Gabe is sure to be a lady killer with those beautiful blue eyes

What a beautiful home!

For a beautiful family

Gabe loves to look at mom and dad’s wedding photos.

Happy Birthday, Gabe.  Have a great time on your way to 2!

You can really see the extent of the black hair in these next two.

Courtney is so beautiful.  I can’t believe she had a baby just a week before this photo was taken.  She looks great!

Welcome Aksel!  And congratulations to Courtney and Bjorn!

Each year, the Winter family makes a fantastic photo calendar.  I’ve been lucky to have my photos featured for a few years now in the calendar so I hope I get the cover next year with Miss December, Mairi Winter.  If not, I’m sure that Mairi is loved enough that she would get her own calendar.

Mairi’s nursery

Eric would like to see that Hokie bird in the background.  Catriona would not.

Such a big yawn!

Catriona’s mom made this super cool hat!

Congratulations, Eric and Catriona!  And welcome to the world, Mairi!

Kenny is learning how to walk.  Appropriately, he is sporting his “zombie walk” just before Halloween.  

Getting some help from mom and dad.

Here we are at the George Westinghouse monument.

A near miss–Kenny coming right for my lens!  Kat was protecting me (and my equipment) from little hands, but I was quick on my feet too.

With his beautiful mom, Kat.

Our final stop was in the outdoor garden at Phipps.  Kenny chased his shadow for a bit.  Adorable!

Thanks, Kat and Kenny for letting me capture some memories for you.

I arrived at their house last week as Mike was getting home from work.  In all of the rush to get changed, ready, and out the door to our family photo shoot at Mellon Park, Laine thought that I was the babysitter.  Well, I wasn’t popular for a few moments, but then she was all smiles when she realized that we were all going to play together.

Mellon Park.

I like Mellon Park for kids because it is a very beautiful place with a limited number of distractions (read: playground equipment), however, the fountain is very appealing.

Peek-a-boo with mom.

Oh, that fountain.

Jennie and Mike, thanks for letting me capture this special time in Laine’s life!

She’s got 10 fingers and 10 toes…though this looks like just four toes on the right foot, she really does have five.

She is so little.  At 5 lb, 0 oz, I think I had a bigger breakfast than that.

Mark and Nina

Nina with her absolutely beautiful mom, Laura.  Laura and I have been great friends for, well, more than half of our lives.  I love her so much.  And now I love Nina too.

Congratulations, Laura and Mark!  Thanks for letting me be a part of Nina’s life.

Laine’s mom, Jennifer, was asking our neighbors if they knew any photographers, and thankfully, my name came up.  Since I was outside sitting on my porch, she came over and introduced herself.  (Man, I really love this neighborhood)

Here are some of my favorites from our shoot last weekend.  From inside of their home right after nap time.

We set up this family portrait where Laine and Mom were having a good time making faces.

As always, leaves directly into the mouth.  I love that little tongue.

Laine has a dog at home, Louie, but this one is a new friend.  He was a friendly visitor, but I thought it was absurd looking and hilarious.

Mike with Laine.

Thanks for spending the afternoon with us!

Nicki was nice enough to come with me to organize the large group.  After we were done shooting the portraits, we got to take a few photos of that adorable 4th generation, Kayla and Leslie.

At first it was hard to get their attention due to the presence of grapes.

But toys will fix that.  Photo by Nicki.

My favorite photo by Nicki.

As it sometimes happens, I was all packed up and ready to go when Leslie started playing on the stairs.  So cute!

More shoots coming soon.  Now that it’s April, people are starting to feel like being photographed again.  Good news for me!

Ryan and I traveled to Minnesota for the holidays with plans to leave on 12/27.  Surely we would see this baby by then.  But, No.  The baby had other plans.  Ben Voss arrived on 12/27 at 7:10am. Ryan and I are staying a few more days here in this frozen state.  We met Ben when he was just 11 hours old.

Chris and Ben.

A new family.

A healthy baby boy weighing 6 lbs, 12 oz.

Life is hard when breathing is a new concept.

Ana and Ben.

Aunt Randi (crazy, huh?)  with Ben.

This baby has some long toes.  I can definitely appreciate it since I’ve heard I was the same in the toe dept.

Grandma Voss, Ben, and Ana.

Ryan and I visited again in the hospital on 12/28, Ben being just 30 hours old.  This time, it was daylight so I was spoiled with some natural light.

Ben just opened his eyes, so I took about a million pictures trying to catch it.

Chris’ hand on Ben’s head.  Love this photo.

His eyes are opened a bit, and the tongue hanging out.

Happy mom in the background.

Finally, eyes open!  Ben’s eyes are blue and he has a TON of hair.

And sleepy

Ben and Ana.  I really like the squished face in the photo on the right.

Ben had his eyes open for a long time.  I think I took about 90 photos of the eyes open, just enough.

This is one of my favorites of Ben and Chris.  Chris telling Ben “remember that one time we went to that park?  Remember that one time we went ice fishing?  Remember that one time you rode [our dog] Wilma like an elephant?”

I’m so happy to have such a healthy nephew.  Congratulations, Chris and Ana!

Reading

These are my favorites from the day.  So simple and cool.

Happy little family!

Silas lives on the Southside with an incredible view of Pittsburgh (and Oakland too!)

That wind blowing in their hair.

Silas loves to play on the bed. 

Here he is a tiger!

We beat the rain and spent some more time at Schenley Park for part two of the session.

Dad throwing some leaves.

Silas with mom, probably checking out dad being goofy.

Nice to meet you, Silas!  Happy 1st!

Cole and beautiful mom, Jennifer.

The escape!

Cole LOVES to play in the driver’s seat of the car.

I think he could have spent hours in there.

See you next time, Cole!

Kathaleen with baby Kenny and their dog Max hamming it up. Max thinks he is human.

Kathaleen tried to put on this outfit sized for children “0 to 3 months.” I don’t think he’ll grow into them in 30 days.

Dad Ken is a musician, and so cool are these photos on the guitar.  I asked if they could put baby on the guitar.  It was cool and not like the 7lb baby could harm the guitar.  These photos on the guitar are definitely a highlight for Dad.  You know I love the reflection.

Seriously the first time baby Kenny ever played the guitar is right here-October 29, 2009.

I call this “endzone dance.”

Tiny feet

Maybe we can wish Kenny an actual Happy BirthDAY as today is the day he was supposed to be born.  Congratulations, Ken and Kathaleen!

Unofficial, official babysitter, Mary (bottom right) organized this shot and let me know that I should take a photo.  These kids were wearing Halloween makeup and crazy colored hair.

My new neighbor, Hadley.  She may or may not have chalk on her lips.

Hadley with her brother, Kenton, in the background.  Hadley’s mom, Tiffany is yelling “yucky, yucky” to stop Hadley from eating the chalk.

Diving into the leaves (the pile had decreased significantly in size, but nobody was hurt…today).

Another photo setup by Mary.

Dogpile!

And this is a oil pastel piece by one of my neighbors, HS senior Maddi Mclaughlin.  Awesome colors, better in person, of course.

Cousins!  So cute with those little blue eyes.

Brothers Brian and Jake.  Climbing a tree, of course.

Their dad, Mike is an officer in South Park, and he rides horses as part of his job.  We visited the horses in the unique round barn.  These kids LOVE the horses.

Patty and her beautiful mom, Katie.

Kaylee and Jake visit “Old Henry.”  This is hilarious to me.

Brian gets a kiss from Old Henry

And then Kaylee

I had a really great time on this shoot and was so happy that we got to visit the horses.  I think the kids love it too!

Here are my top 3 of the kids.