My favorites:

And these…my other favorites:

My sweet CP with his amazing mom (aka my fabulous sister).

Little E was ADORABLE. He is the same age is my guy, but seemed so much more mature. He is a great walker…and poor mom and dad are having to run to keep up with him. He was just precious.  I am sure mom and dad got sick of hearing me say how sweet and cute he was. I just couldn’t help myself.  Here is one of my favorites…it makes my heart SING! Can’t wait to show you guys the rest!!

Here are the ones that make my heart smile:

My most favorite:

I love you Chase Peter. love, auntiecole.

Without further ado…the newest additions to our family, Bella and Candycane:

My girls are so excited. They told me that if they weren’t in their room in the morning when I work up it was because they were out checking on their babies. Here is how I found them in the morning:

We are having to watch the two of them pretty closely. The old lady isn’t the best momma evidently. I had to bottle feed them twice today to be sure they are getting enough.  Always an adventure…

PS. Be watching for sweet Easter lamb portraits in the next 2 weeks.

A couple others that I love:

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How do you organize and store your family pictures? Can you find them when you want or need to find them? Do you have them on your computer’s hard drive? Do you back them up?

Let me make a couple suggestions:

1. Have a good organizational system. I am very particular about how I organize my images. I want to be able to find each session in a very short period of time. This might mean you don’t allow your card reader or computer do it automatically for you. You put your images where you want them by copying and pasting. Start by not making sure your card is completely full. Remove images after an event.

I always recommend people to use the year first, then month, then day, then description when uploading pictures from an event. I organize by personal images or cutie pie images first, then by year.  Sample of a couple of mine in my Personal-2010 Folder:

2010-3-15 Mom Visit

2010-4 Random April Pics

2010-4-18 C’s First trip to MA

2010-4-25 Girl’s Tea, Trip to Waco Museum

I organize by year first because I like things in order and don’t want the computer to list it by month first or when we get to October it ends up by January. I don’t recommend listing by event first. It is WAY too confusing. You have to find something that works for your mind. Get a system and do the same system every time. Don’t leave random images on your desktop, put them where they belong.

2. Check and double check your images before deleting them from your card. No explanation needed here. Don’t delete them from your card until you are SURE you have them stored on your computer and backed up.

3. Get a external hard drive and backup your pictures from your computer to the external hard drive. You can also back up to CD’s as well and store them in a different location. You can mail them to a family member or trade disks with a friend for safe-keeping. If you have a Mac you can do something called time machine and store your entire computer settings and files to an external hard drive. If your hard drive fails then you can run your time machine and pick up exactly where you left off the last time you backed your time machine up.

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What to do if your pictures are a mess…

1. Start fresh with the next pictures you take. Start filing them properly right away. You could even start a new folder: 2011 Organized Pictures

2. Make a commitment to start slowly organizing your pictures. If you can’t remember when they were taken you can look at the data (EXIF) your camera stores automatically and file them at least in the month they were taken. This is important as the years progress.

3. When you find a picture that makes you smile, get it printed. Upload it right away and get it printed.

I have been very convicted lately that every couple needs to have an image of them without the kids. Not just a picture or snapshot of you and your husband, but a portrait that you actually like of each other.  One you would even consider hanging in your home. When is the last time you did that for yourselves? You never know what life is going to bring. After the recent passing of some of my family members I wish I had encouraged them more strongly to have portraits taken.

While this session is designed for couples with young children, I want you to also keep your parents, grandparents and great grandparents in mind for this session.  When is the last time they have had their portrait taken? Convince them, beg them to have an updated portrait of themselves. It is what people pass down for generations.

This session is designed just for couples, but keeping couples with young children in mind as well. I am holding this mini session at a local park and will have the session by a playscape so your children can run and play while we are having our mini session. The kiddos can play on the playscape or stand behind me and heckle you for real smiles. Or get a sitter and you can start your date night with a quick mini photo session.

Ladies-your husband will be looking for something cool he can do for you for Valentine’s Day-this is the perfect thing. Husbands-you can impress your wives by setting up something unexpected as a sweet and thoughtful gift. She will love it…promise.

Details:

This session is only available at this price on February 12th. I only have a limited  number of session times available so if you think you are interested please email me or call right away.

If you are interested in future limited edition sessions please subscribe to my free monthly newsletter above.

I always force, encourage my moms and dad’s to take a picture of just them during a family session. Here are some that I have taken recently that make my heart smile.

He is quite a bit younger then me so we have a different relationship then most brothers and sisters. It is pretty cool.

I love that he doesn’t mind modeling for me and he is quite good. Here are a few I love.

The pictures from yesterday and in this one below…everyone was bribed, don’t be fooled (well except Carter–although if I could have bribed him not to eat the rocks I would have).

Don’t be above bribing them–it works. Above all keep the atmosphere positive. Mommy/Child Photography 101 class with tips like this and MUCH more coming in February–details to come soon. Click the “add to newsletter” link above my phone number at the top of this page to get in on the newsletter.