Laura, JD, and Matchbook Creative

I love finding fun ways to use photos from engagement sessions, and Save-the-Dates are a perfect way to use those fun casual shots. And now our capabilities for this type of thing are limitless due to the awesome guys over at Matchbook Creative who are hooking me (and all of you!) up. I'm so excited about our new partnership and am super pleased with the Save the Date that they designed for Laura and JD.


I love weddings that have a personal touch, so seeing that their reception is going to be in Laura's parents backyard, I'm extra pumped! Brian and Jonathan at Matchbook did a great job of designing this and incorporating their wedding colors to tie it all together.

Matchbook Creative is designing us a whole slew of great options for things like this, wedding invitations, birth announcements, Christmas Cards, etc., etc. Ooooo - I'm so excited just thinking about it all! And they take any custom orders so I have a feeling you guys are going to get to see a lot of great designs from them in the future!

Mike

Happy Easter!

I wanted to post a couple of quick shots of another of my brother-in-laws, Mike! He's in town for his Spring Break and we ran down to Laguna last night to snag a few shots, hang out around town, and get some pizza at BJ's - yum!


Oh, and guess what? I got a new toy!! What do you think?

Fuimos a Mexico!

Si! Es la verdad! Esta fin de semana, fui a Mexico con mi esposo Adam y nuestro amigo Andrew. Que divertido!

Ok, ok - so it's been a while but I think my Spanish is still hanging in there?!?! It definitely got put to the test this weekend when I spent the day in Mexico with Adam and our good friend Andrew. It was my first trip across the border since I've lived in California. What a great day!

We went down with a local church in our area early Saturday for a full day at a local school that was about 45 minutes across the border. Andrew did a great job negotiating through some sticky traffic and questionable road signage. It was amazing to observe the culture difference just a few miles down the road. I was able to grab a couple of shots through the car window.




When I heard about this trip, I was really excited to get on board as it was something that I could really contribute to - they were looking for photographers to take pictures of children who will hopefully be sponsored by American families. Families can choose a child from their photos/profiles and help provide them with shoes, school supplies, and other basic needs. Adam was the foot measurer, Andrew was the scribe, and I took the photos so we made a great team!


I loved meeting each of the children and seeing their precious little personalities. They were all so sweet and grateful. Here are all of the beautiful kids I got to meet! (Be sure to click on the photo to enlarge and see them for real!)




Here are a couple of my favorites. This boy was trying SO hard NOT to smile! I think I won in the end!



This little boy was Adam's favorite - can you guess why?


I keep seeing so many of their little faces in my head and wondering where they will all be in 10, 20 years. Hopefully what we did this weekend will help make a difference in their futures.

Matthew

Well, ladies, as promised . . . I'm back with some more shots of my awesome (and not bad looking) brother-in-law Matthew! I absolutely love shooting sessions with individuals - it's so fun to get to really work with one person and just play and have fun!! So, needless to say, it was such a great afternoon for me AND to top that off, we ended the afternoon with a sushi lunch - it doesn't get much better than that!


Matty's the youngest of his 5 siblings and it's hard to believe that he'll be graduating from high school in just a couple of months. If my calculations are correct, I first met him when he was 6 or 7 - it's been so fun to watch him grow and develop into such a great student, artist, and person over the years. We finally got a chance to do some Senior pictures of him over Christmas when we were in Nashville.


We actually shot these on Christmas Eve which was awesome but FREEZING! Matthew was such a great sport to run all around with us in freezing weather and listen to us California-skinned people gripe about the cold :) I do actually love winter light and the look of cold days. I love this winter sky background:


Our intention was to shoot all around the streets of downtown Nashville, but we ended up spending about 75% of our time in the parking garage that we parked in - I was so inspired when we pulled in!






How cool is this light . . . I was so pumped. What a find!






This is the "I look like I'm 30 and an Abercrombie model (with more clothes)" shot:




Matthew has had such a great senior year that will cap off soon with the lead in the spring musical at his school - he's super talented! We're so excited to see what the next few years hold for him!