I’ve been so very blessed in the past year to have some really neat personal accomplishments in the photography world, and I wanted to take a very brief moment to share those with you!  Getting my work published is always a thrill, but I really love it for my clients too!  Who knows, YOU could be the next LHP senior to have your face printed in the pages of a magazine!

Last April I was so excited to have been published in print for the first time!  I wrote an article and supplied accompanying images to the fabulous magazine Lemonade & Lenses.  I cannot express to you how thrilling it was to open up the magazine to see some of my lovely seniors printed on the pages!

One of the most well-respected design companies out there, Design Aglow, contacted me in the spring about supplying some senior images to be used in their new senior album design.  Of course, I was so honored and now you can see Kent pictured above in their sample album images!

You can imagine how incredibly excited I was when Lemonade & Lenses selected two images of my senior client Kent to be published in their “Just One of the Guys” article of their June senior’s issue.

I was very fortunate to have two images selected as Honorable Mentions for Senior Style Guide’s weekly Senior Stunner contest this fall.  Both of these beautiful girls were printed in Issue 3 of their magazine, congrats Alicia and Lena!

Submitting your work to be featured is always nerve-wracking, so I was so happy that the lovely Audrey’s session was accepted and featured on the Lemonade & Lenses blog this fall!

This awesome collaborative session with Vanessa of Butterfly Sparks was published in Inspire Magazine’s first senior portrait issue just this month!   My baby sister is still one of my favorite subjects, and I was thrilled to see her beautiful face published amidst so many awesome industry talents.

Thanks for letting me brag a little on myself and my amazing clients!  Hint, hint, I already know I’ll have some more neat things to post about soon, so stay tuned!

I so enjoyed spending time with this precious family, I truly feel incredibly honored that they chose me to capture this very special time for them!  We photographed their maternity session back in November on an absolutely perfect day in a lovely fall location, and I’m in LOVE with these images.  Great lighting, great outfits, great couple – what more could you ask for?!?  Then Alexis Camille arrived in January, and we had our session on a much more frigid day – luckily we got to stay indoors this time!  She is absolutely beautiful and just has the most feminine petite little features.  As you can see, Mom and Dad are just smitten.  She is truly one blessed little girl!  This family has a lot of really cool rustic decor, and it was really fun to add those elements to both their maternity and newborn sessions as well.  Congrats again Mom and Dad!

We had our annual little mini family shoot for my parent’s Valentine’s Day card, and it was just surreal to see all of these grandbabies really starting to add up. Just as my parents absolutely lived for my sisters and I growing up (and still do), they are just as devoted to their growing numbers of grandchildren.  All girls of course, one of these days someone is going to have a boy and none of us will know what to do!  It’s amazing to see families grow in this way, and I pray each and every day that our own little family enjoys the same love and longevity over the years.  Love you Mom and Dad!

I’m trying to make it a point this year to take the time to photograph my girls doing everyday things. I know I don’t have the time or energy for a 365 project, but picking activities here and there to photograph I can do.  These girls LOVE their baths, they could play in there forever.  They love each other too, which just melts my heart. Since all of this love is in the air, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Merry Christmas from Emory and Finley!  I actually shot these on Christmas Eve day, testing out the natural light in our new home and my new rug.  As usual, my girls were fairly unwilling subjects (Finley was a little under the weather in her defense), but I ended up with a handful of images that I just love – the bottom right in particular.  Because that sums up our experience.  Emory LOVED wearing her “princess dress” so she was hamming it up for me.  My babies are getting so big so fast!  I can’t believe that Finley will be 2 in a few months and Emory will be 5 just a few months later.  Love them!

I’m so lucky to be the oldest of 4 girls, because I’m thinking that even though I may not have any more babies of my own to photograph, I will have LOTS of nieces and nephews to practice on.  So far only nieces, and this is number 2!  This little nugget came the week after Thanksgiving and she added so much joy to our family’s holidays!  I LOVE snuggling her, she is so sweet! Big sis Cadence is catching on too, and Finley and Emory are both enamored with her.  Welcome to our family Braelyn Dawn – good job Jordan and Shawn!

Well, if there is one thing I’ve learned from attempting to photograph my own two munchkins in the last few months, it’s that I should probably stick to seniors and newborns.  Oh my goodness, these three images were the result of TWO separate attempts to get Christmas card pictures of these two crazy kids.  They may be a handful sometimes and incredibly frustrating to photograph, but those few brief smiles were so worth it.  Love them to the moon and back!

This gorgeous gal is my 2013 Senior Model from J.J. Pearce High School – lucky me!  Sarah is so sweet – I remember back at her model shoot last year she seemed genuinely shocked at how drop-dead beautiful her images were.  Love that humble heart!  We went with a more urban look for her senior portrait session, and I LOVE how everything came together.  This girl has a KILLER sense of style, and her choices were absolutely perfect for our location.  The image of her laying down in the leaves just below also won Senior Style Guide’s Senior Stunner contest and will be published in print in the next issue!  Yay Sarah!  This just goes to show, when your photographer asks you to lay down on a busy city sidewalk and throws leaves on you, it IS best to just trust her.   Sarah is a varsity cheerleader and is also involved in Young Life. Sarah, thank you so much for trusting me with your senior portraits this year, I enjoyed every minute of having you in front of my camera, and hanging out behind it!

Getting to actually shoot Lauren’s session was a huge relief – after scheduling conflicts and then a rain-out weekend, we finally got together on an absolutely beautiful November day, and it was well worth the wait!  Planning Lauren’s session was so much fun.  Since she is SO laid back and was really up for anything, I kind of got to take some ideas and run with them. Lauren and her mom did a great job picking out her outfits (um, hello turquoise heels!) and we had a fabulous time hitting some of my favorite spots all over McKinney.  It was wonderful having my super-talented makeup artist Amanda on hand during the shoot as well – not only can it be really helpful to have a makeup artist with us, but who doesn’t want their own entourage, right?!?  Lauren was a little shy and quiet in our previous meetings, so it was extra fun to see her really come out of her shell once we started shooting.  And she has the most gorgeous hair, it seriously looked perfect from start to finish.  Thank you so much for letting me hang with you Lauren, it was an absolute blast!

Alicia is one of my 2013 Senior Models, and I’m SO lucky that I’ve had the opportunity to spend an extended amount of time with her.  By the time we got to her actual senior portrait session, I knew I would be in for a treat!  Alicia is not only gorgeous but she has such a fun personality and a silly sense of humor, I just love hanging with this girl.  Unless of course we are at her house, one of her cats likes to mess with me – climbing in my sample bag, playing with my iPad, jumping into chairs and scaring the daylights out of me – he is ridiculous. She brought some awesome outfits that were a perfect fit for our country/outdoorsy location, and we had a beautiful (although windy) day to work with too.  Luckily makeup artist Donna did a wonderful job on her hair and makeup and she looked fabulous from start to finish.  Alicia’s beautiful black and white image below was even an Honorable Mention in Senior Style Guide’s Senior Stunner Contest!  Alicia is a swimmer at Plano Senior High and also a member of NCL and an avid volunteer, so she certainly stays busy!  Thank you so much Alicia for being a part of the LHP Model team this year, it’s been an absolute pleasure working with you!