This is so much fun! I got together late last year to photograph one of my favorite families, the Polahas, for little Jude’s big milestone…turning 1! Little did I know that the photos from this shoot would turn into the most amazing birthday invitation I have seen yet!

In fabulous Beatles style, the Polahas transformed the classic “Revolution” Beatles album cover into the invite for Jude’s birthday party. The invite was adorable, and even better was the CD enclosed with Dad, Kristoffer Polaha, doing a hilarious Beatles impression. Props for Kris, his British accent was fabulous! Check out the final product as well as a few of my favorite shots from the day with the whole gang!

In case you aren’t already, tune in to support Kristoffer, starring on Ringer on Tuesday nights, 9/8c on the CW!

I have been photographing these little characters now since the first, Liam, was still in Mama’s belly!  It has been the most incredible journey getting to know this family and being there for all of their photographic milestones.

Here are shots of all three kids now: Liam (almost 6), Finnley (almost 4), and Kieran 2. I am also posting a fun photographic flashback, by way of their birth announcements, it is so fun to see how much they have changed.

These images of the kids were taken after the holidays to be hung as large gallery-wrap canvas prints in their living room.  After some fun outfit and backdrop designing/planning, this is what we came up with.  Hopefully I can pop over there once the canvasses are printed and hung and take a quick shot because it is really fun to see the finished product displayed.

Thanks so much Bernie and Kevin for sharing your little ones with me for all these years, I am so lucky to know you and be able to share and capture these moments with  you!

Round two with the Laziers! I had such a great time photographing this fabulous family in 2008 and they came back for more…yay!!  It is always a challenge to coordinate getting a big family of active children together for family photos, so even though it was early in the season we took the opportunity to gather this great group in August for their holiday photo shoot.  This time I went to them and we got these great photos outside their gorgeous home!  Can’t wait till next year!

Those of you who have been following the blog will recognize these three: Payton, Paige & RJ.  I can’t believe it has been a year already since I first photographed these three little cuties!  I spent an afternoon at the Peninsula Hotel with these special triplets and all of their doting family members from across the country to celebrate their first birthday.  There were so many cute details and sweet moments, here is a fun little collage from the day.

Back in July I was invited to spend the day with this truly warm and inviting family at their Carpinteria beach house.  It was such a perfect day, and getting to know the whole clan, who had come in from far and wide, was wonderful.  I felt like one of the family and enjoyed every minute.

One of the most remarkable parts of this family is quite obviously the triplets and their big brother…who is only 15 months older…yikes! They all had completely unique personalities already and were so cute to watch together and apart, have fun Mom & Dad!  It was fantastic photographing candid moments on the beach, each familiy group on their own and then the whole crew.  I wish every day was this much fun!  Thank you all for such a great summer memory!

Wow, Belly to Baby before I could even blink, one of my favorite session combinations!!  I feel like it was yesterday when Brian and Heather came in for their maternity session.  Before I knew it they went from this:

to this:

They named their daughter Rilyn, which I of course loved because our son is named Jace Rylin.  Rylin was a combo of our middle names Ryan and Lyn – wish I had thought of it for a girl’s name…super cute!  Here are a couple of other favs from our session, I will post the announcement soon, it is in the works now!  Congrats Heather & Brian, you are adorable and sweet people and if its possible, you are even sweeter parents, Rilyn is very lucky!!

A couple of weeks ago I got to spend an afternoon with the Hart girls, it was fantastic!  Rachel is just about to graduate and her Mom thought it would be great to get some portraits done before she heads off to college.  During our shoot I couldn’t help but reflect back to when my sisters and I were still in high school and how much we had ahead of us.  Even though these girls were very mature, there was something really sweet and innocent about them and I missed being in my teen years for a couple of hours. I wouldn’t trade my life now to go back, I love my life now, but I remember my high school days fondly and feel lucky I had such a wonderful childhood.  Thanks for a wonderful shoot girls!

I have had a great week and have had a lot of fun doing some secret Mother’s Day shoots of Dads and kids.  Way to go Dads…great thinking, the ladies in your life will love the planning and photos of the ones they love most!  Make sure you show the Moms in your life how much you appreciate all that they do next weekend and it doesn’t take a lot of money…remember that in these hard times!

There is nothing like going into a client’s home and seeing your photography displayed like this! WOW! The care and love that went into planning, framing and hanging these images is amazing, and this isn’t even all of them! Thank you so much guys, your home is beautiful and the prints look amazing – this project was such a fantastic and fun collaboration!

This card was custom made for the Icardos and it was really fun.  They came in with tons of ideas and enthusiasm and it paid off, we made a square tri-fold card for them with a handful of the fantastic shots we got from their session.  I have been collecting backgrounds and embellishments for cards and announcements over the years and thought these images were perfect for these funky and fun Christmas patterns.  The card was press printed on watercolor card stock by WHCC – I LOVE their card stock and print quality.