I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it once more, raising kids without your mom close is rough. Sometimes it feels impossible. Especially when you’ve got a photoshoot scheduled and your husband drops a last minute bomb on you that he can’t leave work early. If you have your mom close by, it’s no problem! You call her up and beg her to come over and you’re off on your merry way, maybe even stopping at the store after to, I don’t know, get some food for dinner since you haven’t had a minute to go to the grocery store in over two weeks. But when your mom is six hours away and willing to help but can’t because of the commute, it’s totally frustrating. And I’ve tried to convince her to no avail that Facetime babysitting is totally OK! But since I don’t have her here, I feel super lucky to have such supportive friends who don’t even bat an eyelash when you call them and ask to watch your almost-fully walking son in addition to her newly walking daughter for a few hours after she’s worked a full day herself. And even better, opens up a bottle of wine for you when you are done. Becky, I can’t thank you enough for making this shot possible–because it happens to be one of my favorites!

Amy got in touch with me a few weeks back to schedule a photo session for her little daughter Vivian. We were trying to figure out where to hold the session and nothing felt 100% right but we put the venue on the back burner and picked a date. A few weeks ago I was visiting my friend Becky (the life-saver, last minute babysitter I just told you about) and I noticed the most gorgeous garden right outside her house and immediately thought of little Viv.  Her mom loved the location idea and we luckily got the prettiest night-and also most hot and humid, which only seemed to present a problem for my stinky self since Amy, Vivian, and her hubs, Justin didn’t even break a sweat. They could possibly win the award for most beautiful family, but more importantly, they were so so so nice. And Viv was seriously one of the easiest one year olds I’ve worked with to date. Blond pigtails, a cute little dress, and not yet fast enough to outrun me. Mix that with a big gummy grin and I could just squeeze these pictures because Vivian was just so cute!

See!  You can’t even tell it was 186 degrees out!  How do they do it?







These little piggies went to the garden.








I love how Viv is pushing her parents out of the way here. Looks like she is ready to take the world by storm.


Amy, Justin, you guys were awesome. Thanks for inviting me into your lives for the night. Little Miss Vivian is just the most adorable. Happy Birthday, peanut!