This handsome little fellow is Xavier.  I was so happy to see him again for his two year pictures.  He was a busy busy little guy (as are all two year olds in the world).

This was a bit of a miracle shoot.  Poor little buddy got stung by a bee about 20 minutes into our shoot.   But like a trooper, he managed his first bee sting like a champ and went on to give me many more gorgeous Xavier grins.

Little baseball lover in the making!  (And that was actually an orange, not a baseball, and I was in his line of sight!)

Expecting a toddler to look into a camera, pose, and smile, is generally, an unreasonable expectation (in my humble opinion).   Photographing a toddler while they do what they do – PLAY – now that is the goal of a toddler session.  (In this case, Xavier did surprise us with several directed grins though so that was a bonus!)

Xavier will soon be a big brother!

Storyboards aren’t just for cake smashes you know.  Very fun way to display a toddler shoot.

This is Seth.  Seth turned 9 in April and it was both my privilege and BLESSING to get to take some 9 year old pictures of him.

You see, 23 years ago, I met his mama.  It was Cinco De Mayo.  We were high school sophomores and both Heidi and I had been invited to a mutual friend’s birthday party.  It was love at first sight.  We had both prayed that God would send us a girlfriend that would be a kindred spirit and God answered our prayers.    We were dreamers and we always imagined the fun we would have as mama’s and watching our children grow together.   As it turned out, shortly after Jim and I married, Heidi became a world traveler and spent the next decade and a half (about) across the world and then across the country from me.   In October of 2011, she returned home to Phoenix and for the first time, we are getting to watch our little boys grow together.  I have to post several pictures of Seth and Tanner because they are so cute together and really enjoy one another’s company.

Aren’t these two handsome?  Biased?  Who me?

Typically, I don’t advise including my four children in a photo shoot but in some instances, it’s magic.  This was one of them.  Tanner, Ty, Tori, and Troy were quite entertaining for Seth and I love looking at his cute grins and remembering what he was grinning about.

I have been drooling over his mother’s hair for over twenty years and now I am in love with Seth’s too.  So beautiful (and I love it long!).  Imagine how long Tanner’s hair might be if I didn’t have James P. giving me fits about it?  Tanner’s hair is just too amazing to cut short!  Why oh why can’t Jim cooperate with me? (And if you know my honey, you are sitting at your computer saying to yourself “Uh Doni – you really shouldn’t have put that in writing because if he reads it, he will be even more stubborn about it and will likely take the shavers to his head tomorrow!”  I am banking on the fact that he doesn’t read my blog.  My man is all things beautiful but he can be a little difficult to negotiate with at times.  Hee hee.)

He looks just like his mama don’t you think?

Had to get that shot because that one has a definite window of opportunity.  I don’t think I could pick Tanner up like that if I had to at the age of 11.

I love these relational shots.  While newborn photography is my first love, I have surprised myself with the realization that I LOVE family pictures.  Capturing families interacting with one another just melts my heart.  I want a picture to say more than “what we looked like when…” – I want it to reflect “what we felt like”.   I was moved by these shots of Heidi and Seth and wanted to share them with her privately first.  We had a (rare) opportunity for a girl date and I gave them to her while chatting at CA Pizza Kitchen (I love that place).  When I saw her face (and her tears), I knew she saw exactly what I did.  The depth of her love for the greatest joy of her life.

On a silly note…my cousin Jarrod bought mustaches for Seth for his birthday.  I would think that was an odd choice but it made perfect sense to me.  My Aunt has great affection for toy shopping and she has a rare talent in finding unique items that a 9 year old (or 4 or 15 year old) would truly celebrate.  Apple didn’t fall far and Jarrod has now proven to have inherited the gift.  It was WAY cool that there happened to be a red mustache in the bunch.  Looked pretty awesome on Tanner.  They were all trying hard to keep their staches on thus the serious expressions.  Plus that just made it funnier so we encouraged it.

Jim pointed out (because he would) that the mustaches are upside down.   And again, that made this even more funny to me because of course my kids would have put them on upside down.  Heidi and I may be the only ones grinning at these shots but when you are wrangling five kids for a photo shoot with mustaches, well it just doesn’t get much funnier than that.  Trust me.

I took these shots of my niece and nephews way way way back in JUNE!  I feel SO badly that it has taken me this long to get them processed for my sweet sister.  Life has been very hectic since Troy has been born and I just didn’t get it done.   I look at these now and laugh at how much Cooper has changed in seven months.  He is a beautiful baby.  Additionally, it has worked out quite conveniently that Cooper and Troy have similar body styles because Troy gets Cooper’s  hand me downs.   Because these shots are of my babies, I will post a bunch for your viewing pleasure. 

Miss Karsyn is our little smarty.  She is doing so good in school this year and is as sweet as could be.

These pictures were taken at Jodi’s Dad’s home up in Payson.  (If you recall, I did post a few pictures about the snake incident way back when.  The snake was in a hole above Karsyn’s head while we were shooting this and we didn’t know it until later).

Jodi wasn’t planning to be in the shots but I insisted. 

Cooper will be appearing the most in this blog post because this was his one year shoot (with siblings).

Had to snap a shot of Tori and Jodi’s niece – they were too cute.

Ryker was my wild card for the day.  You just never know what stunts toddlers will pull on a shoot.  I got some funnies to post a bit further down.

Ryker has a BIG personality and is oh so expressive.  He cracks me up.  I enjoy WATCHING Ryker talk.

I needed Ryker’s cooperation for a trio picture and we waited too long to do the group shot and missed our window.  Still I must confess…I really enjoy his antics.

Karsyn inherited the family trait of needing to eat babies up.  She often grits her teeth with babies just like me.

One thing that was really odd about this shoot, and I mentioned this before, was that I kept having the haunting feeling the whole day that my baby was missing and I wasn’t watching the baby.  I would catch myself having anxiety about a baby that was not yet in my arms.  On the way home, I told Jodi about it and she said that likely meant my baby was about to be in my arms.  Sure enough, Troy arrived about 1 week later.

Ohhhhhhh do I love these three!!!!