Kaelyn's Newborn Photos

Kaelyn's newborn photo session was just about the most gorgeous photo shoot I've ever seen. Everything was simply perfect and beautiful! Kailey did such a great job coordinating colors and outfits, choosing and making the props, and even getting Scrappy to cooperate. I had a hard time narrowing down the pictures to my favorites because I loved them all. It makes me want to have a little girl in the spring just for the pictures! 

Spring Break Beach Trip-Day 3 (Family Beach Pictures)

When we got back to the condo from our miniature golf and shopping we changed clothes and headed down to the beach for family beach pictures. I've learned that with my boys I have to have a plan in mind and get pictures over with as soon as possible. Neither one of them are fans of my picture taking obsession so I know they put up with it because they love me. 

Eli went first and when I was reviewing the pictures on my camera later that evening I noticed just how grown up he looked to me. He's growing and changing so much.  

His smile felt very forced to me so Josh went into "make Eli laugh" mode and we got quite the array of expressions from Eli. 

Then it was my turn in front of the camera with Eli. I love this little boy with all my heart and consider it such a blessing that God picked me to be his mother. 

After a couple of pictures with mom, it was time for some with Dad. Oh, what a wonderful relationship these two have. They are quite the pair and I love watching them spend time doing the things they love and have in common with each other. 

It was about this point I was nearing my photo limit so we did a couple of family pictures using the self timer on my camera. One of these days I'll bite the bullet and hire a professional photographer to take pictures of us but for now these will have to do :) 

Josh and I took a quick couple picture and then we were done. We had officially finished family beach pictures! Hooray for us! Until next year...

We were walking away from the beach heading back up to the condo and I noticed the gorgeous sunset behind us. What a beautiful ending to a great day!

Jameson's One Year Pictures

Andrea had Jameson's one year pictures taken the week after his party and I just had to share the final images. I'm a proud aunt and I love these babies like they're my own :)

Summer Fun-Beach Vacation Day 5

Our last day at the beach was beautiful and so relaxing. Eli and I went down to the beach early that morning and played until about lunch time while Josh stayed back in the condo to read. Eli and I came up to eat a quick lunch and then we went back down for more beach fun. Josh joined us after lunch and we stayed down there until about 5 o'clock that afternoon. It was great! We parked our chairs right where the waves were crashing on the shore and we watched Eli play in the water. Eli and I looked for seashells and ended up finding two shark's teeth and three mini sand dollars. I was pretty excited about our finds :) 

We all went back to the condo, took showers, and changed clothes because I wanted to head down to the beach at sunset for some beach pictures. My boys weren't excited about that at all but they went anyway. Just being honest... I've never been thrilled with any of the beach pictures we've ever taken because something is always "off" about them, but this year was the best we've ever gotten. They're still not perfect but I was pretty happy with them. Maybe one year I'll splurge and hire a real photographer to take pictures of us, but until then I'll just make do :) 

There is nothing prettier to me than a beach at sunset. I could have stayed out there for hours just watching the sun set behind those waves. I probably could have taken over a hundred pictures of it too, but I tried to be sensible and just snapped one :) 

GORGEOUS!

Eli and I went down to the beach first to take some pictures of him and my little guy turned on the charm :) He's so sweet!

Josh came down after about 10 minutes and we did the rest of the pictures. I forgot my tripod (photographer fail) so we only have one picture of the three of us. We only got that one because some woman walking by took pity on us and offered to take a picture of us all. Thanks, random beach lady!

My whole world :)

This is how Eli feels about lots of beach pictures...

Alright another "confession"...I have a love/hate relationship with my hair. Normally, it's my best feature. It holds curl, it rarely looks oily, it's thick and wavy, it grows fast, and it does anything I need it to...except when we're at the beach. It turns into the Mr. Hyde of hair and rebels against everything I try to get it to do. Not even lying, my hair ruined the best picture we had at the beach last year because a strand flew into my face at the perfect moment. Most of the time my hair is always pulled back into a braid, high bun or ponytail, but none of those hairstyles really scream beach pictures, you know? I started with it half up/half down. I thought that was going to work and then I started reviewing the pictures and it looked like I had a mullet. Time to switch it up. I pulled my hair down and ran my fingers through it and it was okay (not great) but it ended up working for the rest of the pictures. Maybe one day I'll figure out the hair situation and finally be pleased with the results. Haha!

Rocking the mullet do...

A little blurry, but I love this picture :)

Gotta love a good filter on Instagram :) 

Can I walk around the rest of my life with this filter??

My hunk :)

Melt my heart :)

After beach pictures, Josh went back to the condo to watch the LSU baseball game. Eli and I grabbed our crabbing gear and headed back down to the beach. Crabbing is a tradition for us at the beach and Eli was excited about catching all the sand crabs he saw. 

Ready for crabbing!

We didn't catch tons, probably about 12-15, but we had lots of fun! Those little suckers are fast! We let them all go and said good night to the beach. Our beach vacation had been wonderful! I can't wait until we go back next year :)