Choo-Choo's and Fun in the Leaves

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me, that I love pictures.  I love taking them mostly...but it's hard to take a "family" photo of yourself.  So, after lots of searching I finally found the perfect photographer for our family.  This lady is awesome.  Beyond her great photography skills, she believes that the images should belong to those who she photographed!  This was a great plus for me, as I was hoping to use one many of the images from our session for our Christmas card.  I was kind of fearful as to how the session would really go, since my boys no longer seem to enjoy being photographed.  Well, not that they don't like it...they are just SO busy, that the thought of having to sit still, look at a camera and smile doesn't really seem to intrigue them much.  But Carla was so fantastically patient with them.  She really made our day fun and it totally reflects that in the pictures.  She chose some great locations and really took time to get great images for us.  Here's a peak at a few...I will share ALL of my favorites AFTER I send my Christmas cards out.

A Fun Comparison of Ages: 1 Year

I love to compare pictures of the boys at the same ages, to see how much (or how little) they really look alike.

I can't believe how similar all of these poses turned out. I remembered some from Tyler's first birthday pictures (and we totally planned the football pose, so Daddy can have pictures of Lucas with a football in his office too), but most of these were pure luck!

Tyler will always be on the left in these series:

Birthday Pictures

OK...so you know from my last post that I've been a tiny bit stressed out about getting pictures of the boys. I've tried several times and have had little success with getting a shot of them both. Finally...a decent one! But not taken by me. :(

I had hoped to be able to become victorious in the battle of the wills, but after many unsuccessful attempts, I broke down, took them out and let someone else take the pictures.

While I really liked some of the shots that I took of Lucas for his birthday (at the Cherry Blossom Trees and the ones of took of him in his diaper and birthday hat), I really wanted some more traditional ones (like we had done with Tyler and the #1 block). We also have a cute set of Tyler playing with a football from his one-year shots, and Daddy wanted Lucas to have a matching set, so that he could put them in his office. Instead of trying another harrowing shoot myself, I decided to have someone else to do the shooting this time.

It wasn't an easy time getting the pictures, but we got some decent ones. The hardest to get (as always), were the ones of both of them together and believe it or not, we ended up with only two choices!!! We just couldn't get Lucas to sit still even long enough to shoot the pictures. :-) He's a fast little bugger!

And, there some other cute ones:

Just to show you how he LOVES to make funny faces!

Picture Perfect

...or almost. I have been trying SO hard to get a good picture of both the boys together. This is the best luck I have had so far. I really want to get to the point someday that I NEVER have to pay someone else to take pictures of the boys. It is a dream of mine to be a professional photographer someday. Even if I don't actually own my own studio, I'd like to be able to take professional quality pictures of our families and friends. Although, Lucas is becoming tough! It's not that he doesn't give up the smiles, because really, this kid is ALL smiles, almost all of the time. But, he is just SO on the move these days that I pose him and by the time I get set back up behind the camera and ready to snap the picture, here is no Lucas to even take a picture of. He is so stinkin' fast. And Tyler...well, I can normally bribe him easily enough to at least allow me to snap a few pictures...I just have to be ready and on my game, because he doesn't give up the smiles forever! Well, the smiles aren't really the problem as much as keeping him contained and giving me genuine smiles. They have been making silly faces in the mirrors at school lately and this is Tyler's new favorite game. I get a couple of good smiles and then he is on to making faces at me!

Lately my photo shoots have been really stressing me out, because I REALLY want a good picture of both of them to frame and hang in the house somewhere. We have finally gotten around to hanging some photos and I have been reminded of the fact that we missed out on the opportunity to have newborn pictures of Lucas taken. With him being born so early, we were a little hesistant to take him out to have these done early on, and then ended up waiting too long to have them done. This makes me sad not only because we don't have them for Lucas, but also because I DO have beautiful ones done for Tyler, but looking at them reminds me of the fact that I don't have them for Luke. So, I was hoping that having a really good picture of both of them would make me feel a little better about this. I am also hoping that during our beach trip this summer we can have some nice family beach photos taken.

Here are a few of the other photos taken during my little shoot. Tyler actually cooperated a little, and I did get a few cute ones of him by himself. Lucas, you ask?? Nope...he was too interested in trying to sneak down the hill to check out the pond. :)

Tyler found a caterpillar and let him crawl up on his hand.
But then, he got kind of freaked out by it!

He threw it and it landed on his shorts...if you look closely,
you can see it hanging from his left leg!

And, I just thought this was a sweet picture of them both.

OK, so that great elusive shot of the two of them is still out there...guess I'll just keep trying!