Baby Jack!

I'm kind of on a roll updating this blog, aren't I? :) I did a little mini session just for fun today with my friends little guy. He did such a good job for me! He is 11 days older than Anna Claire and they are going to be great little friends! Isn't he absolutely adorable? He looks just like his big sisters. We wanted to get a picture of he and Anna together but the princess was napping when he came over and then woke up grumpy and ready to eat. Maybe next time!

Outside!

Tonight I decided at the last minute to take Anna Claire outside for a little session. She was kind of tired and not her most smiley, but she still did a great job for me. I am enjoying photographing her so much! She will be 3 months old in a couple of days. Part of me wants to say that that is hard to believe, but really, it's not. I have spent every part of the last 3 months simply enjoying Anna and I am so very thankful for that. I have spent so much time just staring at her beautiful face, soaking every bit of her in. She's such a good baby. A true miracle and a blessing that I thank God for every day. I hope you're enjoying watching her grow as much as I am! I never grow tired of looking at this perfect little face...


I hope you are all enjoying your summer! Take advantage of the gorgeous weather we are supposed to have this week. I know we will!!
~Shannon

Look Who Lost a Tooth!

Ella lost her very first tooth last week! She was beyond thrilled about that and wanted to go outside the same afternoon to take pictures of her new smile! :) What a bittersweet thing losing that first tooth is. My baby is growing up! As happy as I am watch her grow into a wonderful little girl, I miss my baby too. Ella is such a great kid. I'm excited to see what the future has in store for her!

And a few of the princess just because she's cute! :) She is so full of smiles these days and I have to really restrain myself from getting out the camera every 5 minutes all day long! Check out this girl's smile...Here's a little snap of Anna's first ponytail. I just couldn't resist! So cute!I hope you are all enjoying summer and surviving this unbearable heat. Here's to hoping we get some nice, cool days soon!

10 Weeks Old

Time is such a funny thing. In some ways, it feels as though we've had Anna forever but I also wonder where on Earth the past 10 weeks have gone. She has grown and changed so much in those weeks...it's truly amazing. I'm sure every mother feels the same way, but I never grow tired of staring at her. She is so perfect and such an amazing gift. I think that the reason it feels as though she's always been here is because I can't imagine life without her now. Things are going really well and everyone has adjusted well to life as a family of 5. Ella and Jack absolutely adore Anna. She recognizes their voices and gives them her big gummy grins. I can tell that she melts their hearts just as she does mine. We are truly blessed to have been given the gift of Anna Claire and we are enjoying her every day. I hope her most recent pictures bring a smile to your face like they do mine. Is there anything more precious than a smiling baby? :)


I'm not sure if I like this one better in color or black and white. I just love close-ups of baby faces!
I hope all is well with each of you!
~Shannon

Now that she's 2 months old....

I finally have her newborn session done! :) I didn't do newborn sessions with Ella or Jack and it's something I'll always regret. I like to think that these pictures of Anna are representative of all 3 of them. I had such a wonderful time photographing Anna and working on this slide show for her and I hope that someday she will view these images and feel the love that I put into it. I plan to put all of these images into a coffee table book for her as well. It makes me smile to think of her children or grandchildren viewing them someday!

I hope you enjoy Anna Claire's slide show. It's amazing to me how much she has grown and changed already. The time that they are this small passes so quickly. If you are expecting a baby, I really encourage you to get newborn pictures done sometime during those first 2 weeks. You'll never get that time back and it's so amazing to be able to look back on those first couple of weeks when they are so tiny and new. There is just nothing as pure as a newborn baby and I already find myself missing Anna at that age and wondering where the past 2 months have gone...

Click here to view Anna's session

I hope you all have a wonderful week!
~Shannon

Dancing Girl!

***New Video***
I just wanted to share a little video of Ella dancing! I am so proud of Ella and of all of the girls! They all worked so hard this year and they did wonderfully. Ella was so excited to get up there and dance and she was absolutely adorable on stage. After she was done performing, Jack told her, "You sure looked pretty up there, Ella!" :)

Before bed tonight, Ella told me that she wants to be a dance teacher when she grows up because she loved being up on stage. I'm happy that she has found something that she really likes to do and that she can feel good about. She was so proud of herself, which makes me happy! I also have to mention how proud I am of Jack. He was so good the entire time. We were there for over 4 hours tonight and he was such a trooper. He's such a good brother to his sisters!

I hope you enjoy watching Ella dance. She'll be happy to watch this tomorrow. She loves to watch herself in videos :)



I hope to be back soon with Anna Claire's newborn session! ;)

Baseball

Jack has been waiting for an entire year for this and it's finally here. It's baseball season! Jack's idol, his cousin Evan, played last year and after going to a few of those games, Jack was hooked. He begged me to sign him up this season and I'm so glad I did. He absolutely loves it! His coach is wonderful with the kids and Jack is having a great time out there. Here are a few images from his first couple of games. As I put him in bed tonight he asked me if I was going to take pictures of him at his next game. I said, "Do you want me to?" He answered, "No, not really." I am embarrassing him at 4-years-old...what do I have to look forward to as he gets older?!? :)

Big Sister, Ella, took a break from cheering Jack on (and asking about a million times to go play on the play equipment) to pose for the camera.
Jack "bamming it" as he says..And sweet Anna Claire snuggling up with Papa. So cute!!
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Hello!

I just wanted to pop in here to let you know that I haven't fallen off the face of the planet! I have been busy enjoying my family, volunteering at school and just being a mom. On the photography front, I am working on Anna Claire's newborn session and as soon as I have more of those done, I'll post a slide show here showing her off! :) I am also working on a few things here and there for friends and that is more than enough to occupy my time for now. I am enjoying my "break" although I'm still using my camera quite a bit so I'm not missing out on that side of things.

Here are a few pictures of Anna for now. I hope to be back with more soon. I plan to update this blog with pictures from my family life including Anna as she grows, Jack playing baseball, trips to the zoo, swimming lessons, gymnastics for Ella, etc. I hope that you continue to check back to see what we're up to! :)

Here is a little sneak peek from Anna's newborn session...

And here are a few recent pictures of Anna...I hope to be back very soon!! Thank you to all of you who continue to check in here for updates. I promise to be much better about posting! I hope all is well with each of you!!
~Shannon

Anna Claire is here!!

Hello everyone! I promised many of you that I would update my blog when our baby was born so I wanted to update and let all of you know that our beautiful baby girl is now about 3 1/2 days old. :)

Anna Claire was born at 5:43 PM on Wednesday, April 1st. Yes, April Fool's Day! That was the ONLY day that I really didn't want the baby to be born on, but Anna had other plans. I can't say that I was all that upset about it though because after weeks of no sleep, contractions and progressive dilation and effacement, it was a welcome relief to go to my 38 week appointment and hear my doctor say that I was 5cm dilated and that she believed I was in labor. Since it was April Fool's Day, I remember telling her that it wasn't funny to joke around about things like that and she assured me that she wasn't joking. :) Off to the hospital we went and after getting admitted and having my water broken things went pretty quickly. Although it felt like I was pushing forever, they tell me I wasn't and that it was only 4 contractions. It's amazing how time can stand still when you're in pain! Of course, as all moms know, the pain fades and it is all a blur when you are staring into your baby's eyes. Anna is beautiful, perfect and a dream come true. She was born less than 4 days ago, yet I feel as though we've had her forever and I really can't imagine life without her now.

Ella and Jack LOVE their new baby sister and are really enjoying having her here. Unfortunately, Jack was diagnosed with influenza on Friday (the day we brought Anna home) so he has had to stay away from her a bit but he is doing much better now. He melted my heart the first night he met her in the hospital. As they were leaving, he kissed her on the head and said, "Good-bye sweet Annie. I love you." What a good big brother!! As predicted, Ella is in complete heaven with her sister here. She was so excited to go to school the next day to show off pictures of Anna and tell everyone. She is going to be a wonderful big sister to her, just as she is to Jack. Kevin and I are so incredibly blessed with our children and our family. I couldn't dream of anything more and having Anna here just makes things seem complete.

Here are just a few pictures that I snapped of her on her second day before we left the hospital. I hope to do her newborn session soon and someday I will update the blog with those as well. My time right now is mostly being spent loving on my new baby as well as my older two and soaking all of this in. I know all too well how quickly this time passes and I want to enjoy every second. I hope that all is well with all of you!

Sweet Little C

Another one of the awesome things about this pregnancy is that I have had a wonderful group of friends to share it with. We have had two births in the past 2 weeks and there are two of us to go. Seeing these new babies is exciting and is a huge reality check at the same time. I have so much to do before this baby is born!! Kelly was the first to have her little one and she is now almost 2 weeks old. Little C is a beautiful baby and was a great model for me! We got some awesome eye contact shots and with a little patience, we also got her to fall asleep for those wonderful sleepy newborn poses. Thank you for inviting me over to photograph your sweet princess, Kelly! I had a great time talking with you and getting to meet your little girl. I can't wait to watch her grow up! :)

Baby C

What a fun session! Not only did I get to photograph an adorable and sweet little boy, I got to spend an afternoon with a wonderful friend. I have been waiting to photograph this baby from the moment I found out his mommy was pregnant and it was so much fun! Little C was the perfect little model and it was really difficult to just choose a few to edit quickly and show here. I'm sure as I go through the rest I'll find other favorites but these are the ones that captured my eye at a first glance. Thank you, Sarah and Matt for choosing me to document this time for you. It is always such an amazing honor to be invited to a birth and to photograph a newborn. Experiencing this with you is something I will never forget! At some point, I may share a few of the pictures of sweet C after his birth but for now, here he is at 6-days-old. Beautiful!!!

New Baby Pictures!

Kevin and I decided to do a 3D/4D ultrasound with this baby and I am so happy that we did! It was an amazing experience and I think it really helped the kids understand more about what's going on and how wonderful it's going to be to have this baby in our arms in a couple of short months. Ella and Jack were completely mesmerized by the screen the entire time and were so adorable with their little commentary of "Oh, how cute!" "What a sweet little baby!", etc. the entire time. So sweet!! I honestly think that the thing I am looking forward to the most is having the kids meet the baby. They have been so involved with the pregnancy. I'm not sure a day has gone by that Ella hasn't kissed my stomach. She is even coming to terms with the fact that this baby may be a boy and that she would love a baby brother just as much as she'd love a sister! :) I hope you enjoy the sneak peek of my newest little photography model!

Playing with his or her feet! :)I LOVE this one!

Just Because

Did you miss me? :) I feel bad about neglecting this blog but I suppose that's just how it will be for awhile until this baby is born. After that, watch out. There will be new pictures quite often!

I took these pictures a few months ago and had always intended to share them here but as always, life was way too busy and it never happened. I shouldn't be doing it now either because I have a lot of other things I should be working on, but I was in the mood to share them, so here they are! I had a lot of fun with the kids during their sessions. I took them out one at a time on back-to-back days because I thought I would be able to keep their attention better that way. As all of you know, it's always more difficult to photograph your own children, and mine are no exception! They are getting much better the older they get, however, and they now know that the faster the cooperate, the sooner we're done! :)

I also did some studio shots with the two of them the day before Jack's 4th Birthday. My family had been hounding me about getting new pictures of the kids. I realized that in the past 1 1/2 years, I had not updated my own frames or the frames of my parents or Kevin's parents. It was really nice to get some new, fun shots of the kids! I was also able to capture them both in the same frame, which isn't always an easy task. If you have ever met my kids, you know that more than anything else, they love each other SO MUCH! They are always giving hugs, laughing with each other and usually play together very, very well. Of course, they still have their brother and sister moments but I have really been blessed with the two of them and their relationship with one another. I am happy with how these pictures of the two of them together show how happy they are!


I will be on a little vacation for the next week so if I don't respond to emails or phone calls, that's why! I will be back to work on the 20th. I hope you all have a great week!

Baby K

Meet little baby K! I believe he was 5-days-old the day we did his session. What a sweet little guy with tons of dark hair! Here are a few of the images from his session. The poor little guy had to bundle up when coming and going because it was one of coldest days we have had all year! I hope you enjoy his preview!

Merry Christimas!

I hope you are all enjoying a relaxing and fun day with your families! As I sit here, Ella is playing with her new learning laptop at her new desk and Jack is banging away at his drums. We are having an AWESOME day and I hope you are too!

Merry Christmas!!!

Today's Project: Cookies for Santa!

Today Ella and Jack had more fun in the kitchen making and decorating cut-out sugar cookies for Santa. They love doing things like this and I love doing it with them. We were all a mess by the time it was all said and done, which was half of the fun!

A friend of mine came over tonight and we spent some time talking about photography and my decision to take a break for awhile, etc. She mentioned that I had inspired her to get out her camera more often to capture all of those little moments that are gone in an instant but that we want to remember forever. That made me smile because that's the biggest compliment anyone could ever give to me. That's what this is all about for me. That's the whole reason I decided to pick up a camera and give this a shot. I desperately wanted to freeze time with my kids so that I would never forget all of the little moments that melt my heart. It was funny that she mentioned that tonight because I was thinking about this very thing when I was snapping pictures of the kids at the table today. I never want to forget how tiny Ella's little hand was when she was sprinkling sugar on the cookies or how Jack sticks out his tongue when he's concentrating on something. I even want to remember how Holly sat there with specks of flour on her face waiting so patiently for the tiniest crumb to drop on the floor or a chair! :-) It's all about capturing the littlest details. It's about how those details bring back a flood of emotion and memories when viewed years later. I hope that when they are grown and they have these pictures to look at, they will remember how much fun we had today, how funny the sticky dough felt in their hands and maybe even bits and pieces of the things we talked about while we were sitting there. Most of all, I hope they remember how many laughs we shared and how much I love them.

Gingerbread Fun!

Today we had fun inside since it was so cold out!! I actually got out my camera for once (that RARELY happens these days when it comes to capturing my kids doing fun things!) so I thought I would share. There are quite a few images here but I figured I may as well get my loyal blog readers used to it. From here on out, it's going to be lots of my kids and my family on here :-) I do have 2 more client sessions before I'm done. One tomorrow and one in January. After that, I'm afraid you'll have to suffer through seeing picture after picture of my new baby!! Although I'm sure you aren't as excited about that as I am, I assure you they'll be fun to look at. Here are the shots from today! I hope you all stayed warm and safe in today's FREEZING weather.
Ella concentrating...Jack eating candy of some kind!Trying to keep it from falling over!Yum!!It doesn't quite look like the box, but the kids were proud of it and I loved it too!They made this countdown chain a couple of weeks ago and they have loved tearing off links everyday!Have a wonderful week and a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Welcome, Baby C!

I first met this family almost two years ago when their little girl was a newborn. I remember that session like it was yesterday. They were my first "stranger" session. Up until that point, I had only photographed people that I knew or had at least met before and I was so nervous to meet them! Little did I know that I had absolutely nothing to worry about. :-) I can't say enough about this family. They are sweet, loving and wonderful to work with. The kids are always so sweet and are always a pleasure to spend time with. What a treat to be invited into their home to photograph their newest addition, baby C! I always love photographing newborns but it is extra fun when I know that I have a little one to look forward to in just a few short months! I hope you enjoy their preview. Take care and stay warm, everyone!!

Rather than post right on top of this one, I will add my little PSA to the bottom! As most of you know, I am wrapping up my business for an undetermined amount of time due to the upcoming birth of my third baby. If you have an order out with me right now, you need to get it in. I will be emailing each of you sometime this week or next as a final reminder, but I figured it couldn't hurt to read it twice! :-) Any sessions not ordered from by January 31st will be permanently deleted from my computer. I will not make exceptions to this policy. I am terminating my business license as well as my tax ID and it will illegal for me to run a business in the state of Iowa. As I stated, if you have an order out with me, you will recieve an email in the upcoming weeks as a reminder. After the 31st of January, your proofs will not be recoverable. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!

Baby E Is One!

What a fun session! Little E was full of big smiles for me today. This can sometimes be a difficult age to photograph because little ones can be fearful of the big lady with the camera dancing and singing to them. Who can blame them? Someone should really videotape my sessions for me so that I can see it through the eyes of the child! :-) This little cutie had no fear, however, and was a delight to photograph. We even got messy at the end and let her dig into her cake. Thanks for coming over to see me and I hope you enjoy your huge preview. I think part of me is hoping that the enormous previews are making up for the fact that a have been a slacker in terms of updating this blog lately!

Baby Update

I have been smiling all day! We all got to go see our new baby this morning and I am happy to report that everything looks great!! The ultrasound tech said that the baby looked "textbook" perfect and we SO very happy to hear that! She or he was moving all over the place and seemed to like having a hand or two up by the face. Ella and Jack got to come along and they loved it. The woman who did our scan was wonderful with the kids and pointed out when the baby was "waving" at them. :-) It was just an amazing experience and I was just so very thankful the entire time I was laying there. We are so blessed and in moments like this, it really hits home what a miracle life is and how much love we all have for our babies, even before we are able to hold them in our arms. Here are a few pictures from this morning. Sorry for the quality of them here but I think that you can get the idea even though it's much easier to see them in person!

Ella said, "I think she looks like a girl baby but she kind of looks like a bone baby!" We had to try to explain to her that the baby will indeed have skin when it's born!! For all of you wondering, we did not find out the gender today. I will admit that it was somewhat tough to do. I thought about caving in and finding out the entire drive there. Honestly though, after she started the scan, my desire to find out went away. I was just in such awe of seeing a healthy baby and watching my kids see their new sibling for the first time that it all melted away. Kevin did say that he was trying to see something between the legs every time she moved the wand in that area but he wasn't able to see anything. I will be very excited to find out the gender in a few more months!

Thanksgiving will be extra special for us this year after having such an amazing experience today. What a blessing!! I hope that you are all able to enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families!