street fair saturday

what a morning we had here! there was a little street fair scheduled so we thought we'd check it out. dad had work all day so i thought we'd take a walk downtown and if nothing else tire the kiddos out so we'd get good nappage today. we started out on one street and i have to say i was a little disappointed. i noticed they changed it up a bit, there was one block that was the "kid zone" and another block a few blocks away that really was just a sidewalk sale for the downtown shops to unload their extras. we cruised through the sidewalk sale had a snack and it was nice to stop, have no set plan and just do as we please. usually we run like chickens with our heads cut off. today we just did whatever we liked. gracie mentioned she wanted to go to the duck pond on campus that was nearby, why not! it was fun to take them. i do so many photo sessions there i always say i'd love to shoot my kids here. of course today i didn't have the good camera and i think i would certainly need another hand. today i was a little preoccupied in making sure jackson didn't go for a swim while i was trying to set up a shot! but they were thrilled with all the ducks, especially the 3 babies and jackson even had the keen eyes to find the elusive turtle.
afterwards we headed to the "kid zone". friends of mine from the junior women's club were face painting and gracie was very excited at the prospect. she picked a butterfly and jackson, unfortunately refused. he needs time to watch and decide it was all too fast for him! then we moved on to the inflatables. a block full of variety of shapes and sizes and bouncy jumpy fun. we started with the bounce house. grace was excited right away. jackson had to watch her once to decide that it was worth taking off his shoes. then..... i couldn't get them out. yes, i was that parent. the parent with the worst kids at the fair. after being instructed a few times from the guy running the bounce house to exit neither of them were budging. jackson had laid down in defiance and grace was WAILING!!! oh joy! so my BFT got to squiggle and wiggle my way in and drag, literally DRAG my children out. good thing i knew so many of the fellow parents waiting patiently with their well mannered children. one of whom was my ob/gyn. i was sure to tell her that perhaps she won't be seeing me quite so soon with hopes of being pregnant!! maybe when they're 20 & 23..... it was one of those ridiculous moments, but we recovered quickly and we even returned to the bounce house after the slides. the guy looked at me funny attempting again but this time they were much better. grace, i have no idea where she gets her nerve, she climbed up this STEEP blow up ladder to go down this giant slide. poor jackson just couldn't quite make it, which was probably good because i imagine that he would've gone to the top and gotten stuck there not wanting to go down either Way. good thing there was a slide that was one step down. we tried the second one and they could both climb up and slide down and they enjoyed it!
it was a hot day and we were busy. i couldn't imagine going home and first making lunch so we went to Rita's for ices instead! what a treat! and to boot they both took a nap when we got home! happy kids, happy mommy!


my little movie star


monkey see, monkey do


what a duo





CHEESE!!!! look ma DUCKS!


fine, i'll hug him, stop asking....



waiting to go in the bounce house!


the ladder to the BIG slide


little miss serious




free show!


ices, yum!

sensational senior

change of pace for me today, i worked with a lovely young lady. senior season is upon us. they're already booking appointments and getting the process started so they'll have their photos ready for their senior yearbook. what a treat for me to have someone who smiles on command, listens to directions, and is a beauty to boot. makes my job easy! it's amazing how much more time you have for 3 outfits changes and tons of poses when you're not playing peek-a-boo and gaining trust.


playful shot


doesn't she just make you want to smile?


lovely young lady

generations of smiles

usually my subjects are children of all shapes and sizes and personalities, occasionally i shoot an immediate family, and as a treat i get to shoot generations of family. i love when families take the time to capture those moments. shy grandma or not, these are photos i hope families will cherish for years to come. so often we're behind the camera, which is all well and good, but it's important to take the time to hand the camera over and capture the...family.
today's shoot was terrific! mom won the session in a silent auction, which makes it all the better! she was careful to arrange it when the grandparents were in for a visit. so, yeah i have adults who look and smile when told, and one photogenic young man with tons of personality! we mixed and we matched and had a great session.


posing it up


one for the wall


the apple of every one's eye


mr. turtle who is sure to engage even the toughest subject WHEN we can find him!


SO sweet!

father's day presents

gracie's showing more of an interesting in creating things these days and loves to make them FOR people so i decided to use father's day as a perfect example to ACTUALLY use my creative skills and make something. since jackson's still not too fond of crafts i went on the fact that he enjoyed rock painting the other day so we just took it to another level. we collected rocks off the path in the backyard and went to town. jackson was in charge of the bees and grace in charge of the lady bugs. we painted, glittered, winged, antennaed, and googlied eyed. and i tried my best not to take over! they came out pretty cute and we sent one to poppy, gave one to pappy, and wrapped one up for dad to open tomorrow!


my two little crafters


adding googly eyes



the finished bugs


but adding them to a simple keepsake box seemed to give them more purpose than giving someone rocks.

smile for doughnuts!

sometimes you just gotta love big kids! they smile when you ask them to smile, they sit where you ask them to sit. takes a little of the guess work out. today's family was just super! great kids that did a lot of what i asked of them. they sat and posed for those great-for-grandma shots and they showed a lot of their personality to get a huge variety of shots. they showed a lot of love for mom, who can't dig that?! i loved getting to capture their little family and their many sides. mom was also one of those super cool moms who recogonizes that sometimes funny faces and crazy hair is just their kids. that's the way they are, take it or leave! and she was certainly taking it. makes me more relaxed to shoot when she's fully aware of what she's getting. and who wouldn't just eat these guys up....


what a beauty


great kids, sat a posed so nicely...


...and goofed off too


can't you just FEEL the love?


having fun in the trees


handsome guy, we bribed him by telling him we were going to pass his photos around school if he didn't behave! ha ha, you have to be creative.


perfect!

Great Wolf Lodge

we have just returned from a wonderful little trip and a great discovery! we had heard about great wolf lodge before but didn't really think about. last December friends of ours invited us to join them at the GWL in sandusky ohio. for those who don't know, GWL is an indoor water park/hotel. interesting concept. don't need to go far, come out of your hotel room and walk to the fun! great with little kids. unfortunately last December a huge snow storm rolled in and we were not able to make it. our friends, coming from pittsburgh, we able to make we, sadly, had to reschedule. we just made it up this past weekend. we left friday morning and even packed a picnic lunch (in the spirit of saving money and enjoying the beautiful weather). turns out that was one gracie's favorite parts of the trip! we arrived in beautiful sandsusky ohio around 3 or so and you never saw 4 people check into their room and change in to swimsuits faster! very corny but very cute place. looks like a GIANT log cabin. they have wooden bears and and lodgy type decor everywhere. but super kid friendly. everywhere you turn there was something fun to look at or play with. while i was checking in eric walked around with the kids and in the lobby you can view down to the next level and see the water park. well, you've never heard such squeals of delight! it was like they just discovered gold or something! "MOM! SWIMMING POOL!" mind, you we didn't keep this a secret. all week long we told them we were going to the water park. it seemed as if this was some awesome discovery.

anyway, we made our way down to the park and couldn't try everything fast enough. there was a pool for swimming and water basketball, a kiddie pool with tiny little slides and dumping buckets, a HUGE tree house with all sorts of things to turn and pull and squirt water, there were BIG tub slide, and small kids slides, and a lazy river and the only things we didn't do was the larger single person slides, as we were not ready to through our kids down something without us!

we were holding our breath a little because miss grace was a superstar at sesame place last may, she was a bit of a scaredy cat at the water park at massanutten last summer. but she rocked it! couldn't get enough! eric took jackson on the huge tube slide that truthfully looked a little bit much for me, but he just giggled the whole way down. i eventually tried it. figured if my 5 year old thinks this is the best thing ever it can't be THAT scary. it was a little fast but quite fun. we decided to try gracie and she loved it too. there was a HUGE staircase to go up too. so you know it had to be good if they were willing to truck up there each time. i was grateful also, to do something a little more exciting than swimming.

they kids had EXCELLENT behavior all weekend too! which makes for a nice vacation. that first late afternoon we went swimming for a little while and then wanted to come in to wash up for dinner and we were expecting a lot of resistance but they both went rather agreeably considering! i love having children that are an age that you can talk to and explain that we can come back and it's time to do something else fun. we had dinner in one of the park's restaurants. cute kids stuff. gracie got to have a "bears in a blizzard", a vanilla milkshake with oreo cookies and teddy grahams on top! what more could a little chunky monkey want!

after dinner each night we went to the arcade, which gracie refers to as chuck e cheeses, as that is how i explained it to her. dizzying lights and sounds sure to delight any child! they spun around not really knowing what to do first, but i enjoyed some games of skeeball, and we ran around until bedtime.

we ventured out for lunch and dinner on saturday. i believe there was another day or two we could've explored sandusky ohio. we drove to the shore of lake erie and looked out but we didn't have much time to get out and walk around. there were also some other little historic towns. we had dinner in Norwalk, in a cute little revived diner. everyone loved the kids there and it took me 45 minutes to realize most everyone else was over 65 so i think kids were a novelty in that town. we had lunch at a weenee hut! if you can believe that. eric mentioned it and gracie got it in her head she wanted a hot dog so we gave it a try. what a pleasant surprise! cute place and i got to have a hot dog with guacamole, tortilla chips, cheese and sour cream. YUM!

all in all a great weekend! good times, good children. the next time we venture to GWL though we might try the one in the poconos, it's a little closer.


our little picnic lunch


j coming out of the BIG slide


g coming out of the BIG slide, there's a HUGE smile on her face


dad and g waiting under the big bucket


enjoying some air hockey in "chuck e cheese". note this is after he adamantly stated he wanted to go upstairs and take a nap, aka go to sleep, as he had had it for a day. but mom and dad started to play air hockey and he got a second wind for that!

i couldn't resist

it was just one of those moments. the moons aligned or something. i haven't gotten great, really great, photos of my kids in awhile. crazy, right?! i know! i'm a photographer. but they are like, so over getting their photo taken. and then, with no planning, no grooming or outfit planning, all because we picked our first blooming peony, BAM, they were the perfect little models. just playing outside this evening, they couldn't take turns fast enough to say cheese. i was a little worried it was getting to dark out but i was so pleased with the photos i couldn't resist posting. i know it's sort of like cheating. these are my kids and they were in a great mood and we had the right prop, but great photos are great photos! if only i could live 24/7 with all my clients so i'd be there at just the right moment.....

the key to the smile

this one made me work for it. apparently this little guy thinks being one year old is A LOT of work because he is VERY serious! nothing a good toss in the air couldn't break up. but that's about it for his smiles. we decided to go with his more serious, pensive look, it was more in character! he was definitely daddy's boy! it's so interesting to shoot so many different personalities at different stages in their lives. this little guy was just really into his "home base" and couldn't really get comfortable if dad wasn't immediately in reach. i just have to laugh at shoot where dad arranges and brings the child by himself. so different. just dad and child, no diaper bag, no snacks, no favorite toy, nothing..... not even for a little boy who had messy pants, a sure fire way to a grumpy face. he did have a whole box of tissues in the stroller, thank heavens for that! but only a dad would show up to a shoot with just the subject! we made this little guy work it for a long time and then we finally decided to give him and a break and let him go. posing and smiling was just not his idea of a great day!

First Ever Centre County Buddy Walk!!!!

we did it! we finally organized out first Centre County Buddy Walk! after all these years attending the nyc buddy walk and talking about starting one up here the day has finally arrived. and while i am not a nervous person by nature i was looking forward to getting through this walk to start ironing out the kinks. and low and behold as the day progressed i began to realize the day was going off better than i could have imagined! as with doing anything the first time you expect hiccups, but really it was a remarkable day. we set up (in the rain!) with ease. we had 100 walkers!!! and everyone stayed to picnic and do crafts and play for the afternoon. so different from our nyc experience, where we go, walk and leave and head to a restaurant for lunch. at this walk we knew so many families and there were so many children it was such a great way to spend the afternoon. both walks are great in their own respect but i enjoyed this change of pace of hanging out and playing. plus, being our hometown walk i did have jobs to do and helped out. i took tons of photos and hope to put together a book of the walk to have in our library.

here are some of the highlights of the day:


mr. j eager to get there!


jackson's joggers


j-man was even excited to do, gasp! crafts! he made a lovely painted rock with googly eyes!


j had a hard time seeing mom "work" and not want to come running over!



pappy and j


mom and grace