spring family pictures

I was so excited to get these taken. We haven't had family pictures since I was preggo with C. Since we don't know any professional photographers in the area that wouldn't break the bank, I asked a good friend of mine to take some and I was thrilled that she was willing. And to top it off, she did such an amazing job! Some of them she edited on photoshop and others I did in lightroom (her edited ones are the really pretty, sparkly eyed ones..ha) It was such a blast from beginning to end! Our kids were even happy 2/3 of the time and didn't have any breakdowns throughout the whole session (which was like an hour...I don't think they would have lasted longer than that). At the end we treated the kiddos to playing in the park (during which I took additional pictures with my camera) and ice-cream.

Some kind of funny things about our pictures...

-my feet got really dirty while we were walking around, as well as everyone else's shoes. But you can't really tell...I think. also Charlotte kept taking her shoes off and throwing them.

-at one point when I put C on my shoulders she found my bobby pin and pulled it halfway out, messing up my hair at the same time. It was also super humid (thank you Oregon). I had no idea my hair looked bad after that point and no one pointed it out to me. So in most of these, my hair desperately needs a brush run through it and I am totally oblivious. plus my pants were covered with dirt. haha!
but honestly- after going through the pictures I thought, "how completely appropriate. its how I look naturally!" and I prefer to have pictures that portray what we really look like (sparkly eyes excluded).

-Talmage was terrified of sitting in that tree.

-we felt uber awkward doing the "walking while holding hands" pose. It turned out though, I guess. lol.

-we were shooting pics around construction workers and pooping dogs.

 -the joggers that ran past us must have thought we were really weird for sitting in a clearing and singing "Elmo's world", "Old McDonald", and "Peek-a-boo" as loud as we could.

I have a few many favorites: 

In other news, we'll be headed off to Idaho on Friday for a fun Memorial Day weekend in Parma. I think we need time away from home really bad. It's getting to that point where we feel stuck in our apartment and bored with life. So some time away with family will be good. And when we get back Jonathan will begin his new job! Yay :D He is a bit nervous but mostly excited.

change is GOOD. at least in this case it is. hopefully things won't change again for a while...

have a happy weekend!