We thought that on the eve of Thanksgiving that nothing would be more fitting to share than a recent Fall Family Portrait Session that we captured! The mom pictured in this blog (Katie) didn’t know us, but reached out to us a few months ago in August telling us that she was interested in having a Family Portrait Session taken of she and her 1 year old son Andrew this fall! She envisioned a nice Fall Session with beautiful fall colors as she and Andrew played around in nature, so we were excited to set up the Autumn Sunset Session for these two for the start of November. Katie had the week off of work, so when we had rain on her Family Portrait Session evening, we were luckily able to squeeze her in for her Session the next evening right before Jenny ran off to coach!
Their Session was a blast even if Andrew took a while to warm up to us since he is very wary of strangers! We finally got some great smiles out of him with the help of his mom, so we were thrilled with the gorgeous Autumn portraits of the two of them! Without further adieu, Katie and Andrew’s Fall Family Portrait Session!
Though Andrew gets a bit wary around strangers (giving us the stink eye/ side eye for a long while) he definitely warmed up to us by the end of their Family Session! Until then Katie did a good job of tickling him, throwing him up in the air, and playing peekaboo with him to get him to smile and enjoy the time outside!
Katie is great with Andrew and extremely patient. It’s clear that Katie is Andrew’s best friend when she gets him up to practice walking or hands him his favorite snack: gold fish! He often snuggles up to Katie when he’s feeling shy or tired and he loves laughing with her!
During their Session Andrew got to play with leaves, stand on his own a bit, practice walking, look at a pond and river, and even throw some sticks around!
These two also got to play in a teepee of sorts-!
We hope that Andrew sees these photos someday and has a deep appreciation for the love of his mom and her dedication to him. We’re so happy that we were able to capture this moment in time and freeze it for them so that they can look back on it well into the future with their physical photographs that we’ve printed and sent them!
Thanks again Katie for trusting us with your beautiful Autumn Sunset Family Portraits! We’re so happy that you loved the Session and hope that you and Andrew have a fantastic Thanksgiving!
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Unrelated: Happy Thanksgiving, all! We’ll be off with 30 to 40 family members again at Jenny’s Aunt’s house this year for Thanksgiving tomorrow! We’re excited to see and celebrate with everyone while being warm, full, and comfortable :) We even bought our pets specialty canned dog & cat Thanksgiving food that they get to enjoy for lunch tomorrow and are excited to cuddle up with them on the couch when we get home to them later tomorrow night-!
On the whole Thanksgiving has been a weird holiday for us in adulthood. We’ve found that the Thanksgiving holiday IS for family, but it’s also for those who become our surrogate family when we live across the country, out of state, etc. from our immediate families. As an adult Jenny often spent Thanksgiving in college and even after (for a total of 8 years) making Thanksgiving dinner with friends and/ or friends’ families in Ohio (due to not getting much time off of work/ school and not being able to make the 10 hour round-trip twice within the same month of doing the 10 hour round-trip for the Christmas visit). Jason has spent the last 3 years without his family on Thanksgiving, rather with Jenny and her family (and our mutual friends). Neither of us has seen our immediate families on Thanksgiving in at least 4 or 5 years (since they live out West in Arizona & California), though we have annually visited Jason’s family a bit after Christmas and see Jenny’s entire family at least once annually (and her parents are even local 6 months of the year). We will actually be seeing Jenny’s immediate family in Arizona for a holiday in the first half of 2016 for the first visit to see them in Arizona in 2.5 years which we’re excited about-!
We also realized this year that sometimes we see our couples and families that we photograph more than we see our other friends or family, so honestly they often become like family. Over the past 10 years of professional photography we’ve been invited to join their families for meals, celebrations, etc. and it’s the best thing in the world to see their families evolve, grow, and thrive! 5 of our 2018 wedding couples either had their first child this year or are due at the start of 2019, so we’re so happy for them! It’s an honor to be contacted and told of the pregnancy let alone be asked to photograph the maternity photos, infant photos, or infant family portraits as well since it’s such an important time in life to capture- the moment the family expands even more!
This coming holiday weekend will be only the 2nd time in the past 10 weeks that we’re not tied up with work outside of the office and in the office AND coaching, so we’re going to try to concentrate on opting outside for a bit on Black Friday, shopping local for our final immediate family gifts, and breathing before another busy work week come Monday. We think that after the 7 day work weeks (often nightly lasting until 1 or 2 a.m.) that maybe we deserve a weekend to CLEAN the house, breathe, and take a moment to appreciate life. We hope you’re able to do the same. We still have an Adoption Family Portrait Session, headshots, corporate photography, volunteer/ donation photography, etc. to share here on our blog as well as our personal annual BELATED Halloween Family Portraits and Christmas portraits, so we have a lot of photography yet to share before this year ends-! Again, Happy Thanksgiving and we’ll catch you next week!