I have a very long list of sessions and family times to blog. Millions of pictures. Well, at the very least, thousands. I can cut that down to a few per blog post, but that is so hard! I have so many photos on my computer, I hate deleting any of them. But, a few days ago, I went and deleted about 1000 of my own family photos. So hard, but it had to be done. I think I have taken 10k in the last two years, just of my own family. How will I enjoy that when I am old? I am going to cull them down to the best, then make an album for every year, and then blow up the very best as canvases and float wraps.

Anyways, this was Adam’s 35th birthday party. 35! We met when I was 21. We are getting so old (well me, I am a mere 31, so there). He is looking GOOD though. Gotta get a good pic of his newly finished tattoo (my bday present to him, along with a weeklong meditation retreat).

Off to Breckenridge for the weekend for a family only-no shooting at all-feeling free and being well kinda weekend.

Because my boys love those babies I love these two photos, for sure. Adam *finally* told me the other day that he “wasn’t against having another baby if the circumstances were right.” Told ya. It would just take some time for him to come around. I have been saying this forever! Glad the day came. Coming up with new baby names as I write….

Super wonderful sales manager Reg, with her new baby. Love those baby feet! So sorry we have to represent the competitor’s baby sling. What’s up with that Reg?

And then it turned windy. We were being blown all around-crazy Boulder wind.Eli’s face ROCKS. (fyi-my Elijah is in blue here-Eli is the one rocking the yoda extreme jedi scream there.

ps. if you know me well, then you are not wondering why my husband’s 35th birthday party blog post is all about kids and babies. There were indeed a lot of adults there, but they are just not that cute.

xoxo stacey

This was such a sweet, fun family portrait session. Mom had warned me beforehand that the little one was a ham for the camera, but that I would have a harder time photographing the two older boys. Well, the session started, and the youngest one could not help but be super silly. He is 6 years old-just like my Elijah, and Elijah is goofy anytime I bring the camera to my face now. He *used* to be the perfect little model, but now I have to be extremely off the wall silly to get a good, genuine shot of him. So, it is good that I have had practice recently. I was just crazy and goofy with the boys the whole time, and they were able to sit back, relax, and have fun. One trick that always works for older boys (for those photographers that read my blog), is to make them make a silly face, then a normal face, then a silly face, then a normal face. I keep belly laughing the whole time, so when they have their “normal face” on they are smiling and their eyes are lit up. I did not include any of the silly face pictures in this family’s gallery, and mom was disappointed! I should have know-I love it when my own kids are being goofy and having fun. So I went back and added those in-nose picking and all. And she loved them.

I love, love, love photos of family interacting together. They are some of my favorite shots. This family ended up getting a 10×10 fine art album, and it was such a pleasure to create because the whole shoot flowed like a story. Now I want to find a photographer in the Boulder area that can make my family have so much fun so I can have an album like this.

xoxo stacey

Yes. super exciting times these are. Really. Their first real camping trip! Some of my favorite memories from when I was a child was camping. They were both so happy there, setting up the tent, carrying things, cooking. Elijah’s favorite part by FAR was tending the fire. He was obsessed. Amelia was a great helper and slept really, really well. We are planning another trip as we speak, so I thought it was about time I posted a few of these. Nothing makes me happier than slowing down with my family.

As a side note, that strange contraption Elijah is carrying around his shoulder was invented by him. He loves to create things. It is a home for his Zhu Zhu pets, who just had to come camping with us. If you don’t know what Zhu Zhu pets are, don’t worry, you are not missing anything. Elijah and Adam are in the middle of creating an AWESOME aquaponics system right now. Elijah won’t stop talking about it. He watched two hours worth of youtube videos on instructions for aquaponics systems.  I can’t even get through one 2 minute one. He is destined to be an engineer. He always talks about the solar powered airplane he is going to invent when he grows up.

I will explain about what the aquaponics system is later when I have some good photos.

xoxo stacey

For some reason I do a lot of newborn shoots in Fort Collins. Not any other kind of shoot, just newborn, which is strange, but that is fine since I love the drive and it is always worth it to photograph a newborn. Selah (beautiful name, right?!) was so sleepy and calm and her parents were so young and in love.  Those are the best kind of shoots. It reminded me of Adam and I when we first had Elijah. I was so young then (25). Those first few months were so magical and everything in the house was so calm and present. Probably the best few months of my life to date. With Amelia, it was a little different. She was colicky and did not sleep well, and I was in my busy season for photography, and we had a four year old,  so things were not calm at all.

We are staying busy trying to get everything together to close on our new house on Wednesday. There is just so much paperwork involved, and it is time consuming. But, then we get our new house! I am excited, even though we have to rent it back to the sellers until they find a new home. Just crossing my fingers that we are in there by Thanksgiving, or even Halloween would be great. At the very least Christmas. It is a good time to buy a house though, so I am glad we are getting it out of the way now. More soon. I *thought* I was going to get caught up on blogging all the shoots I have not gotten around to posting in the last few months, and now I am super busy again, so lots more photos to come!

xoxo stacey

Love little newborn toes! Always such a sweet picture. Patrick was a very mellow, happy baby, and a pleasure to photograph. I loved their dog too. I have decided this is the kind of dog I want-they are just so pretty and have so little fur.  After this photo shoot I search around for Weimaraner breeders for a couple of days, and found a few breeders with litters, but I got a “hell no!” from adam, so now we are dogless and I am sad. See, Freckles passed away last year, and all we have now is an 18 year old cat, who is awesome, but I grew up with three dogs and three cats at any given time, and love having my home filled with animals. But, I got the big hell no, just like I did with baby #3, so for now, I am just going to wait it out and try adam again on both fronts in a year. We shall see.

I am super busy shooting again. This weekend alone I have four photo shoots, which is a lot when I am trying to find time to squeeze in with my family. But, I love it! I did a gorgeous maternity session Friday night, then a wild two and a half year old last night, and then two families tonight. Off to the movies for now!

xoxo stacey

Remember when I said in the last post that nothing could be cuter than Amelia with goggles on? Well, I met Daniel that same night. And he is the cutest thing ever. Look at those eyes and those two little teeth! Every single photo from this shoot was as awesome as this one, it was hard to pick one for the blog. I will do a longer post sometime when I have more time with more images, but wanted to share one for now.

So, I have really exciting news-we are closing on a new house soon! We moved to our cohousing community because I wanted support as a mother and I wanted my children to have a rich life, filled with lots of other children and adults that loved, taught them, and cared about them. And that is what we have found here. We couldn’t be happier. But, the catch for us moving here was that we had to rent a house half the size of our old one. So, it has been a constant battle with clutter. I am giving things away left and right and not buying a lot of new things but somehow it piles up still. We don’t have a front closet for shoes or coats and we don’t even have a place to keep a mop and broom. Plus, my office is at home, and Adam has his own office, so we are pretty stuffed in here. I know I could make it work if it were going to be long term, but we are moving!

It is just a few doors down, but it is almost twice the square footage, so we will be able to spread out and do some really fun things in there. I want to make it really whimsical for the kids, so we are going to build an indoor rock climbing wall and jungle gym. Yep, super excited. I will post pictures as we go along.

xoxo stacey

Right? She is THE cutest thing to me. But I know every parent says that. AND I know that it would be hard to find someone that did not think this was super cute. Amelia is not a little model. She does not like to have me take her picture. She turns away, she scowls, she shows NO personality. But, when the camera is down, she is all smiles and laughs and has a very, very big personality. She is one of the most animated babies I know. But, this is a normal expression I get from her when my camera is out. It is just so funny paired with how serious she is about her goggles.

So, I have a long list of shoot to blog, and don’t usually neglect the blog like this, but summer is so busy. Well, the real reason why is because I got a new macbook pro a month or two ago, and have not loaded photo shop onto it yet, bc I hate (and I don’t use that word often) figuring out computer stuff. So, it is hard to pull me away from my comfy, wonderful new laptop to my office. But,  I *will* catch up soon!

Things are well here. We went to TN for a week to visit my family. 10 out of the 11 grandkids were there, and we just spent our days being lazy (I need that more often!), going on the boat, and swimming. Life is good right now. I have some exciting news to share in the next post, too!

Just for fun, here is another cute photo from a couple months ago-Amelia loves her goggles! Oh, and if you love the dress she is wearing, I got it at this Etsy shop. She does not have anything else listed right now, but if you email her I am sure she could make you a dress as cute as this one.

xoxo stacey

Kaegan is already one! It is hard to believe. Here are his newborn photos, and his 6 month photos, and then even a couple of  quick portraits from two months ago. I met this family when mom called me to do Kaegan’s newborn pictures, and then found out that she is this amazing knitter and now she makes all of those beautiful hats and cocoons that you see in my photos. She is really just an incredible knitter, and it feels like Christmas every time I get a new bag of things. Anyways, he is just the cutest little boy now! His hair finally came in (ahem, evenly, that is), and he is such a happy, sweet little guy. I love that superman photo so much. That is going into the portfolio, I wish more of my families would dress their kids in whimsical, fun costumes.

So, all is well here. Finally. We all had the stomach flu last week at one point or another. It was rough. Really rough. But we got through it in time to have a great 4th of July weekend. We went to a festival in Lafayette, then to the Boulder fireworks.

we even went canoeing. I can not tell you how traumatic that was for me. It was a super windy evening, and I took my baby and my 6 year old out on the lake. We almost fell in several times. I had to start crying to get Adam to finally take me back to the dock with Amelia. Well, almost crying. More like fake crying with some screaming thrown in. They could hear me from shore.

So I let Adam take Elijah back out and they were totally fine, and had a ton of fun. Not sure now why I was so scared-I have always done dangerous things-jumping off 80 foot cliffs, parasailing-I even climbed the first flatiron in Boulder. I guess it changes things up when your baby is with you. Things seem a little more real.

Alright, going to get back to catching up with work, emails, phone calls, etc… Enjoy the beautiful day!

xoxo stacey