Archive for Children

My daughter has been taking horseback riding lessons since she was in Kindergarten. She is a natural and loves everything about it – the horses, the barn cats, the hard work, the fast speeds, the jumping, and especially her trainer.

This is her trainer, Jenn. She is a dream come true and as a mother, I am so grateful to have her in my daughter’s life. Not only is she a skilled and accomplished rider, she’s an amazing trainer who teaches with love, patience, and passion. Watching her work with my daughter often brings me to tears.

As a parent, I am always on the lookout for those special teachers and leaders who fill the gaps of the inadequacies I possess. Jenn is one of those special people in our village who help fill those gaps. She’s teaching so much more than just how to ride a horse. I will forever be grateful to the life lessons my daughter learns out in the arena with Jenn.

Here are a few other fun images I took of the team this past summer.

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When she laughs, she has my heart.

I took Jos out for a little birthday shoot. There was a lovely patch of purple wildflowers on the side of the road near our home. We have been admiring them for a days.

What you see here aren’t the perfectly posed pictures we captured.  Instead, here is Joclyn’s heart and soul. She is happiness, laughter, silliness and love.

Can you hear it?

What would I do without this precious soul in my life? And yes, she absolutely fell off of that rock in a fit of laughter.

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These are my babies.  And they’re growing up too fast.

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I love a good party!

And a good party with all of my sisters, nieces & nephews is even better.  We had our annual Easter Brunch yesterday, and man, did we party.

Our egg hunt was INSANE, and is worthy of another post all on it’s own.  Yummy food, laughter, cousins hanging out and a good ole’ fashion grandchild picture.  It doesn’t get any better than this, people.

Robins Grandchildren, Easter 2012

I freaking love these kids!

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Our home away from home.  We have spent our Spring Break on Baby Beach in Kauai for the last 2 years.  It’s the most perfect place God created in this world, in my own opinion.

I will share more of this beautiful island in future posts, but I’m just so excited about this series I can’t even stand it.  I literally just downloaded the scans from the lab 15 mintues ago and I have already brushed out dust spots and ordered 3 11×14 standouts for the kids’ beach-inspired bathroom.

No, these images are not perfect by any photography standards.  But they are perfect.  To me.  They’re the perfect souvenirs for a perfect family vacation.

Baby Beach, 2012.

Shot on a Mamyia 645 ProTL, 110mm lens at 2.8, Ektar 100 film shot at box speed.

I only took my medium format film camera armed with 3 different films.  Ektar 100 on a whim.  I am so incredibly happy with the results.  I wish I would have shot the entire vacation on this film.  It is perfection for Hawaii.  Bold, colorful, sunny.

Next time.  Next time I will only shoot Ektar 100 on the beach.

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I can not believe he’s six already.

Smart as a whip: he seriously scares me with his mad brain skills.  He’s going to outgrow my homework help by the time he’s in 5th grade.

Sweetheart: always up for a snuggle and some loves.

Totally a boy: anything becomes a weapon.

Gamer: walking in his daddy’s footsteps and loves all things video games.

Reader: loves to read books, just like his mama.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart.  I love you so much.

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My sister-in-law snuck (is that even a word?!?) in a photo session of the kids for Father’s Day.  What a great gift.

Don’t you just want to eat him up?!

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If you follow me on Facebook (which you totally should – seriously, click here to join the fun) then you may have seen my plea for wishing me luck as I ventured out to take Joclyn’s 4-year old birthday pictures.

I like to hire other photographers to take pictures of my kids.  They seem to have WAY better luck getting them to cooperate.  And Joclyn, bless her heart, has her own opinion on who is the boss in this relationship, so I like to pick my battles.  But, I was bound and determined to have at least one successful session with my own child.

So, when she got home from preschool, I didn’t even tell her what we were doing.  She was eating lunch, I just happened to be curling her hair.  She was done eating, I just happened to have a change of clothes for her.

We jumped in the car with the promise of chasing geese.  The girl loves to chase geese.  I don’t blame her – it’s hilarious.

We started off in our back yard.  We have this scrub oak forest behind our house that I’ve never ventured into.  I’m scared of it.  Scared of the spiders, and I watch WAY too many crime shows.  🙂  But there are these secret daffodils that bloom every spring, and I just had to hike down to them.

I’m happy to say, that even though we were out at high noon, I feel like I got a few good ones.  Yay for us!  Team mama and daughter conquered.  Even if that poor daffodil is in every single picture.

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Ugh, Oh.  Here comes some Mommy bragging.

But really, is there anything cuter than a 5-year old on a snowboard?!?!  He melts my freaking heart.

This is Mathew during his first snowboarding lessons yesterday.  He totally rocked it.

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Is there anything better on a cold winter day than a fabulous warm bubble bath?  My little girl thinks not.

Here’s to a New Year and fabulous bubble baths.

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