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Archive: ‘cute baby pictures’



Men using Pinterest?? | Farmington, MN children’s photography

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Call me crazy, but I think I’ve got my husband hooked on Pinterest…I was surfing the site last night, and he kept peeking over my shoulder, “hey, that meatball recipe looks good”…”oooh, white chili”…”I like the landscaping and that deck”.  I think I might need to get him his own account.  Do men pin things?  I don’t know.  But it would be interesting to see what dude boards would look like…

“MY DREAM BOAT” (pimped out fishing boat pics featuring built in beer coolers and TV’s with ESPN playing)

“HAIRSTYLES I LIKE” (pictures of Will Ferrell in Anchorman perfectly coiffed)

“SIX PACK” (toss up here…could be favorite beers, or a washboard stomach)

“MANLY FOODS” (recipes of burgers and all things beefy)

“I LIKE TREE’S” (tips on how to plant as many tree’s on your property as humanly possible)

“MAN CAVE” (articles on how to convince your wife that if you build a bar in the basement, you will use it ALL the time)

“SHOES I GOTTA HAVE” (a pair of Napoleon Dynamite in his moon boots)

“VACATION DESTINATIONS” (images of KOA’s and log cabins in the woods, preferably within a 2 hour drive of your home.)

“WORDS TO LIVE BY” (featuring canvas prints with hand painted quotes such as: ‘I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal out of this’   ’six to one, 1/2 a dozen to the other’  ’so, does this mean you’re mad?’  ‘it’s twelve o’clock somewhere’  ’shhh, the games on’)

Wow, that turned into a weird tangent….

One of my favorite little boys is growing too fast…I think I need to extend my baby plan into a 5 yr deal…one year is too short!  Here was his six month session, isn’t he a love?

a tough pill to swallow | Minnesota kids photographer

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Does anyone else have traumatic memories of their parents forcing them to do something?  Have you been in therapy because of it?   When my 9 yr old daughter is scared of something, or afraid something will hurt…no amount of convincing, begging or sugar coating will convince her to try it.  I’m afraid we may have pushed Lucy too hard the other night…she said she had a headache, and I told her that she needed to swallow a pill (back-story:  she get’s leg pains and headaches quite a bit ((I think it’s hereditary, I used to get them at her age too))…and we give her children’s chewable Tylenol for the pain.  For the past month, I have been telling her that when the stash runs out, she is going to be taking adult pills instead.  The cost of those chewables in crazy expensive compared to the kind you swallow).  Well, the time came during supper.  After several complaints of a headache, I gave her one regular tylenol.  She freaked.  So I cut it in 1/2.  She still freaked.  She cried and cried at the supper table for  h-o-u-r-s.  Korey and I both thought this was ridiculous, and went back and forth between coaching, encouraging, and ridiculing.

Coversation at the dinner table:

Korey~  Lucy, I’ve swallowed boogers bigger than that pill.

Kelly~ Lucy, you’re NINE.  The children’s tylenol is for toddlers, should I warm a bottle for you?

Riley~ Lucy, I’ll do it, you want me to show you how?

Brady~ Lucy’s a baby, Lucy’s a baby, Lucy’s a baby.

Korey~  Lucy, stop crying, I’m going to make you eat outside.

Kelly~ Lucy, if that  pill was an M&M you would have swallowed in .04 seconds

Riley~ Mommy, can I eat Lucy’s dessert?

Brady~ Lucy’s a baby, Lucy’s a baby, Lucy’s a baby.

Kelly~ Lucy, just watch, you just set it on the back of your tongue (insert crazy woman screaming here), okay, I give up.

After 2 hours of crying and semi-hysterics (much to the annoyance of her parents and the amusement of her brothers), I ground up the 1/2 of a pill, stirred it in her milk, and forced her to drink it.  Something tells me that she will be silently suffering through many headaches and leg aches in the future.  I laid in bed that night wondering where a parent should draw the line; between sticking to their guns, or caving for the child’s sanity.  I guess we’ll find out when she’s 26 yrs old and either A) lying on a therapist’s couch reliving every agonizing detail of her childhood, or B)  Calling us up to say “thanks for helping me conquer my fears” (option B is unlikely, but let a mom have her dreams).  Either way, I am confident she won’t be a pill-popper!

Oh my, this session was ages ago…look how bright and sunny it was that day!  I got to see this handsome little boy for his newborn, 6 month and 1 yr sessions…it’s been awesome watching him grow!

He was not feeling the smiles this day~luckily, his serious looks are just as cute!

My favs of 2011~Minneapolis, MN baby, family and senior photographer

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

This year has been pretty darn excellent.   I am slowly but surely working on refining my business into what I want it to be…when I first started a few years ago my goals were wishy-washy at best.  I knew that I had to make a certain amount of money a month so that I didn’t have to work at the Target Deli e.v.e.r. again.  Now that I feel confident that I never have to slice roast beef again, I can move on to different goals!

Some plans for 2012:

*Specialize more.  My focus will be solely on newborns/kids/families/high school seniors.

*No more weddings.  I LOVE photographing weddings, I just don’t LOVE everything that goes along with it…the planning, the stress, the huge amount of editing, the loss of valuable weekends with family!  Not to mention, there are SO many amazing wedding photographers in Minnesota already, why not leave all the bridezilla drama to them? (I’ve never actually dealt w/ a bridezilla…but surely my luck would have run out sooner or later).

*No more extended family sessions.  Basically, my reasoning for this are the same reasons I don’t do weddings any more (see excuses listed above!).

*Decide if hiring a very PT employee is beneficial, or if it will be a big headache (this is what Korey thinks…but he lovingly fights me on every big decision I make!).

*Become more known in my community…especially for high school seniors portraits.

*Begin entering image competitions…Also begin working on becoming certified or accredited…but first figure out which word it is; certified or accredited.  Is accredited even a word?

*Fit into the jeans I wore in 10th grade.  Okay, lady…now you go too far.

Here are some of my very favorite pictures from the past year.  I really tried to keep it to 10, since I love a good top 10 list.  But the numbers kept growing, and I had to stop looking at every-one’s files.  So here are the top 20 (in my humble opinion).

Have a wonderful New Years Eve~I’ll see ya on the flip side :)

A movie ‘inside’ a movie? | Minneapolis baby photographer

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Well, now that I’ve really hyped up my big Twilight Weekend…I figure I better tell you how things went!  First of all, I don’t think I’ve sat through 7 hours of movie’s in one sitting…Friday night we watched the first 3 in the saga…it was delightful…no interruptions from kids…no husbands asking dumb questions…and we could shout at Jacob to take his shirt off as often as we liked without fear of eye rolling or reprimand.

Saturday we went out for an early dinner at Victoria’s in Rochester (yum), then headed to the theater 45 minutes early to ensure that we got the best seats in the house.  Finally, the movie started, and the candy bags were opened.  Now, I LOVE going to a packed movie theater for certain genres…like comedy’s or horror films.  I like when the crowd laughes out loud and makes a movie funnier than it actually is…but this type of genre is best viewed without all the distractions…especially if you are my sister in law and have been counting the moments to see breaking dawn for months.  But distractions was what we got.  The guy behind us and to our right had a horrible cold and spent the 2 hours sneezing loud wet sneezes into our hair (I watched the entire movie with my scarf wrapped around my face).  The girls in front of us had their phones out the entire time texting each other.  The guy behind us and to our left was obviously dragged to the theater against his will.  EVERY time Bella and Edward got a little fresh (and this movie has a lot of it), he would groan and complain to his wife….she spent the entire 2 hours telling him ‘it was going to get better’.

And then…someone died 3 rows back.  **spoiler alert** During the scene where Bella is giving birth to her demon baby (sometimes that happens), the lady a few rows back started screaming and wailing, “No, don’t you die on me.  Oh my God, someone help me please.  God don’t take him from me.  Please someone help!”  Instantly, people started turning around and a few jumped over seats to help her.  I thought the guy next to her had died.  My stomach dropped and I felt helpless.  Then I thought, well, why isn’t anyone shouting for a doctor?  Then I figured, okay, this woman is absolutely crazy, and she’s talking about Bella dying on the big screen (you know how some people think soap opera’s are real??).  So then I went back to trying to watch the movie because I figured this woman was insane, and I was missing the best part of the movie!  Suddenly the lights went on, the movie stopped, and people were shouting for a doctor.  (And the people in the very front of the theater were all screaming, WTF?  Because they didn’t realize that people were dying in the back). Okay, so the woman wasn’t exactly crazy.  But her boyfriend did not die.  He fainted.  Like a big weenie.  Because of the blood in the movie.  So then we all got to sit and stare at weenie-pants for 10 minutes while we waited for the EMT’s to show up. Someone said to him, “you are awfully pale”,  he mumbled that he always looked like that.  I turned around and whispered inappropriately, “vampire” which got a few chuckles.

Finally, Mr. Iturngreenwhendemonbabiesarebirthedsopleasedon’tmindmewhileIplaydeadandruinmovies was escorted out by several nurses, a doctor, and 4 EMT’s (we were in Rochester, home of the mayo clinic, and of course there was a doctor and two nurses seated 1 row over from him).  Then the manager started thanking everyone for their patience, and told us proudly that the movie was digital, and wasn’t that so great, because he could easily rewind it 5 or 10 minutes.  Everyone agreed, 5 minutes back would be far enough, and we settled back in to our seats.  Suddenly, the movie started playing in fast forward before our eyes.  Screams of “NO, STOP!  You’re Going the Wrong WAAYYY” filled the air.  But our complaints fell on deaf ears, and the movie started up 10 minutes past where it should have started.  My sister in law was ready to cut someone.  When we left the theater, she did complain and get 3 new movie passes.  She will probably use those 3 passes 3 times before I see her next weekend!

Okay, I really need to get better at topic transitions.  My apologies to this family and their sweet little girl, who did not ask to be put on the same blog post as vampire movie reviews.  Miss ‘M’ was a little apprehensive at first, but she warmed up soon enough.  I LOVE her red hair and blue eyes, so adorable!  I was lucky enough to see her again a month after this to do family pictures (and her brother has even MORE red hair!!), but I have to save those pics for later!

This first shot is my FAV!!

the internet makes me talk fancy | st. cloud kids photographer

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

The words that come out of my mouth VS the words that come via my fingers are two very different things.  For one thing, when I type, I don’t over-use the word ‘like’.  IRL (mom, that stands for: ‘in real life‘), I like, talk like a minnesota valley girl.   It’s like, the new ‘um’.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed is how elegant I sound when commenting on another photographers work (which, let’s face it…in this business, we like a lot of pats on the back!!).  So, if I see a picture that I love, my comments are as follows, “absolutely breathtaking!”, “truly amazing!”, and my favorite, “simply stunning.”  If I EVER tried to use one of those phrases IRL there would be no way to keep a straight face.  “Korey, this chicken is simply stunning.”  Not gonna happen.

It just made me wonder how the internet managed to change the way I communicate.  Am I a poser?  Would the internet gods (come on, I’m Lutheran, I know there’s no such thing) strike me down if I left a comment that sounds more like the real me?  “That’s like, frickin cool.”  Hmmm, maybe change isn’t all bad.

And now may I present some absolutely breathtaking children…the way they photograph is truly amazing.  I’m not exaggerating…I am they are simply stunning.

See, I told ya they were cute :)

Brace Face | Maple Grove baby photographer

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Lucy got braces put on today.  We are talking full on metal mouth.  I feel like I have a real teenage daughter.  She’s only 9, so putting those big things in her tiny mouth looks a bit ridiculous…she can barely close her lips together!  She’s been nervous for the past 2 days, and today she started crying at the dentist office (before she even got in the chair)…not a big fan of pain, that girl.   However, she was all shiny, blinged out smiles as we left this afternoon.  I know it seems crazy to put braces on such a young kid, but the benefits far outweigh the option of waiting.  *shorter time with braces on (teeth move faster on young kids) *cost (this is huge) *not having to wear braces in high school (I had to, it wasn’t fun!).  Korey stopped by the dentist as they were finishing up, and the last thing the dentist said was, “no popcorn, no caramel apples, no gum.”  Korey and I just looked guiltily at each other.  CRAP, we are horrible parents, why didn’t we have a big ‘last meal’ fest this weekend?  Kor and I have been eating apples with homemade caramel for the past 3 nights…we kept saying, “we really should give some of this to the kids before it’s all gone.”  Well, now it’s too late!  Sorry Lucy!  We’ll make a date next year at this time for a ‘braces off dinner’…the menu: corn on the cob, popcorn, caramel apples, carrot sticks and jawbreakers for dessert!

Here’s one of my little buddies that I’ve been photographing all year…his 9 month session turned out so cute~such an adorable kiddo!  Can’t wait to see how our 1 yr session goes…should be coming up in another month or so!

Love the little firetruck mom brought in :)

junk bonanza | rosemount, mn kids photographer

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

If you have any free time Friday or Saturday, I highly recommend the junk bonanza at Canterbury in Shakopee.  I think the name of the event pretty much sums it all.  It’s like the cool, trendy version of a craft fair :)   Instead of finding large amounts of knitted kleenex box cozies and thousands of ‘live, laugh love’ signs, you’ll find cool antiques, vintage finds and up-cycled jewelry.  I spent the better part of the afternoon there (you’ll need a few hours), and I came home with a couple of unique props for my studio.  I saw lots of goodies for my home too, but I have a hard time making a decision for what will decorate my home…it’s much easier in my mind to ‘decorate a picture’ (if that makes any sense?)!

Anyways, that’s my vote for your weekend outing!  My advice:  don’t bring the kids, DO bring your guns.  As in, your muscles…cuz dang, it was a long walk to the parking lot with an old chinese waterbucket and a couple of vintage bowling pins (those suckers are heavy).

Oh my, I think I took these pictures in the beginning of June…sorry about that ‘E’!  I missed getting them up on the blog sooner, I know you’ll forgive me : )

Can I get an Amen?

Then the brothers got a little turn…

One last shot…he’s such a happy little feller!!

Sir, I’ll have you stand up and pull down your pants | minneapolis baby photography

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

Do you always think before you speak?   I don’t think, I just talk.  Tragically, I was born with a broken filter (I hope I don’t pass that genetic trait down to my children…so far, it’s not looking promising).  Often my verbal diarrhea makes me look all kinds of stupid.  At least on the blog, I can re-read what I type out, and delete the truly horrifying comments that spew from my fingers….not to mention the heroic efforts of spell check...however, I’ve found that spell check doesn’t recognize some of my new fav words, i.e.:  totes (totally) fosho (for sure) whatevs (whatever)….but I think we understand each other, right?

Here’s some of my more recent commentary faux pas:

Sir, I’ll have you stand up and pull down your pants“  (I said this to a nice gentleman during a family session…his khaki’s were looking a bit too ‘high water’ for my taste, so I wanted him to tug the legs down to cover his socks…needless to say, we were all blushing after that one).

“I can bring my rum and coke in here, right? (I was at the grade school yesterday morning, and I couldn’t bare to leave my full coffee mug in my car, so I brought it in with me…I ran into the principal of the school in the hallway, and in a desperate need to fill the awkward silence, decided to drop that bomb, and put myself forever on the ‘parent’s to watch list’.

“I carried a watermelon?” (after the hottest guy in the room came dancing up to me and asked what I was doing in the club). Wait a minute…that wasn’t me, that was Baby…in the best movie of all time:  dirty dancing.

This little baby boy, was seriously adorbs (adorable)He was SUCH a happy little camper…and this first shot, ummm?  Love it!  I mean, I obviously got him to pose like this… with his hand on his chin, and his feet crossed just so.  Then I asked him to please look off into the distance and give me a small dreamy smile.  I am totes a baby whisperer.


It was a cool summer afternoon, but we snuck outside the studio for a few…look at those toes :)