Family Photo Shoot

I'd always thought it would be nice to have a professional photo shoot of Jesse, Riley and I, but could never justify it... or talk my husband into it (he dislikes having his picture taken). When my mother in law Suzie's, birthday came around this past spring I suggested to Jesse that we do one for the larger family when everyone is in town. He struggles with finding gifts for his mom and knows how much she's always trying to capture pictures of her grand-kids so he was totally on board with this. 

I put out feelers at work for good photographers and was bombarded with responses. My work has an internal classifieds system (sort of like Craigslist) and I put my request on there. The recommendations started coming in and the next couple months I spent sorting through all these photographers to find the best fit. I think I succeeded with KME Photography. Kirsten was awesome and captured so many great pictures which I'll let speak for themselves...

I never put headbands or big bows in Riley's hair so I thought she'd be ripping this out, but she was totally cool with it. 

Just this past week or two Riley has really gotten into pretending to be a ballerina. Here we suggested she dance like one. She, of course, puts her own swing to it.

Pictures were taken at West Medicine Lake Park. It was a perfect spot with a lot of great settings. I LOVE this bridge in the background.

Ha! A little family fun. Kirsten did a great job of letting us do some fun stuff. Let's just say there were a lot of silly face photos - a favorite of Riley's. And check out Susee above really getting into this 'play fighting'.

I had a couple of super cute dresses picked out for Riley, but due to bug bite (welts) on her legs we went with pants. I wasn't too upset about it since she rocks this outfit.

Girlfriend was just told to sit on the ground. She rocked this pose all on her own with little direction. I was proud of how well she did. And, of course, the boys were superstars as well.

The photo shoot was worth it for this photo alone. What a ham.

Oh my gosh. I love this kid and all her goofiness and sweetness. I totally lucked out with her.

See? Silly faces everywhere.

Totally not posed. Kid really wanted to climb this tree.

In case you were wondering - the lower right picture is the most realistic one of these brothers. Love the expressions. I can just hear Jesse saying "what?"

There were so many great pictures I had a hard time narrowing down to showing just these. I love, love, love how they turned out and would totally work with Kirsten again. Now the hard part of deciding which to print onto canvases. I can't do them all, can I?