Beautiful Kayleigh

Kayleigh is my long time best friend's "baby" sister.  I met Kayleigh when she was an adorable two year old and barely spoke.  Now she is about to graduate high school.  Craziness.  For some crazy reason, she entrusted me with shooting her senior photos.  I have never done anything like that.  I had this perfect vision of shooting at Matea park during sunset with all this beautiful sunshiney goodness in fields of lovely wildflowers.  As always, it was gloomy, grey, and raining...so we improvised and it turned out better than I could have ever imagined.  I love this set of photos.  Some of my all time favorites shot by me.  She is gorgeous. We had fun.  I had no idea what I was doing or how to pose a solo person, but we went for it and the end results were...well, see for yourself!  (And as always, blogger is messing up my color on a lot of these. Arg!)

And lastly, she had a vision.  I am really bad at implementing other people's ideas.  We gave it a shot on my kitchen floor despite the horrible lighting... She rocked it. :)

Toes

What???

Feeling shocked that my kids look so much alike.  Levi is on the right.  As newborns, I thought they looked nothing alike.  Siblings are weird.  

Play

Beautiful Girl

May she never doubt how beautiful she truly is...

Hi Mommy

Baby Butt

My Papaw

This Grandpa it one of the greatest men I have ever had the privilege to know.  He took such good care of my mom, brother, and I our whole lives.  He loves so strong.  He has alzheimers.  It is terrifying.  I cannot imagine many worse diseases in the world.  It completely changes who you are.  This man is not himself anymore and it breaks my heart.  He has been sick for a while, even before Levi was born.  Though I think I will always hold onto some guilt as he took a big turn for the worse when we moved Levi away to Fort Wayne.  Levi used to light up his whole world. (And still does. :))  He stopped by almost everyday to spend time with him, and would make us walk to the mall with him many days a week.  I miss it and wish I were closer.  I wish he could see the kids everyday and that I could help my mom care for him.

I also miss riding only ten miles an hour through the neighborhood in the back of his grey pick up truck.  I miss him preaching sermons to me, no matter how annoying it was.  I miss trips to get ice cream and go to the library.  I miss making chips with melted cheese in the microwave.  I miss the bike rides.  I miss him always needing to check the oil in my car right when I have to leave.  I miss his silly fake laugh.  I miss the light in his eyes.  I miss the man I used to know. I know he is still there, but he is getting harder and harder to find. It is hard missing someone when they are right there.  I love him, and wish he could get better, but know he won't in this life.  Not until Jesus calls him home.  I wish my kids could know the real him, and how much he loves them...beyond words.  

Go Blue!

Shot last winter on Tri X 400 35mm film.

My Man

My man. He works hard. He loves so much.  I am thankful.

And notice I blew up one of my photos huge (20 by 24!) in the background.  It makes me smile every time I pass.