fresh 48 newborn session | san diego newborn and fresh 48 photographer

What do you get when you take an itty, bitty, teeny, tiny hospital room and stick seven people in it all together, to include a brand new beautiful baby girl and her two toddler siblings? You get a whole lot of awesome and lots of love and cuddles and maybe a smidge of chaos. But isn’t that exactly what this time is all about? Siblings meeting their new baby sister and grandma and grandpa visiting from out-of-state and loving on all the little people. It’s tons of activity in a small space but it’s filled with love and excitement and anticipation. Most incredibly this amazing mom was doing this all on her own, with her husband out of the country. She’s pretty much an extreme super hero bad ass and she didn’t even hesitate to get right down on the floor to get up nice and close to the one little ol’ window of light we had to work with. She wasn’t phased in the least and had her two oldest rolling around on the floor with her. Ahem, she had just given birth a few hours before. Super human. Everyone’s birth story is different and some are beautifully peaceful and serene, and some are filled with tons of people (not to mention a photographer lady with her big ol’ camera documenting your every move) and laughs and cries and toy cars and toddler snacks and cuddling on the floor. They are all awesome, each in their own unique way and I’m so crazy grateful to document them all.

fresh 48 newborn session | san diego newborn and fresh 48 photographer

Do you remember all the amazing little details of your newborn’s arrival into the world? All the beautiful visitors who came to celebrate with you? That exquisite moment when your older kiddos arrived to first meet their new sibling? All of your baby’s new wrinkles and sweet flakey skin? No, sadly me neither. I have a couple of embarassingly dark and blurry iPhone images from that time and while I’m crazy grateful for those, I sure do wish I had thought to document that fleeting time a little better. That time is often a blur of emotions, ridiculous sleep deprivation, maybe a hint of some lingering medication and let’s not forget you just birthed a new human being into this world. To say you just accomplished a lot would be a crazy understatement. All while being a super human creator maybe, just maybe it slipped your mind to hire a photographer to be there within a few hours of your newborn’s birth. Who could blame you for this not making it onto your ‘to do’ list. Or maybe you had some hesitations about being photographed only few hours after delivery. Absolutely no one could blame you for this as well? It’s an incredibly vulnerable time filled with endless new emotions. With all that to consider, I promise you it can be done with ease and it can be laid back, easy and even fun. All you have to do is take in the moments, love on your people like crazy and I’ll do the rest and document it all. These first few hours can never be captured again, that time never relived, so let me document your own beautiful story for you. It would be a privilege for me to be there.

sunset maternity session in la jolla | san diego maternity photographer

I swore last time I was here, in my dust-covered blog that is, that I would be better about posting and sharing sessions, but alas I lied. I’m a big fat liar. So here I am now centuries later finally posting to my blog again. So I’m going to think positive and believe in my heart of hearts that this is the beginning of a newfound commitment to sharing REGULARLY. But really I’m just going to celebrate this post as a win and not give myself too much shit if I don’t post again in the next several days. It is summer after all. We are in the middle of full-blown summer schedule around our house these days, which basically means that I’m up later than late (I’m already a ridiculous night owl, so summer really takes it to an all new level of crazy late) and everyone, except my incredibly hard-working husband, is sleeping in way too late in the mornings. But what are you going to do? Summer is fleeting, and I’m grateful for no alarm clocks and we are going to enjoy being late-sleeping slobs as long as we can. Now more importantly, this is a maternity session I had with a crazy beautiful, strong, moto friend and her family not toooooo terribly long ago in La Jolla. She’s pretty much a dream to photograph and we even brought their dog along this time. I say “this time” because I have photographed this family FIVE times. Although I haven’t shared session number five with anyone yet…shocker. These awesome human beings have been with me since the veeeeeery beginning. Since I was shooting with my little ol’ crop sensor (my beginner) camera, since I had really no business photographing other people’s milestones, since before I was even technically in business. I’m so beyond grateful for them, their trust and their friendship. They make something that I already love so &*%$! much (taking photos of course) even more ridiculously awesome.

urban beach town family session | san diego family photographer

Well, there's no way to sugar-coat the fact that I've been, shall we say, a wee bit absent from my photography blog.  So today is THE day...I'm recommitting to posting again regularly.  I'm going to make this blog my %#^&*@ and post until my hands go numb.  Ok, maybe that's a smidge overly dramatic.  How about I just commit to posting more regularly than every 18 months?  And let's get it started with this gorgeous family that recently made a trip to San Diego ALL the way from New Hampshire for a quick visit, AND they asked me to squeeze in a session with their beautiful new family of four while here.  I was pumped, as I first had a session with these sweet friends almost two years ago when their oldest was their only.  Knowing they made time to spend a couple of hours of their precious vacation time with me was awesome enough, but the fact that they are friends and repeat clients is the icing on the cake.  I'm forever grateful for clients that trust me to document their families and then come back for more, and ask me to photograph them again.  I'm grateful beyond words.

in-home lifestyle family session...feel the love

Where are we most at ease with those that we love...in our own homes, yes!  Where do we often feel the safest, the most comfortable expressing our love for one another, where are we most comfy and relaxed?  In our own homes...so what better place then to capture the love within a family. This awesome family has blessed me not once, not twice, but three times with capturing their awesome love for one another.  I'm blessed to call them friends and I'm so grateful that for this latest photo session they invited me into their own love-filled home.

A SoCal winter evening family session

We had a typically beautiful Southern California winter evening for our session.  I had the privilege to photograph these sweet friends just a week ago.  Their little man just turned one year old and he is just about the cutest thing going.  They cuddled, they played, they cuddled some more and in case you were wondering, yes indeed, I do ask my clients to kiss pretty much through the whole session...almost kiss, think about kissing, barely kiss, big kiss, top of head kiss, cheek kisses...loads of kisses!

four, three and 11 months

How sweet are these three sisters?  These are dear sweet friends of mine that I've known since they were a bachelor, a dating couple, newly married and now a family of five.  They are fun, silly, crazy, and ridiculously full of life.  This is the second time they have trusted me to document their sweet family and I love them to peices.

golden hour maternity session

This session was literally a dream and I can't thank this gorgeous couple enough for trusting me to document this exciting time for their family.  This stunning mama-to-be is 9 months pregnant...making pregnant mama's envious everywhere!  Through this session we danced (well, THEY danced), chatted, laughed, told silly stories and just had a good time.  They rocked it and I'm so grateful they trusted me and just went for it with each image.