Kid Jam is this Saturday, May 22nd.

Every year my church – West Hills Church – puts on a carnival for the kids in the area. It’s free, and it’s a lot of fun, with games, face painting, Bible stories, and puppet shows. And of course, some good food.

Last year I started a new tradition, I set up a photo-booth for the kids to come and get their photos taken, and receive a free 4×6. Donations were of course accepted. I will of course be there this Saturday. Sarah will be helping me out this time, and it’s gonna be a ton of fun! Make sure you stop by, and say hi, and get a free photo.

Meet Eli.

Eli is my little cousin Gillian’s brand new baby. Born on the Ides of March, at almost 10 pounds. He’s huge. Which isn’t surprising to me; his dad, Ricky, is over 6 feet tall. The other reason that I knew Eli was going to be large was because EVERY time that Gillian had anything removed from her medically; Teeth, Tonsils, etc….  The doctors looked at her and said, “Those are the biggest (fill in the blank)s I’ve ever removed.” So you can imagine the anxiety of giving birth to a baby that, in all likelihood, would follow suit.

Either way, Eli is now here, and a party of our big, happy, weird family. And seriously the cutest newborn that I’ve ever seen. Gillian brought him over for his 1 month portraits, and they turned out great. Check them out below:

Don’t forget to leave a comment!

I, for some reason, enjoy traveling. I’m not just talking about traveling to some foreign country, or even visiting family. I’m talking about sitting on airplanes, waiting for hours or even sleeping in airports, traveling by train, or even by car or ship. I can’t explain it, but I have always enjoyed it. Sarah and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon. The part I enjoyed most? It wasn’t walking up to the top of Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica, or the Tequila factory in México. It was our days at sea, going to our destinations.

This weekend was no exception, Sarah and I flew up to Arlington Heights(Chicago Area), Illinois, along with Sarah’s mom, to visit Ryan, Jenny(Sarah’s Sister), and Tanner(Our nephew). We were supposed to go to Chicago a month ago for Tanner’s 2nd birthday, but a ton of stuff got in the way, and we had to postpone our flight to this last weekend. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Chicago decided to get to 20˚F and snow 12 inches the very day that we were supposed to go. I always have a can-do attitude, so I said to the family, “let’s go anyway.” My reasoning was that if our flight was cancelled, we would be stuck in our layover city(Phoenix) and my mom could pick us up and drop us off the next day. Well, we somehow got all the way to Chicago with no problems at all. and were able to spend the whole weekend there with no delays or problems!

Tanner is one of my favorite subjects to photograph. I know, I’m probably a little biased, but I just think he’s the cutest thing ever. He recently started talking A LOT… and he LOVES Elmo and chocolate. He’s always asking for chocolate(shoclate) milk.

So here are the photos from this last weekend. There were so many  great photos that I had to narrow it down to my favorites.

I met Ava’s mom Victoria through a friend of mine. That’s how i do most of my work after all, through referrals. But Ava had never been to the beach before, even though they live less than 20 miles away. Victoria wanted to take Ava to the beach and get some great portraits while there. We went in the late summer and I’m just now getting around to posting this. Since the shoot, Victoria purchased a couple Canvas Gallery Wrapped wall portraits.

Here are the photos we got:

I had a mini photo-shoot session with a few other families a couple months ago at the beach. It was a beautiful day, we got some great shots, but Kaden wasn’t having a very good day. From the start he somehow got sand in his mouth and eyes, and was really fussy, and tired. I tried to get the best photos possible, but sometimes those just don’t turn out like they should. Especially when the main subject is bright red and crying.

I of course gave Kaden a second chance to get some great shots. We went to a different beach this time. We went to the beach right across from the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, about 5 miles north of Santa Monica. I love this style of shoot, and I love shooting babies. Since they are so young, I don’t try too hard to get them to look at the camera and smile. I don’t believe portraits need a “say cheese!” face. I much prefer to take photos of the child in his natural state of wonderment, fussiness, or boredom. If I get a laugh, or a big smile, that’s ok too. But my favorite shots are never the ones with the smiles, but I do love those as well.

We found this awesome set of posts sticking out of the ground at the beach. kaden isn’t exactly old enough to stand up on his own, but he’s great at holding onto things and holding himself up. So we got a few shots of those, and also some shots with him standing and sitting on rocks(with the help of his abuelo.)

Here are the photos: Enjoy!