Last week I blogged about Will and Ella and mentioned they were soon to be big siblings to a little brother.  Zack made his arrival on June 21st and has spent the summer napping away and swimming every day with the family.  Bailey was lucky to know exactly when Zack was to arrive and we planned accordingly, meaning we had his newborn session scheduled a month in advance!  I arrived at their home not sure what to expect from Will and Ella..I couldn’t wait to see how they were with him!   Would they be jealous?  Would they be protective?  While I’m sure they are both at times, they were only interested in showing me their clean rooms ;)  Zack was content to wait his turn!

I can’t remember for certain, but I think I asked Bailey if she had trouble choosing a name for the newest member of the family.  She told me how when they found out they were  having a boy, one of the twins threw out the name Zack as an option ;)  Bailey left to go to the store later that day and when she returned home, everyone was calling the baby Zack!  How could they have chosen anything else?!

Such a sweet man’s face…and all that dark hair!  I’m sure he is growing like crazy…looking forward to photographing him again next month!

These past few days of cool summer nights is making me swoon for fall.  I say it every year:  I miss my jeans, boots and scarves.  I’m ready for campfires, leaves and leaving my windows open all day and night.  As a photographer, fall is also the busiest time of the year so finding joy in little things is sometimes the only way to stay sane!  I’m also still plugging away on blogging some of my sessions from last fall.  Sad but true.  They’ll be making random appearances here and there and hopefully the warm colors will will make you swoon for cooler nights too…..

Which brings us to Joy and Joel!  Yes, their session was indeed last fall but the timing of this post is anything but random.  Tomorrow, Joy will marry Joel on a warm summer day in her hometown of Paulding, Ohio and I’m so looking forward to spending a perfect day with them.

Joy and Joel, I’ll be seeing you soon!  Wishing you many moons of cool evenings and campfires in the years to come!

There is nothing I don’t love about my sessions with Will and Ella.  I love that they remember me and seem to look forward to my visits.  I love that they sometimes argue about who is going to tell me their latest story first.  I love that when their mom, Bailey, calls me every year to schedule their session she has only one request.  Images of them playing, and being who they are.  These two have so much personality and I always get a kick out of watching the dynamics of their relationship.  Being twins, they share so much on a daily basis.  They are each other’s best friend.  And sometimes, are each other’s worst enemy ;)   I’m sure it gets quite interesting having your greatest ally also being the one who can tell on you, in great detail, to mom and dad!

We shot this session at the farm where they will call their home in the near future.  There is a lot of construction going on inside the house, but the yard was free reign!  Thinking back on all the years I’ve photographed these two, it seems like there is always one who is more eager to be in front of the camera than the other.  And it usually flip flops from year to year on who that is.  This year it was Ella and she reveled in having my undivided attention while she gave me a few of her brilliant smiles!

Ah, yes…the divided household.  The women are Reds fans, while the men love their Cubbies!  At the time of this session, Bailey was still awaiting the arrival of the newest member of the family.  Now that baby Zack is here, time will tell which team he will root for!

My man, Will.  He’s was little more stingy with his real laughs and giggles, but I managed to trick him into a few.  He’s too busy running and being a boy to care about getting his picture taken ;)

I remember being a kid and trying to get away from my brother when he got too close to me too, Will ;)

And time to play….and they wore.me.out.  We started off running down the hill beside the house at FULL SPEED!

…and they kept on running.  Notice Will trying to push Ella to make sure he will win the race ;)

And we ended with rolling down the hill, over and over.  A favorite thing that has been repeated a couple of times now at their sessions.  It makes me dizzy just watching!

And I’ll end with my favorite of them :)  I just love them!  And I’m already looking forward to having Zack in the mix when he’s old enough to keep up!