I love shooting in new locations, so I was super excited when Nichole said they wanted their photos done at their place! I was even more excited when I got there and saw the old International truck!

I took Abbie and her friend Elisabeth to Collett Park last week for a mini photo shoot (and to play, of course). Elisabeth's mom told me about this corner of the park with flowers all over the ground and beautiful pink flowering trees. When we got there, Abbie was AMAZED, and with the kind of awe that I think only a child can truly feel, she said "BEAUTIFUL!!!!!" and ran toward the trees. Both girls had a wonderful time dancing under the trees and tossing the fallen petals. It was a perfect spring day, the kind I dream of all winter long!

We took the kids hiking at Shades State Park on Good Friday. I love that place, but I refuse to go in the summer because it gets SO buggy for some reason. But right now it's perfect! Here are a few shots of Abbie from there. She has been enjoying spring SO much. She loves seeing everything turn green again, and all the flowers and being outside.

I had a photo shoot yesterday morning at Deming Park, and I think it went great! Gavin is a little sweetie, and super cute! He's also super smart...not even four yet and already learning to read!

Have you been to Caboodle Cupcakes in Terre Haute? If not, you definitely should, and soon! Unless you don't like adorable, delicious cupcakes, of course. Seriously, they are some of the best I've had. I took the kids there a few days ago to pick some out, but brought them home to eat because I knew Jack would need a bath after he ate his.


If you've never heard of them, you can check out the Caboodle Cupcakes website here. I love that they donate to their leftovers to soup kitchens and 75% of their sales on the first Wednesday of every month to a local soup kitchen. Pretty cool, right? And did I mention they're yummy???

This has been such a long, cold, yucky winter! I'm so glad spring is almost here! We had awesome weather for a few days last week, I can't wait for that to stick around so I can start scheduling outdoor sessions again! I'm going to be running a great special for spring...20% off collections if you pre-purchase before your session (don't worry, you can always upgrade to a larger collection later if you decide you need more photos!). I'm also offering 20% off weddings that are booked before the end of May. I've been doing a lot of work on the blog this week, so take a look around! You can click on any of the tabs at the top of the page to get more information. Check out the joyful heART tab to see some of my new art stuff! I'm pretty excited about it and will be adding more to it very soon.

We finally got everything moved into the new house. Abbie is very excited to have her own bedroom now. It's pink and girly and perfect for her, so we had a little photo shoot in it last week. Isn't she just so stinking cute?!?!?

I know I've been a total slacker about blogging lately...hopefully that will change soon! We're almost done moving, then hopefully I'll have a little more time! I have a lot of new ideas up my sleeve, and some changes to make. Spring will be here soon, so it's a great time to start scheduling photo sessions! I'll be posting some new specials for spring soon. I hate to post without a photo, so here's a little teaser! It's one of the first photos from a new art collection I'm working on. Hope you enjoy it!

Just a little reminder: These specials end March 1st!

Winter Specials: 30% off prints and CDs of past sessions and weddings, $20 off session fee for new session, and $200 off weddings. These special deals will be in effect until March 1st! (weddings must be booked and deposit paid by March 1, but can be scheduled anytime)

I was watching the Olympics last night and there was a little feature about how close some of the races have been. Some of them were only about 1/125 second apart. So 1/125 of a second was the difference between a gold medal and a silver medal, or between a bronze medal and going home empty handed. So I was thinking...that's about the time it takes to take a photo as well! Both of these photos of Jack had an exposure of 1/125 sec. (and for you photographers out there, I think they were both shot at 2.2 with a 50mm lens at ISO 400). Anyway, I think it's amazing how fleeting some of these moments are. I'm SO happy that I get to be home with my kiddos and capture these little moments! Because really, ten years from now, THESE are the photos I'm going to really treasure, not the ones that I took so much time planning the outfits and location and poses. Not that I don't love those too, I really, really do...but my favorites, honestly, are the ones that are not quite so planned, the ones that stop time for just a fraction of a second so I can relive the moment later. So next time you schedule a photo session with me, think about having a "lifestyle" session instead. We'll take photos of your kids playing with their favorite toys, reading their favorite books, whatever your family likes to do together. Because 10 years from now, if you're anything like me, that's the way you'll want to remember their childhood.

My little girl is now a fabulous four-year-old! She is all about princesses lately and got a box of new princess dress up stuff for her birthday. Maybe I'm just a little biased, but really....isn't she adorable? To see more of Little Miss Abbie, check out my facebook page.

Meet Little Miss Hadyn...isn't she beautiful? She was not at all interested in sleeping, there were too many new things for her to look at!

I don't know what it is about baby feet, but I just love them!

This one cracks me up! She had to keep an eye on us!

We weren't sure that combining Abbie's and Jack's birthday parties was such a great idea, but it worked out pretty well! Abbie loves her little brother SO much and was super excited to share her party with him. Jack was just happy to eat cake and play with the balloons!


My Dad (with some help from Joey) made this cardboard castle for Abbie and her friends to play in. He's really creative like that...no pattern, no plan, just started cutting and taping! Now she's sad that we haven't brought it home yet, but we have NO WHERE to put it right now. Hopefully that will change soon.

Here are some more of my baby boy! He's recently come down with a severe case of PCS (photographer's child syndrome) and wants nothing to do with having his picture taken. He can be as cute and happy as can be, then I'll grab the camera and the smiles disappear. It's super frustrating because I don't really feel like I have many photos that really shows what his personality is right now. He's SO happy at home, then around other people (even family) or the camera, he just gets so serious. Anyway...even when he's being a stinker, he's still SUPER cute, right? I did manage to get some photos that I love, but it took FOUR mini-sessions instead of the one that I had planned. I think any photographer will tell you that it's ten times harder to take photos of your own kids. Other people's kids are WAY easier! To see more photos, check out my facebook page.

Winter Specials: 30% off prints and CDs of past sessions and weddings, $20 off session fee for new session, and $200 off weddings. These special deals will be in effect until March 1st! (weddings must be booked and paid for by March 1, but can be scheduled anytime)

And because I didn't want to post without a picture...here's one of Jack at his (and Abbie's) birthday party. I'll be posting photos from his one year session and her four year session soon, and maybe more from their party.

These pictures were taken the same day as the ones in my last post, I'm just getting around to posting them now. I wish it still looked like this around here...now it's all melted and we're supposed to be getting a bunch of rain. I'm not a big fan of winter, really...I HATE being cold! But at least the snow is pretty!

Joey got a new camera for Christmas and it has been so much fun to see him start to take his own pictures. We went for a drive in Parke County a couple of weeks ago and he took his camera along to get pictures of the snow. He's so proud of them and has been showing them off to anyone who will look. This summer I plan to spend a lot of time teaching him about photography and taking little day trips with him to practice. My dad and I used to do that together and it was one of my favorite things we did, so I think we might take a day out with him too! Anyway, here are some shots of my little photographer in action:

I'm starting a little photo project for the year. One photo for each day, which is something a lot of photographers do. Most of those projects focus on actually taking a photo every day, and usually have a theme or new techniques to try. My project is a little different. My goal is, by the end of the year, to have 365 photos of things that make me happy. I might take 10 one day and then none for a week or I might use a photo that was taken months ago. This project is really more about gratitude that photography, so there will be some not-so-great snapshots from time to time, but it should be fun. I probably won't post them all here, but if you want to follow along, they'll all be on my facebook page. Click here to become a fan and you'll see new photos on your news feed whenever I post them. And let me know if you're doing your own 365 project, I'd love to see it!

This is one of my Project 365 photos...it makes me happy because I LOVE that my kids enjoy books almost as much as I do. Oh...and also because they were playing together happily for a while that day. :-)

One year ago right now I was headed to the hospital for the birth of my third baby, Jackson Cooper! When he was a fussy little newborn, I thought this would be the longest year of my life, but by the 3 month mark he was a happy little boy with his stomach troubles (mostly) behind him. He has brought so much joy to our lives already and I just can't wait to see what God has planned for his life! Great things, I'm sure!

I haven't done his "official" one year session yet, because most of the things I want to do are outside and it is stinking COLD here right now (high for the whole week is supposed to be 28!), so I got a few last week when we were out shooting scenery (more on that coming soon!) and will hopefully do more soon if it warms up a little bit! Anyway, here is a shot of Jack from last week, and the second one is from when he was about a week old.