New photo blog in the works

I am excited to be getting enough opportunities in family portraiture to start a photography blog! I have looked into different templates and hope to put something together fairly soon. In the meantime, I had the most amazing photo shoot with some of our friends and their almost 4 month old son this past Saturday.  I say it was amazing because the leaves were perfect, the lighting was beautiful, and the family allowed as much time as I needed to get the perfect shot:) Here's a small preview:

More to come of this gorgeous family. I hope to have a URL for the photography blog by the next post!

So Busy!

I haven't posted lately (and my lovely Aunt and devoted blog follower made me aware of this yesterday:)), so I am catching up now.  I had started several different posts only to become frustrated at the fact that Blogger had changed its formatting once again.  After battling with Blogger's new picture posting for weeks, I am proud to say that I finally clicked the right button or went to the right layout because we are back in business with two new posts (and I now realize how hard I was making such an easy thing).

It has been a very busy few weeks in my world of unemployment!  I am happy to report that I was offered an interview at a local YMCA. I cannot tell you how nice it was to slip into some work attire.  It has been so long since I have utilized over half of my wardrobe, and the feeling of wearing heals and black pants again was surprisingly nice. The interview was possibly one of the hardest I have had, but well worth the experience. Although I am not sure the job is for me, I really appreciated the opportunity and now know a little bit more about a great organization.

I have also had an amazing amount of small photography opportunities over the past weeks. My friend Holly wanted some fall/halloween/pumpkin patch pictures with her son Lucas. We set out for a photo shoot with another friend/mom, Rachel, and her 17 month old Tyson at a local farm. There is such a huge difference between photographing a newborn and a toddler. Tyson was hard to catch on camera, but I managed to snap a few:)

Holly is part of a group of moms with small children who meet several times throughout each month. They had arranged a family bonfire/cookout/tractor ride at this same farm, and she asked if any of them would like family pictures done. Seven families signed up, and I really enjoyed the experience. I hope to post these pics soon (once I get the families' permission).

Yesterday, I did a small Halloween photo shoot with Mr. Lucas and his mommy again. Since I don't have a studio, it can be hard to get good lighting, but I think these turned out fairly well.

 And finally, their Halloween card:) We stole this idea from another photographer who had done something similar for Valentine's Day cards. Holly found the leg warmers for Lucas and socks for her at Target. Cute idea!

She came all the way to Pittsburgh for mini golf:)

J.R.'s mom visited us a few weekends ago, for the first time since we have lived in PA, and we think she had a great time. We took her to our favorite restaurants, the zoo, and made sure to squeeze in a glass of wine at our favorite spot overlooking the city atop Mt. Washington. However, I have a feeling that the most fun she had the entire weekend was on the greens of a small, local mini golf course. Between the competitive banter and plastic, coastal themed obstacles, we all improved our game and are looking forward to a rematch in the near future:)!

This time the polar bear stood on the top of the actual viewing tunnel.

(Oh and for the record, I won the first game (I am my dad's daughter) and J.R. won the second (I suspect a small bit of cheating took place), but who's really counting ;)!)