Here is my beautiful little boy Aiden... I have wanted to the pics of him with one of Jeff's ties for a while now, so today I did it! I really loved ALL the pics, but here are a couple of my most favorite ones :)

My little model boy :)

My fav!


Love this angle of him..


Anyone who knows Aiden, knows he is a thumb sucker and this is soooo him!


Aiden has the cutest smiles, <3 those teeth!


<3

Well, our family was busy in 2009! We had four new grandbabies this year and here is the last little guy, Ethan. My sister Rachel and hubby Nick are the proud parents of this little guy and I know a big brother who couldn't be happier! Anyway Rachel and Ethan came over today for some newborn pics, man whoever said/thought newborn pics were easy was sooo wrong! Newborn pics are probably the most challenging, but when you get "that one" it makes it all soo worth it :)

Sometimes my favorite thing to do is just sit and watch these kids...I love the way that the twins hold hands while playing, or how they get all tangled up! It's so cute to watch two little babies interact with each other! Here they are...just a typical day, playing, holding hands and just having fun :)

Yeah I looked over and Ava had her arm around Aiden, this is what prompted me to run and get my camera!


I just thought it was so cute the way that Aiden moved all around her, he is moving all over while she just says put!


That's my little princess, rocking some awesome "dollar spot" sun glasses (just like her momma!)


Yeah look closely..they are holding hands really cutely and Aiden is now chewing on HER hand :)


I love the way that Ava is always watching Aiden...I'm thinking that once he gets really good at crawling maybe she'll watch and learn then too!??!


My handsome Mr. Aiden!


A little more serious, but still soo cute!


And last but not least one more of my little doll (sporting some pretty sweet clothes from Grandma & Grandpa Randy!)


** Please don't think that I am ignoring Ben these days..it's just that he decided that he HATES the camera! Now everytime I pull out the camera he runs into another room, but it is about time I make him do a "photoshoot" with me! Although in order for that to work I have to stock up on lots of candy and be in the mood to beg! haha

*Hope everyone had wonderful holidays :)

Here is my little Miss Ava, she'll be 8 months on MONDAY! I can't believe how fast the last 8 months have gone. These little twins (and Ben!) are my whole life and I am so glad that we were blessed with them..(even though I always make jokes about how it's a curse to have twins!). Anyway I finally got Jeff to help me get some pics of Miss Ava today, here are my favorite ones!

This last one is my fav, and I couldn't choose between color and B&Wish..yes I said "ish" because it's isn't a true B&W, but I love it!

I've had some emails and other people ask me for tips on photographing their kids, or other peoples' kids, just kids in general.

Firstly, thanks that's flattering that you would ask me since I don't consider myself a master at this, but since I have three kids, I do get lots of time to practice.

So here goes...some tips on photographing your kids.
1. - Try not to make them "pose" too much, this is unnatural for MOST kids (esp. tween age kids!). I usually just stalk about, watching them until I think the moment is right..if you're not sure when that right moment will be, just keep snapping and I'm sure you'll get one. When you unload your pics to the computer you'll see it!

2. - I usually don't TRY and center my subject in the photo, does this mean that I ALWAYS have photos with no subject in the center..NO. I do all the time, but I don't ONLY take photos like that, in fact I like it a little better when their head is to the side, or in fact I like those close-up where..yup I am going to say this..THEIR HEAD IS CUT OFF!!! omgosh! A lot of people think that cropping off their head = bad picture..well I don't at all!! It just depends on the mood of the pic. If their expression says it all, you don't need to see everything else.

3. - Remember my photos aren't perfect, nobodies are but that's what photoshop is for. Photoshop helps us with those pesky little problems like dirty face, blemishes, junk in the background and other stuff that you don't want to distract your viewer from the subject. Why not spend a little extra time editing, you'll be happy you did. If you don't have photoshop use GIMP, it's great and FREE :) I LOVE IT!

4. - Spend a little time adjusting the curves, contrast and lighting. If you're like me, you don't always have PERFECT lighting conditions and a little bit of lightening up your photo can go a long ways!

5. - I usually always spend some time adding a bit of contrast to their eyes, and whitening the whites of their eyes. You have to be careful with this though, in photos of my daughter for example, her eyes are SOO blue that it is really easy to do too much, this is why sometimes I don't touch her eyes at all.

6. - Have fun with it, if your son/daughter doesn't want to look at the camera and smile, oh well! Capture the moment that his lego castle falls down, or when he get excited because it didn't. Most all children's photos that I love love love..don't involve the child looking. But I have to admit I do love those moments that you catch them looking so what do I do for that??...I have my camera focused and ready and then I quickly say their name...be ready and the moment that he/she looks over SNAP! it's usually an honest cute little expression, it works all the time! With my three year old sometimes that doesn't work, he's learned my tricks! So instead I yell out a word like "candy!" and that is when you get that "happy light up my eyes omgosh" look!

Anyway..I took this photo of Aiden today, he has the cutest little expressions! I am posting my fully edited color, black & whitish, and sooc.

I used Coffee Shop actions..they are free and AWESOME~
http://coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com/2005/12/actions-by-theme.html

My sister Sara and brother-in-law John were in town for the holidays! We only get to see them 2-3 times a year so it is always an exciting time, anyway while they were here they let me take some pics of them, since the weather was crummy while they were here we headed over the the piano factory downtown GH and took some cute pics, I was so happy that they let me do this because I really really needed the practice with INDOOR photos! Poor little Jack cried about 98% of the time, but what can you do, it must be hard to be soo cute..so much work for the little guy :)

Anyway aside from the crying, and me messing around with lighting we did come away with some cute shots that day, and here they are :)

I took these pics in the beginning of December but didn't post them as a request from their mother (my sister) because she wanted to use the photos as Christmas gifts, therefore she wanted my parents to be surprised when they got them :)

I took lots of pics of the kids that day and they were making the silliest and cutest faces ever...I am only posting a couple here but this kids are cute and near and dear to me!! <3 them :)