’s after a successful surgery this morning (she was spayed), and our house is so quiet with only one dog around!  Coco seems to be lonely, too… it took her all day to eat breakfast. 

Like a worried mother, I took photos of our little girl last night (you know, just in case she’s too fussy to cooperate in the next few weeks), in the last fifteen minutes before it was too dark outside for photos, and here are a few of my favorites. 

She’s come so far from this!

We’re still working on tricks to get her to perk her ears up like Coco does… you know, to keep her from looking like a wet rat.  But for now, we get terrified-in-front-of-the-camera, this:

We tried getting both of them to sit next to each other.  This was as much as we got… we were losing Indy’s puppy attention span at this point (you know, ten minutes later):

And since Coco’s always so cooperative, here she is, too:

And they do like each other, I promise.  Just last month I took this, the two of them cuddling together on the couch:

Albeit a speed session , spending an hour in the park with these two was a blast.  One, I’m a big fan.  Two, when couples are as good looking as these two, it makes my job uber-easy.  I think I’ll be able to talk these two into a few more engagement photos before their summer wedding, although this may have been our only chance for the snow they wanted.  We’ll see.  I won’t argue with 50 degree weather in February!

Introducing, for (maybe) the first but not the last time, my awesome little brother Russ & our gorgeous new sister-in-law-to-be, Emily.  Welcome to the family Em! We are so so so happy to have you!

See? Gorgeous.

So I thought that I only had a thing for baby eyelashes, but with this next one, maybe I have a thing for all eyelashes, nondiscriminatory:

So perfect, you two!

And then, of course we had to take a few ring shots.  She’s had this thing for less than a month!

Nice job picking it out, Russ. 

This next one may be my session fav.  I forget what overconfident comment Russ made, but Emily was flabbergasted…

My husband would call this next grin the “Joehlin smile” — our whole family has the same grin:

Emily, I think I told you to push your hair behind Russ’ head after this so it didn’t cover his face anymore, but for some reason, I like it more like this:

Emily, I love love love the sun on your hair in these next couple.  One, your hair is gorgeous, even (and especially!) in its casual state.  Two, the outline is so warm, so promising.  Just like love.

And then, we sprinted back to the car to make sure Russ & Emily made it to their dinner plans on time.  So much fun, you too — I can’t wait for more times like these! xoxoxo Amy

Last week I was surprised to hear that little Miss B arrived a few weeks early, but what a joy to spend the morning with her & her gorgeous family this last weekend!  I started taking photos of big brother Mr. A when he was a mere four months old… and time has flown by.  He is now a handsome little 2 year old with all kinds of big boy questions about my camera and how & why I was snapping photos of baby sister.  So adorable!

This family is just perfect.  Thanks for sharing the little lady with me, Mom & Dad — I can’t wait to watch her grow!

The quilt in their living room reminded me of my own Mom’s house, which has quilts everywhere… of course I had to have a photo with this!

Isn’t she gorgeous??

Big brother was SO good with Miss B.  He was gentle, gave hugs and lots of kisses… what an awesome big brother. 

And since Mr. A was always close by to the camera, we got quite a few of him, too…

And a SMILE!:

Thanks again, M&J.  I had such a ball & I can’t wait to see the four of you again in a few months! xoxoxo Amy