lexi | 1st year

This cutie-pa-tutie turned ONE in July. Unbelievable how fast they grow up. Her Momma is the queen of free cool "junk". She is constantly finding treasures that people are tossing out, including the brown & yellow gold chair seen in some of these shots. When I showed up at their place that night Lexi's mom said, "Well, what do you think...where would you like to start?" I immediately grabbed the old rocker that was sitting outside in the front lawn and said "With this...I love it...I'm using it!" They are some of my favs!

I then spied the culvert down by the field we were playing in and wanted to try it out. To some you might be thinking "Um, are you sure?!" And yes, I'm a little crazy at times, but I think it worked out awesome. I love the mixture of texture, color tones, and lighting. And Lexi's Daddy actually was surprised how much he loved them too. Thumbs up for me for not just being a crazy lady :)

No kitties were harmed in the making of this photoshoot! I tried to get ALL her kitties together for a group picture but they didn't all cooperate at the same time.

Happy 1st Birthday Alexis! {a little late}.  Stay tuned for her Mom & Dad's wedding coming this October 1st! I'm super, super excited :)

Hugs,
Em

logan | 1st year

Hard to believe this little man was born a little over a year ago! Time sure flies. Before we know it all of our kids will be grown and graduating high school, getting married, and having babies of their own. Ugh...the thought...so sad to think how fast it goes but now's the time to squeeze them tight and love them to pieces. I'm sure Logan is no different and gets lots of kisses from his Momma daily.

I actually met my husband through Logan's daddy. In attempts to make a long story short (not usually possible for me), I was just 16 and was attending the Viroqua Wild West Days with some cousins of mine. Justin (my husband) was friends with Will (Logan's dad) who's sister Elly was friends with my cousins and was planning on meeting up with my cousins at the festival. Confused yet? Anyway, everybody was checking out all the cowboys there except me. I was checking out everyone else. Then it happened....the cutest guy I had ever laid eyes on came walking across the field. I instantly went giddy and swelled up with nervousness when he sat just two seats down from me. I'm pretty sure I stared at him for what seemed like forever with googly puppy dog eyes. I remember nudging one of my cousins and saying "Lacey...oh my...cute guy alert two people down. And he's talking to Angie!" She's like "Um, that's Justin...the one I was telling you about that was meeting us here today." And that was it. It was love at first sight. Pathetic, I know but I was inseparable ever since. I'm pretty sure I followed him around all weekend thinking he probably thought I was a crazy stalker but I found out a few months later he secretly liked it and the rest is history :)

The day we took Logan's photos was sooooo blazing hot it wasn't even funny. I had to let my camera sit outside for about 10 minutes just to adjust to the temperature difference between the house and outdoors. I'm pretty sure there was about a 40 degree difference. But, for it being as hot as it was Logan was such a good trooper for pictures and we were able to get a lot of cute ones.

This fly really liked him! I actually photoshopped it out of his hair in a bunch of pictures, but this one was too cute so I had to leave it on with his facial expression.

Kristine was more worried about Will cooperating than she was about Logan for pictures. Will is not the biggest picture fan....as most guys aren't...but Will did really good so no complaints from me!  High five to Will :)

 I seriously love this one. I see big giant canvas wrap!

 Or this one...

And finally to end the night: cake smash! Although Logan wasn't much into the cake or the smashing of it. And it was getting pretty dark by this time so my natural light was fading. The cake must have overwhelmed him. For his birthday party he just had a single cupcake and he must have thought it was more his size and dug right into that one.

Happy 1st Birthday Logan!

Hugs,
Em