I am beyond late posting this little girl’s newborn session. Guess how old she is already. Eight stinkin’ months. It’s a good thing I don’t edit (timeline-wise) like I blog. I make sure I stay within my promised edit timelines, but the blog…that’s just for giggles so post sometimes sit waiting for months. Oops! Anyway, I would like to introduce you to little Miss Lyla.

Go ahead and say it….C-U-T-E! Derek and I have known Lyla’s Mommy & Daddy for years, and they are so much fun. As a matter of fact, Justin (her Daddy) and Derek use to be roommates. Megan has great style and it shows in everything; all the way down to Lyla’s beautiful nursery. Don’t worry, you’ll get a peek of it later on in the post, but for now just enjoy some photos of a way too cute baby.

Do you see this? She reached up and touched her Daddy’s face. Heart. Officially. Melted.

Megan’s mom is an amazing Baketress, and we decided to take this photo with one of her cupcakes on Lyla’s tushy just for her.

Do you not just love this nursery?

Megan’s best friend came in town to help out with the baby. Lyla seems to enjoy hanging out with her momma’s BFF too.

So that’s it for this cute little cupcake. And there are still more shoots that are from months ago still to come. So, stay tuned.

My mother-in-law is big into antiques. She’s been collecting them since Derek was knee high to a grasshopper. This woman has some seriously cool items in her house and in her attic. Last week we were going through her attic preparing for a yard sale, and this little gem caught my eye.

As a matter of fact, her hoarding hobby is really helping out my photo prop collection. For Grayson’s one year photo shoot she loaned me an old radio flyer wagon.

Here is a large antique bread bowl she loaned me for a newborn session. Something like this in an antique store would cost close to $100…maybe more. That’s one expensive bowl.

Not only has my photography benefited from the smorgasbord of antiques she owns, but my home has too. Our kitchen dons one of the highly sought after original ceramic glazed bread tins. See it there, on the right side of the photo? That ain’t no Pottery Barn reproduction, my friends. It’s the real deal.

And our living room is home to beautiful antique wood theatre seats.

She has even started a box in her attic that houses my photo props. Basically, anything that I run across in her attic that I would want to use for a shoot goes in this box for easy access. Talk about the best mother-in-law EVER! I’m sure many more treasures will be discovered over the years. It’s so fun rummaging through her attic. It’s like going on a mini treasure hunt.

I thought it had only been 5 days since I last posted. I checked and it’s been closer to 3 weeks. Say what?!!!!! I’ve been so blessed with photo shoots lately I’ve totally fallen behind on posting. Oh, not to mention we are getting our little abode all gussied up, because we are putting this bad boy on the market! We’ve been painting, planting, and plucking (items that are cluttering up the place) to get our little baby all spiffy looking for her market debut. I promise to do better. Now on to the fun stuff…..newborn photos!!!!

Meet little C. He was just about 4 weeks old when I shot his newborn photos, and to be honest I was a little nervous about him being past the 2 week old mark. Newborns tend to be a little less corporative the older they get. Mainly because that’s about the time colic sets in. Well this little guy totally proved that theory wrong, because he was the most well behaved newborn I’ve ever shot.

I think he was so calm simply because he’s a classy kid. I mean, just look at that sweet mustache. You don’t have a mustache like that and not be the most classy and dapper fellow this side of the Mighty Mississip!

I mean…. come. on. Do you not love him?

Peace Out, Homies.

Guess what. You would think that frosting a chocolate cake with thick fluffy white frosting you would no longer see the chocolate cake. Wrong. All I saw was white fluffy frosting with little brown speckles everywhere! Then it hit me…Cool Whip! I slathered some on my speckled smash cake and got to shooting.

Go all in or go home. Am I right?

This one is Derek’s favorite photo of Gray. We actually just had it made into a 16″ x 16″ black and white photo canvas. I used Canvas People, and was very pleased with the finished product. Plus, they always have amazing sales.

Then he felt it was missing something….a foot. His. Foot.

Davis, Gray’s Uncle, drew a letter G in the smash cake aftermath. To be honest, he didn’t really eat much of the cake. Davis and Derek actually ate a good portion of the cake towards the end of the shoot. Grayson thought it was funny to feed the cake to everyone. Of course, the boys took him up on his cake sharing offer.

After his cake was all good and smashed it was time to hose off.

You may have noticed a super cute blue highchair in Grayson’s 1 year photos. Well, I think it’s super cute. I had been on the look out for a cheap wooden highchair for at least 3 months before Grayson’s 1st birthday. I searched antique stores all over the city, craig’s list, ebay, and a few consignment sales. I wanted to have a super cute blue highchair for Grayson to eat his cake in at his birthday party, but they were all to expensive or missing their trays. I thought I would never find one. The week after his party I was working at a consignment sale, and what did someone bring in? This bad boy.

Not only was it a Jenny Lind highchair, but it was only $30. Hallelujah! The only problem is that it had seen better days. Luckily for me, I was already planning on sanding and painting it.

I was able to sand most of the seat and tray with a palm sander, but all of those dowels with teeny tiny nooks and crannies…I got to sand those by hand. Ugh.

Once everything was sanded I used a spray primer since some of the wood was dry and because I was using a light blue for my final color. (BTW…I used Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch :: Aqua in a satin finish)

And that’s how I took a worn, worked-to-the-bone wooden highchair and transformed it into this…

Pretty adorbs, right? I had intended to use it for Gray’s everyday highchair after I took his one year photos in it, and we did for a while. However, my child is super messy and likes to stab the tray with his forks. Even though I had Derek seal the entire chair and tray before I allowed Gray to eat in it; the dang thing still was getting stained. I also intended to use it as a photo prop for other client sessions, so to keep it looking halfway decent for paying clients I decided to move him back to his old highchair.

In total, the whole thing cost around $40 paint, chair, and sand paper. It turned out exactly how I imagined.

I mean, just look how much cuter it is when you pop a baby in it.

Love them. I just do. These two are the sweetest, friendliest couple. Seriously. Besides my two redheaded nephews, cutest redheaded baby. Period. Oh, and this girl can cook and sew like nobody’s business. She’s like the second coming of Ree. You know, The Pioneer Woman. These three are truly a go-with-the-flow kinda family, and you can tell in everyone of their photos. Don’t they just ooze cuteness?

These were, of course, taken before xmas for holiday cards. Even for what seemed like a split second shoot the moments captured that morning are some of my all time favs.

This is where Baby C decided she was just about done with taking photos, and was letting it be known.