Last weekend my husband and I took our kids to my beautiful hometown, San Diego California, to celebrate my little boy's birthday at Legoland! While we were there, I squeezed in 2 photo-parties... and no better place to do it than at the beach. I brought my family to Belmont Park to continue the birthday celebration and while we were playing, I sprinkled in a little pleasurable business. What I absolutely loved about the 2 photo-parties were their similarities of the quite opposite families. First up was of my best friend for over 2 decades and her beautiful pre-teen daughter. They were dressed to a tee, absolutely gorgeous, coordinated and Mama was smiling ready to go. Daughter, on the other hand, was NOT in the mood to smile and frankly didn't even want to look at the camera. Most of the photo-party she was in her safe-place, nestled right next to her Mom. And that's ok! It was inspiring to see Mom accept where her daughter was (with great patience and understanding), honor her emotions at the time and just go with the flow. Not pushing, or demanding, but loving her daughter and making the best of their time. Luckily, she warmed up after a few minutes and then there was no stopping that contagious smile.

The next photo-party was with an incredible Mom and her sweet little boy. This was their first time hiring a photographer so I shared with her my recent experience with hiring a photographer for my family and the pressure I felt with outfits, and matching, and smiles and she said something so fabulous... "I started to feel like that and then just let it go. I didn't want to stress about something like that!" um, hello! what a concept ;) So she came with her son in their everyday wear and the beautiful thing about that is these pictures capture Them. Now. It was so perfect! Well, guess what? This sweet little boy all of a sudden became extremely camera shy and he also nestled into his safe-place, not wanting his Mom to put him down, clinging to her as if I was the boogie-gal (I promise peeps, I showered and did my make-up, I don't think I was too repelling). But he was shy, a totally normal thing for most children. So, after "attempting" to break the ice and even making a peace offering with some yummy snacks... our Photo-party began. Precious moments of a boy and his Mom, the love is just radiating from these pictures...

Creative Edit

During our Photo-party, I looked over and saw dozens of Seagulls just hovering over this family who were feeding them. To see birds treading air, in one spot, like a beautiful symphony in harmony with each other was really incredible. And quite frightful for me, because let me tell you, I saw that movie "Birds" and I have never looked at flocks the same since. Well I was lucky enough to be there at that moment, to capture this family enjoying each other and their experiences on this gorgeous day!