Not so Terrible Two's... yet

If any of you know me, you know my ultimate obsession is my baby, well not so much a baby any more; I adore taking pictures of my son. My PC probably has well over 2500 pictures of my son Julian alone, from the moment he was born until now. Julez turned 2 a few days ago, and trust me I don't need any excuse to take pictures of him but I took these for his birthday party invitation.
hope you like...

It was so hard to pick the actual picture for the card, in the end we decided on this one. Although if you ask me now, I wish I wouldn't of chosen this one. My top choice was the b&w photo. 

Dear Julian,

You might not realize today how much we love you. Since the day you were born, you continue to amaze me. Because of you I am a better person and a great mother. If there is nothing I do right in this world, my promise to you is that you are the only thing I do right 100% of the time. My wish for you is that you continue to grow up with the values and morals we instill in you while having fun and enjoying being a kid! I love watching you grow up and I love you so very much my “juju”

Love,

Mommy

Hand's Full

I have wanted to do something really fun with children lately and when the opportunity arose to shoot the Saoy family I knew I had to put the spotlight on these awesome kids!

Kristella is a young mom of 4, who manages her busy life better than moms twice her age. She is a full time momma and works full time; with her busy schedule she hasn’t had the chance to take family portraits until now.

Allow me to introduce you to the Saoy Family

The star of the show was defiantly Samaya, Kristella’s daughter. Being the only girl in a house full of boys, it was only natural for Samaya to shine a little brighter today.

I had such a blast shooting this fun loving bunch.  Thank you Kristella for allowing me to capture these memories!

Lifestyle: Love, family, & Pride

Being a former Navy Wife, a piece of me was a tab bit jealous when I didn’t think to capture the essence of my husband in his uniform, like I did here in this shoot. If it wasn’t for me, my husband would have thrown away all his uniforms when he retired from the Navy.

Let me introduce you to     Erick and Sharena!

(PLEASE NOTICE THE SHOOTING STAR. THERE WAS AN ANGEL SMILING DOWN AT MOM AND DAD AT THAT MOMENT).

I absolutely fell in love with this family! I couldn’t wait to shoot Erick and Sharena. I just knew I wanted to capture the story of their love. Sharena and Erick have been married over 15 years and the military have been a huge part of their story. During the course of their marriage, Erick has been deployed over 6 times with each deployment lasting between 6 to 12 months long. Currently, he is underway for another 12 months. Needless to say, these two where well over-due to update their picture frames.

Their story goes beyond the military. They are parents to 3 beautiful daughters and grandparents to a handsome baby boy. This post is a definite “to be continued”. Unfortunately, due to Erick’s schedule we were unable to get the whole family in these shots. Stay tuned for part two…

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My main focus was to tell a story and show you the immense love these two share, not only for each other but for their family and country as well.

… And when it comes to love, no one loves this hero more than Erick and Sharena’s youngest.

Thank you Hawthorne family for letting me be a small part of your story!

Couples: Class Superlatives

Class Superlatives

If I gave out superlatives for my friends (which I did, btw) these two, would hands down be “cutest couple” / “couple of the year”
Let me introduce you to Richie and Pi’ilani (“PE”)

After weeks of talking about how nice it would be to have semi-professional photos we finally set a date to take shots for their annual Christmas card. I had such a blast shooting this loving couple and the final product turned out awesome!
Being that PE is native Hawaiian she wanted to stray far away from the typical Beach photos and opted for a more fall inspired shoot. I enjoyed spending over 3 hours together with them in what seemed to be extra cold Saturday in Virginia Beach. We had so much fun and I couldn’t have asked better models/friends.

These two couldn’t take a bad picture even if they tried. I can’t wait for PE and Richie to grow their family. They’ve already booked me for all their family milestones! I love you guys

My intro

Well hello there …
This blog is dedicated to my adventures as an amateur (hence my tagline). Amateur in all sorts of lovely titles as you will come to find out.
 On my free time I love capturing lifestyle photos. You will soon see that my main passion is Photography. The main focus in this blog will be to take you along behind the scenes and share the smiles, laughs, and memories I make with my clients.
I work full time and I am a full time Mommy, those two things along with the other occupants of my life take up the majority of my time, but during my free time I like to consider myself an enthusiast of all things fun and whimsical. I would dare to say girly but these days I find myself making monster cupcakes and wishing I was making princess ones too (maybe one day)

Being a Mom has ignited a fire in me to work even harder and to be the best mom I can be (DON’T US ALL). Sometimes that means epic fails or great success (80% fail 20% success lol) in exploring my creatively in the kitchen to my hot glue gun obsession. I usually love to document these endeavors (follow me on InstaGram)

love Rie`