From the cutest giraffe EVER!

That's how I felt after the first session I had with this family!  The wind was blowing so hard that day, and I left feeling horrible not only about the bad weather, but also about the photos that I got.  Thankfully, we were able to squeeze in some time this week for a re-shoot, and I'm so glad we did.  It was definitely worth it!

Yesterday I quickly stopped into Target to grab a couple of things, and as I walked past the seasonal area I saw a couple aisles of discounted costumes and Halloween candy mixed in with giant light-up snowmen and Santas!  I thought, "Good greif, Halloween hasn't even come yet, and there's already Christmas."  It does come sooner and sooner every year; doesn't it?  I really look forward to the holidays, but seeing that stuff in the stores already kind of made me roll my eyes.  And then I remembered this, and I just had to go searching for it…

I'm so excited for all of the upcoming holidays.  We've been doing all kinds of fun stuff around our house to prepare for Halloween!  Rory is having so much fun with all of it, and it makes me even more excited to see her at Christmas time.

Yesterday, we spent the morning making popcorn balls, which was always a Halloween tradition in my house growing up.

And then of course we ate some popcorn balls!

She's completely goofy 90% of the time.  The other 10% is full of independent toddler attitude!

And then that evening we all carved pumpkins together.  I'll have to catch a couple photos of the finished ones.  Sorry about the yucky color cast on these next ones.  It was dark, and it's late tonight so I don't feel like fixing them.

Digging out the guts on her pumpkin.  She got it at the pumpkin patch and she is so proud of that thing!

Because I didn't think it was a good idea to give a 2 year old a knife…she painted hers!

And she loved it!  With as much paint as she had on there, I was really surprised that it was actually dry this morning.

I'm popping on to give this family a little sneak peek just before I'm out the door for two more sessions.  Enjoy!

These kids were so much fun!  The little one was in heaven running around outside, and the boys were so good.  Here's a little sneak peek for you guys.  I'm behind on editing, but hopefully I will be caught up soon!

I'm almost done with this session!  Thought I'd post a couple more before I go to bed.

I currently have four sessions to proof and two coming this weekend, but I took the night off from editing to do what all moms want to do on their night off…clean house!  It had been neglected for too long, and I feel a million times better now.  But before I head to bed, I thought I'd give another mom a little sneak peek of her two cuties!  Maybe you remember them from my very first official session a few months ago?

Last weekend, this song was on my mind.  This morning I thought I'd look it up on youtube.  Big mistake.  The tears were flowing.  (Make sure you turn the player off on the right first.)

Before we got to go home from the hospital, I was busy packing things up, not really paying much attention to Rory because she was watching Dora.  I looked over and she nearly had tears in her eyes.  I think the poor girl thought we were going to leave her there! (  After that I told her, "Mommy and Daddy will never leave you.  I promise."  From the time we got home until she went to bed, she said almost a dozen times, "I never leave you.  I promise."  Sweet, sweet girl.

No, Kristie!  Rory was helping me work on these tonight, and she was a bit confused at first thinking it was Katie.  LOL!  Aside from the freezing weather, I had a lot of fun on this shoot.  Katie is my brother's girlfriend, and one of Rory's bestest buddies.  Kristie is her sister, who is a senior this year and was in town visiting for the weekend.  I can honestly say that those two together are complete goofballs!  And Katie makes for a pretty good assistant.

I love this next photo.  For not knowing her very well, I think I can still honestly say that this is SO her!

Thanks girls, for a fun session!