World Breastfeeding Week starts Sunday, August 1. I have something fun planned for that week. Check back!

This is number seven, cooking away! I’m getting close enough to the end to start planning my maternity time off. This means a great deal for you! To celebrate, and to give me something to do after I stop doing sessions, and am just sitting around waiting for labor to begin, I am offering a great deal to fill my last few weeks of shooting time.

The first three people to schedule and pay the session fee will receive 7 desk/gift prints as a gift from me! That includes 8×10, 5×7, and wallet sets of 16. Session must be scheduled to be done by August 31st, my last day of shooting.  You can contact me to schedule by commenting on this blog, leave me a comment on Facebook, or send me a call or email. This offer expires July 28th.

But wait! There’s more!! My generosity is not limited to just those lucky three people. Anyone who books a session, including paying the session fee, and schedules their session to be done by Aug. 31st, will receive 21% off their entire purchase. Why 21%? Well, because that’s my due date! But don’t hold me to it. I’m quite comfortable going a couple of weeks late. Babies come when babies are ready! This offer expires Aug. 21st or when session times are filled. That’s right. They are limited, so schedule soon!

And just for fun, here are a couple of turtle shots. The first one was bigger than a dinner plate! The second was just a regular sized turtle, of which there were dozens.

Then, six months later, this:

So cute!! Then, just the other day, this. Without even realizing, we created a nearly identical copy of that first image, only with Dad this time rather than Mom.

But now, Emilio has a baby sister. Meet Emma.

And here’s a new shot of Emilio. He’s definitely developed an ornery streak!

And for two reasons: 1. I think outtakes are fun, and 2. Just to prove my comments from above….

You can thank me for sparing you from seeing Little M spitting up all over her Maw Maw (that’s grandmother for the uninitiated).

Jessica, your girls give me a workout, but they are adorable and so much fun!! Can’t wait to see them again.

…punches a whole in your seamless paper with that train….

I love canvases. They are beautiful pieces of art to hang on your walls. This is Maggie. She’s a doll. This canvas is hanging in her mom’s office at McCabe Chiropractic in Champaign. It hangs along side a picture of her cute baby sister. I happen to have seven of these hanging in my living room – one of each of my children and a large, 20×40 inch canvas family portrait over our fire place. They are stunning and I get comments from every person who visits my home. If you want to add some gorgeous art work of your own to your home, give me a call and let’s set up a session.

This is a photo of my own teen with her boyfriend. They are so sweet together. They’ve been involved in a long distance relationship for 2 years and at this point, are planning to get married in a year or two (the one or two will depend on who has the stronger will, I think, him or her). I know a lot of people scoff at young love, but since these two make Jesus a primary focus of their relationship, if they want it to work, it will. I have no doubt about that.

Just getting started on this session, and saw this and fell in love. I just could not resist putting this up immediately for Mom to see! Such a sweet, sweet baby! Can’t wait to get through the rest of the images!

Ok, so I had to come back and add this one. Look at how strong this little lady is! She was holding up her head like she was months old rather than days. She’s just so dang cute!

The middle girl is sporting a scratch given to her by the boy on top. And, if you can believe it, the bottom two boys are actually twins! Fraternal, obviously. Well, here’s my crew…. or most of it.

Thanks, ladies for showing me your beautiful faces!

If you want to schedule your own mommy head shot session, let me know! You can see pricing at the bottom of my pricing page, under Little Sessions.

I came to this little guy’s house to photograph him nursing for my nursing project. However, Mom wasn’t ready yet and I just couldn’t resist this face. Can you blame me? You won’t recognize him, but he last graced the blog here as a newborn. He’s 6 months old now, and has changed quite a bit. I just couldn’t stop giggling as I was taking these pictures. He’s just so dang cute! I hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I enjoyed taking them!

While, shooting seniors is definitely my most favorite thing to do, I do have interests and even great loves outside of photography. One of those is the nursing relationship between a mother and her child. I have nursed 6 children for a total of 10 years 9 months. And I suppose if I wanted to pad that a little, I could include an extra 2 years since I was nursing twins for that long. Don’t they each get to count for their own two years? Well, maybe not. Either way, it’s obvious to those around me that nursing is important to me. So, for my first personal project, I’ve decided to create a calendar of nursing moms. Because in addition to the importance of nursing, I think NORMALIZING nursing in our society is important, too. It seems we can’t go a week without hearing about another mom who was asked to leave or cover up or go to the bathroom to nurse her baby. It seem the more developed the country, the more the society eschews, normal, natural things. When fashion dictated that girls wear pants riding so low you could see way too much, we saw it enough that we all got used to it. Now many people don’t think twice about seeing much more of a woman’s skin than we did 15 yeas ago. If people saw enough moms nursing out in public, while going about their normal lives, perhaps, soon society would become immune to the sight and get over it.

I realize this may not be a popular view with every visitor to my blog, but I’m ok with that. I think it’s important that people know who they are visiting and who they are hiring.

Explanation out of the way, here are some way cute kids whose moms volunteered to participate in this project. These are the first three of a total of 15 littles who will be happily nursing for me. Well, with one small exception. Evie was simply too busy checking out my house to sit and nurse long enough to get a photo of her. But that’s ok. I’m patient and we’ll try again at her house. Where she should be bored since she lives there.

How about Facebook? Lots and lots of people have pages these days. As I browse through my wall, I see lots and lots of fuzzy shots. Wouldn’t we all love to look fantastic in our profile picture? A professional head shot will make all your high school class mates from 20 years ago green with envy! These are available in my mini session collection. For more details, go to my pricing page. Studio and location head shots available. Get scheduled now for your head shot!

This is John. He’s quite active in the political area for Illinois. You can find out what he’s all about on his Facebook fan page.

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This is Jana. She’s a stay at home mom. She’s a riot. Jana has the most entertaining Facebook updates I’ve ever seen. I look forward to reading her wall every day. Head shots aren’t just for business professionals. Moms deserve to look fantastic, too, and does she ever!

You really are interfering with my nap, Lady.

Really? You’re still there? I’m so bored with this.

OK! Enough already! I’ll just bury my face until you go away.

OK. So this is Max. He’s the best cat in the world. He jumped up into my studio set up and I just couldn’t resist. I figure I show my kids on the blog every now and then. I shouldn’t leave out my favorite feline kid.

We started out with the kids all dressed in their nice “picture” clothes. Then after all the formal poses were done, they changed into play clothes. I find it interesting that all of my favorites were taken after the changed and just became themselves.

This is a fun storyboard I put togther of this little doll on the swing. She is just so cute, I simply could not stop snapping away.

Now, this image has some technical issues. I’m aware of that. However, The beauty of the grandpa’s love for his granddaughter and vice versa just over whelm that for me and I just love this shot.  Sometimes, technical just doesn’t matter.

Now this beauty is quite different from her siblings. They are all very out going and very comfortable in front of the camera. She really did NOT want me taking her picture at. all. However, when I saw this, I just knew, I had captured everything I have come to know about this lady and am so pleased with it.

I really don’t like feet. Ask my husband. He’ll tell you. He’s not allowed to have them anywhere near me. Despite this weird issue I have, I really love taking pictures of feet. Especially young feet that show as much personality as these do. I just love it. Even without seeing faces, you can still see a lot about this group of young folks – from the grass stained knees, to the wide range of colors they’ve chosen in their clothing, to the pose of the feet themselves – casual or tense and itching to get back to the swinging and tree climbing.

And just because I think it’s fabulous enough to bear repeating…. here it is again.

I just took this picture today as part of a family session. I just started going through the session and this image jumped out at me and I just had to share it. These girls are just this kind to each other all the time. They are also just 2 or the 5 children in this family and they all treat each other this way. This whole family was just a joy to photograph and I can’t wait to get the rest of the session done!

Who doesn’t like free? This is what senior reps get for free. There is a proof book that you get to keep forever, and awesome cards that come in this really cool tin. Although, I prefer you don’t keep those. Ok. You can keep one. But the rest you are supposed to hand out to all your friends so they call me and earn you MORE free stuff. I have a feeling Morgan is going to do an excellent job for me!

Are you going to be a senior in the 2010-2011 school year? Are you interested in earning free stuff? Call me now to see if I have openings in your school. Oh, and if you know Morgan, get one of these cards from her. It not only gives her credit, but you get a free set of wallets!

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