Treasured Family Photos

Back on the 12th of December we had family photos taken by Kelly Edmundson. She belongs to our church which is where I got to know her. I really liked her personally, and when I found out she was a photographer too, I wanted her to take pictures of all of our family before BigBuddy left for Brazil.  As part of her fees, she gives us the CD's and allows us to use them however we like. She also has touched up some of these or cropped them how I wanted. These are among my favorites. 

Cowgirl is here this week again. We love having her here and its been a long time since I had a professional photo of just her. What a treasure! I love that this photo captures the true gorgeous blue color of her eyes. Of all my children they are the most vivid blue and it truly is a hallmark of her beauty. It was her idea that we dress in these colors, and I love how they looked on this cold winter day and brought out the blue in all of our eyes. Not that there's anything wrong with brown eyes, its just no one in my family has them. We all have various shades. Mine are the most blue-grey. The stronger blue comes from MyMike.

We had photo shoots at two locations. This is a museum five minutes from our home. Kelly and I loved the red barn in the background and talked about it being a good place for photos ahead of time. I think this may be the photo I get enlarged and put up in my home. I'm still thinking about it. 

So fun to have just the kids pictured together. They are my joy and I love seeing them happy and  playing together. They were cracking each other up so much, trying to stay warm and just keeping things light. I have to laugh at how three of them are all within a couple of inches of each other, and Bigbuddy has to stoop way down just to be in their same height range. Littlebuddy is eager to catch up.  

This is my other favorite photo, taken in our backyard. The way Kelly edited this and just the overall feel of the photo makes me happy. We've never had full body poses and yet I like it. Its us, blue jeans, casual, and together. I'm still back and forth as to which photo gets blown up and earns a spot on my wall. Of course, I'll have lots of fun scrapbooking all of these still. So happy for choices!

 Little Buddy. Love his smile and handsome ruggedness. His braces have green and red bands for the Christmas holidays. He's a fun 12 year old and we do love that he smiles regularly. Its a treasure to have these moments in their lives caught on film. He won't have braces forever. He'll be shaving in a few short years. So much changes as they go through growth spurts. It will be interesting to see how much he's changed when we do this again in a couple of years when Bigbuddy gets home.

 MyGirl had the model poses down for this photo shoot. It helped that Kelly is her Young Women advisor at church, so she's comfortable with her. We loved this scarf on her and her subtle make-up, bringing out her features. She doesn't like to get her picture taken very often so these are treasures to me. I know that she is a beautiful girl and I only wish she could see it more in herself. Its hard to be a teenage girl but we do love her so much and pray for her happiness always.

Last but not least, BigBuddy. He was the only one whose shirt was short sleeved, so I was glad he had a black sweater too that worked great for these pictures. It was cold that day, in the low 40's and overcast and it was a little windy at times too and he was the only one who wasn't grabbing for the blankets we'd throw on the ground between takes. He was so excited this day to be leaving for his mission the next day.  He is such a genuine person, not a performer, and giving huge smiles on demand, not natural for him, but we do see them in real life, so I was glad she was able to pull that out of him. All pictures of him are treasures too. We hear from him every week. He's learning Portuguese and really enjoying being there.