Last night I had a little holiday party with a few near and dear friends. These girls are awesome with a cherry on top. Ahem..I should say *women* since 3 of them are moms, but for some strange reason, I don’t enjoy being referred to as “woman”. In fact, I get insulted! It just feels so…old. Like the other day, this child in line at an undisclosed store referred to me as a “woman” and I was thisclose to driving myself to Nordstrom to get the latest and greatest anti-aging miracle workers. Anyway, back to my awesome girl friends. I admire young moms a lot because I feel like I just could not do it. I often wonder if there is a pill that gives you patience, understanding, knowledge, and an unbearable amount of energy that they are just not telling me about. One particular mom says its no pill, it’s Google. Thank you Lord, for Google. Someday, I will definitely be that mom who Google’s everything. Why is this child keeping me up at odd hours in the night even though its fed, changed, and burped? What happens when I find that my child has eaten a whole box of cotton balls? Why does my child throw things at my head? Yea, I’ll Google it all.

Six months ago, when I first started learning my Olympus camera, I turned to these mom-friends for help. I asked if I could practice on their children and boy, was I in for it. Let me just start by saying that child photography is quite possibly as hard a job as a firefighter or triathlon runner’s. As for stressful, I say its neck and neck with heart surgery. I was sore, I was sweaty, I was out of breath, I was exhausted. Mentally, I was drained. But, I learned a ton and more than anything, I loved seeing the look on these mom’s faces when they saw their beautiful children in the photos. Here are a few from the different shoots that I look back on with joy… joy that I got to return these wonderful babies back to their mommies, and joy that my girl friends have adorable, wonderful children that do not throw things at them. Or me.

Meet Abigail and her mommy….this was actually the second shoot I ever shot.

Abby is a beautiful big girl…full of character and loves her mommy so much

Meet baby Noah and his mommy….

Noah is quite the handsome lil’ fella…and I think he knows it

And last but never least, meet baby Noel and his mommy….

Noel is such a sweet, adorable boy

I haven’t shot a lot of family sessions, but this has to be one of my favorites so far…

And my favorite thing to shoot, mommy and daddy…

I know, I know….my mom-friends are beautiful, what can I say?