My first mommy/daughter photo shoot

So, it's true, I've never done done a photo shoot with a baby before. I mean, I've taken some photos of babies, my favorite being this one. But this was the first "professional" photo shoot where the pressure was on to capture this little baby and her beautiful mother, who both happen to be my cousins. I teased this post earlier, and now here's the rest of my favorites from the shoot...


First of all, Abby's adorable. She's my cousin's first kid and I adore her. And I DON'T make a habit of adoring kids.


Secondly, her mom, my wonderful cousin, is one of the most stunningly beautiful women in the world!

So this should be an easy shoot right? Well, that's what I thought... but shooting babies is super hard. It's not like the, "Hey guys, let's do this shot. Cool, got it. Now let's do this!" It's more of a, "What if we do this shot? Abby? Abby! Hey where's Abby going? Okay, smile! Wait, don't cry! Okay, she doesn't like it. Why don't we just put her down and see what SHE wants to do" kinda thing.


Which meant there was a lot of throwing the kid around to get smiles. And that totally worked.



Then we went to the playground...




But Abby got distracted and the playground was obviously more entertaining than the photos.




Off to a new location.


I love this one because you can see Katie's adorable belly.












Kisses for the unborn sister.





Katie and Abby, thank you ladies for letting me have the opportunity to sharpen my family photo chops with you guys! And have fun living in Hawaii!

Meet Katie & Abby

I had my first family/maternity shoot the other day with my cousin Katie, her daughter Abby and Abby's unborn sibling...


Meet Katie & Abby!
And, honestly, I was super thankful that it was a stress-free shoot with family because photographing babies is HARD! They are super difficult to shoot and since I have about ZERO baby skillz I felt quite out of my element. I found myself resorting to my dog photography techniques and, well, none of that worked either.

So, I'm currently editing the photos from that shoot and since my fans are clamoring for more photos (Hi Ashley) I thought I'd post a few of my favorites...







Stay tuned for more adorable mommy & baby goodness.

Shreveport, LA

So we went to my dad's hometown of Shreveport, LA., this May, to attend the funeral of a family member who turned out not to have died! She actually held on until today. So in honor of Aunt Birdie Lee, I am posting the photos from "the other LA" today...

Fairfield Place, the bed and breakfast where we stayed. It's the oldest house on Fairfield Ave, built in the 1870s!


This picture is so my idea of the "the South."


The porch was by FAR my favorite place to hang.


This was my room, it was called "Rebecca" and it had a claw foot tub!


My dad told me that Community Coffee is where it's at in the South. Apparently, to this day, it's all my grandma, from Mississippi will drink.


My beautiful cousin Danielle and a self-portrait of me "porch settin'."


This is how we spent most of our time. Laughing and sitting on the porch.


At night though, we went out to some crazy restaurants. And even though I don't eat seafood, the "Crawfish Palace" was one of my favorites.


The family chowing down on some crawfish.


We got personally introduced to these guys.


My cousin with a crawfish.


The Tharpe men. My dad & his brother John (matching) and my Uncle William (he didn't get the white polo shirt memo).


My Uncle John and his beautiful daughter.


Strawn's was one of my grandpa's favorite places to eat.


Seriously, amazing pie.

My dad took us on a tour of where he grew up...


My dad's childhood home. Apparently my grandpa helped build this entire block!
And how gorgeous are these trees!?


I finally got to visit my grandpa's grave.


All of grandpa's kids together at his gravesite. I love that everyone is laughing in this picture, just like they would've been if he was actually there.

oh and also... do I have the cutest second cousins, or what?





So there we go, those are most of the pics from my time in Shreveport. I loved spending time with family members that I rarely get to see and it was all because Aunt Birdie Lee brought us together. Thanks for the memories Birdie Lee!