So Handsome!

After posting so many pictures of other people and their kids, I thought it was about time to post some of my own boy. It's been a while since we've seen much of him on the ol' blog. I've been taking him with me on most of my photo shoots to help with holding scrims, fetching stuff out of the car and getting little kids to laugh. He's a handy guy to have around.

The other night, I took him to Josh and Marla's session and was thinking how handsome he looked, so I took a few of him while we were at it. I'd just cut his hair the night before and he had on a clean shirt - sometimes you just gotta seize the day, strike while the iron is hot, a bird in the hand.... well, you get the picture.

Anyhoo, I'm so glad I took these because they turned out nice and I hardly have any good pictures of him. He's usually not cooperative like his sister. Heck, lets face it, NO ONE on the planet is as happy to get her pictures taken as his sister.

I'm not only glad to have some nice recent pics of him, but it makes my day to show him one of the photos and go, "Look son, aren't you soooo handsome!" He gets so embarrassed, it's so cute.
In fact, this is a little like the face I get when I say it:

(The colors are off on these photos when I pull them into blogger for some reason today. I have two windows open next to each other - Photoshop and this one - and they don't look the same at all. These are too gray or something. Weird. Help? Nan? Anyone?)

Anyway, I told him today that when I was pregnant with him and I went in for my ultrasound, the technician asked me what I wanted and I said a boy with a cleft in his chin and we laughed about trying to see one on the ultrasound picture. But that's exactly what I got.

Jaxon told me today that he didn't like his cleft chin, which I'd never heard him say before, and I told him that it was his movie star chin. It's also one of the things that I love best about his dad's face - only Dad's is deeper, my genes must have diluted it some.


I sure love this handsome boy -- the nice thing is, he's a good boy too.

Jennings Family continued....

I promised more pictures of Marla and her cute family and here they are. Marla is really well known around here, not only because she grew up here, but because her family owns the only local grocery store and Marla is there everyday. She probably knows absolutely everyone in our little community. If they shop for food, that is.

Everyday she wears her hair up in a bun and you wouldn't believe how many people and have come up to me and told me that they never knew Marla had so much hair until they saw it on my blog. I think that's funny.

Marla is a fellow horse lover, so we talk horses in the store all the time. Her husband, Josh, is a Calf Roper and has enough BIG trophy buckles for the whole family.

Bet you've never seen a sweet little baby girl in a giant belt buckle before.

Cute family, huh.

Little Miss Jane thought Dad was too prickly to kiss.

We hung around a run down old barn and we all felt right at home.

And the light was just so pretty in Marla's hair.

Thanks, guys, for letting me take your pictures, it was so fun!

You gotta see this HAIR!

Had a way fun session with my friend Marla and her family tonight. Don't have time for a whole post - more tomorrow - but wanted to hurry and put this one up because it's so fun.

Marla normally keeps her hair up in a knot most days, like I do, so it was fun to get to photograph her fantastically glorious hair. Oh, and her beautiful child, of course. ;)

Red Rocks - White Sands

We live in a beautiful place, centrally located between Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon. We're high enough not to be africa-hot like Vegas or St. George and we have 4 distinct and lovely seasons. Our little town has a population of about 550 people and we live at the edge of town next to a "wash" which runs right through the edge of our property. If we follow the wash up and out of town we end up in a wonderful little canyon. It's great for horseback riding, hiking and playing in the sand. What I really love about it is the beauty and diversity. Please bear with me - LOTS of pictures ahead, a walking tour of our private little un-national park.

Our favorite place to go, is a place called, um, White Sands, which is only a few minutes walk from our house. It's a hillside of, ah, white sand, that goes straight up so it's like a natural slide with sandstone cliffs and a soft place to land at the bottom. It's where we roll eggs every Easter.

And the kids love to climb to the top. (Can anyone else hear the Rocky theme in the background?)


They also love to bury each other in the sand.


It's almost like a private beach. We're really only missing one little thing. But that's okay, it's still fun.


It was such a pretty day, a little cool, but the clouds had a silver lining....

And continuing on up the canyon from White Sands, it looks like this:

and this...


Not bad, huh.

I love that we have desert plants alongside high mountain kinds of plants. And because it's fall, everything is colorful and unexpected and different from the thing next to it. As I look through the eye of my lens, every little detail is beautiful to me.



I don't even know why, but for some reason , I LOVE Ponderosa Pines. Asymmetrical, majestic, rugged.

...and right next to the high mountain Ponderosa, a little desert Sage.



I don't have any idea what this non-descript little feller is, but I thought he was kinda cute.


And here we are on the way back home again. My baby got cold and Dad donated his sweatshirt. Maybe we should dress him like that all the time, maybe that way he'd stay a baby.


Good times.

This Boy is Getting Baptized

My friend's boy, Robert, is getting baptized soon and she wanted to take a couple of pictures to commemorate the occasion. That's why he's all dressed up and looking so nice. I though it was fun to have a boy in a suit sitting on a raggedy ol' tractor - the contradiction was cool. I thought.


We went to a place where boys find endless things to do - like skipping rocks in a creek.

I just love these golden leaves.

And then we got a few of his pretty sisters too.





And then the three of them together...



Pretty cute bunch, huh.

Daddy's Girl

Our girl is such a daddy's girl, and that's okay with me. I think a girl who loves her daddy and thinks he's the best man in the world is a wonderful thing. She always has loved him, even when she was a nursing baby and preferred Mama, it was only by a little, and Dad could pretty much always make her happy. And he was always involved with her - with all our kids - but he changed, fed and tended them and it brought them closer together.

The kids have had the last couple of days off school for their fall break. Marty took these 2 days off work to spend with the kids and he played soccer and catch with Brynn and also took her on a horse ride, just the two of them.

He told me tonight, "If she had any idea how cute she is, we'd be in real trouble". He told me that when they were playing catch, she put on a ratty old ball cap and she was even cute in that. Awww. So nice that he thinks so.

Today we were playing up in the canyon above our house and Brynn took a minute out of her play to get in a Dad-cuddle on his knee.


These are the moments I want to remember.

* Leaf Baby *

As I was finishing up the editing from that last photo shoot, I felt the urge to post this photo of 7 month old Allison.


During the shoot, I thought it would be so cute to put her down in the leaves, but apparently they weren't all that comfortable. She had been so good for the whole shoot, but she did NOT like those leaves at all. But I love this shot anyway. She's cute even when she's getting ready to holler, "Hey, these leaves suck! Pick me up right now!" (What she really said was, "aaaah!", but we knew what she meant.)

Corry Family Photo Shoot by the Pond - YUM!

My last post was about my friend, Jenna, and included her last year's family pictures. It's fun to look back because her little family has grown a bit and looks quite different now.

Last night we went to a spot that I've been dying to try out - a privately owned pond just a few minutes up the road. And it was gorgeous! The reflection of the trees in the water just about knocked my socks off - I can't stop looking at the photos!

I can't decide which is handsomer - this scenery or this family...


And there were lots of options for scenery and lighting all around the pond.

I LOVE THE LIGHT!

You can't tell that these two might possibly be related in some way...


But he has Mom's eyes....

And this little dolly-pants is turning out to be crazy-photogenic like her Mama -



Poor little kiddo, nobody loves her.

Or him neither...

There are lots more good ones to share, but I wanted to hurry and get a few up before I had to run off to work.

We shot until the light was pretty much gone, but I kept on shooting because the subject matter was so nice, and frankly, I need the practice.



You guys are lookin' good!


Thanks for letting me be your photographer, I've learned a lot in the course of photographing your family. Thanks for bearing with me!